Life is a river
I am one to think about how I live. This is not for everyone, and even for those for whom it is, my ways might seem too schematic. Alas, this is who I am.
I just had a reorienting realization. A vision.
Life is a river.
The stimuli and demands that attack us come to us like flowing water, hitting us in the face maybe up to a point where we are overwhelmed and confused (not to say at a risk of drowning). And we all strive to learn to deal with this.
In this vision, the way I deal with all this water is that I have some *outstanding goals*. These might be called themes, activities, values, priorities, etc, depending on your theoretical background. But I'll call them *streams*, as they are, in some way, divergences from the river of life, narrowed into manageable channels, letting the rest of the flow go as things that didn't quite catch my attention. Some examples of streams are, for instance, growing as a professional; growing as an artist; consuming great stories; learning. Streams are intuitive – they're just the way we humans manage the deluge of information the world presents us. But taking notice on your streams is sobering, and might lead you to reconsider them. And, in general, to feel more equanimous.
Streams are flows of *stuff*, in GTD terms. Things to consider, ideas to develop, tasks to do, dreams to pursue. They are, as I said, *outstanding* goals; which are, by definition, unachievable (e.g, you will never complete your professional growth). So, sometimes, to make sense of them, we segment them into smaller, *achievable,* goals. These I call *projects*, and are a subject for another time.
But even without projects, when you capture the stuff from your streams, you end up forming backlogs. And, just as with water pilling up behind a narrowing of the river flow, I call those *lakes* (better than *dams*, I guess). Depending on your capacity and circumstances in life, you might be able to drain more less water (e.g., read books more quickly slowly). But, in the end, we all have a restriction. And, if not everyone, at least I drain less water than comes in. So I get lists upon lists of stuff that I want to get to. And, in the end, I guess the lists will never empty. So the best I can do is organize myself the spend more time doing the important things, which is going through them, and not being anxious about the mounting pressure.
The flow of incompresible fluids, like water reading backlogs, depends on the area through which they are flowing (but not, in this metaphor, on things like pressure which act differently on water and people). The time you have available for your streams is that area, and regardless of how free you are, you have at most one day a day to do stuff. So we have to segment this time into the different streams, which will impact how quickly each will flow, and how much each lake will fill.
So currently, what I have been thinking about is exactly this. How to segment time? Streams are prioritized, sure, by how much effort it takes to progress in each, how critical they are for my survival, how much society demands of me to dedicate to each, etc. They are also limited by my capacity to dedicate time to them (I can only research mathematics for so long before breaking down into a pile of loose nerves).
I don't yet know how to best balance those things.
Also, at this point, the metaphor breaks down, because water is just water, but books, and jobs, and artistic skills, are all different. So another question is *how to prioritize* the contents of your lakes. I guess each one will have its own factors, but in general we might think of how much each atom of stuff contributes to your outstanding goal. Classical books might be more valuable if you wish to read great literature, whereas your favorite genre of pop-detective-cowboy-sci-fi pulp-fiction will give your more entertainment value.
I also don't yet know how to organize those things.
But, all-in-all, I'm happy to have had this vision. It calms me to know I am, to the best of my habilities, trying to do what I think is important.