What is the Brown? It's this feeling that sometimes creeps in, or, at other times, sweeps over me like a wave. It is a mix of self-doubt, self-hatred, laziness and lassitude. At its core is fear.
I started calling it the Brown when I was trying to do that thing you learn in meditation: as it was cresting over me, I tried to feel where it was in my body. It seemed to rise up, not always inside of me, but beside me. I could feel it along my right shoulder, then swell up inside my head and over it. I tried to visualize it. The color "brown" instantly came to mind.
I had written previously of waking up some mornings with a black hollow feeling. The color "black" or the idea of "hollow" both described a sensation that was too clean to me, too pure, to easily deliniated. "Brown" is more descriptive and more accurate. Brown is mud. It's murky, thick, dirty, a mix of so many things. Brown is dirty water. Brown is shit. A dull orange brown is the color you get when you take the primary colors of paint or Play-Doh, and blend them all together.
The Brown was hitting me rather relentlessly for a couple weeks. The feeling would come over me first thing in the morning, as I was making coffee, trying to exercise, writing anything in my notebook, at work, trying to craft a sentence, before I had to make a simple phone call. It was this constant presence.
Then some ideas hit me. First, I thought, in each moment that I start to feel the Brown, I have a choice. I can let it come and give into it, and sit immobile. Or I can push back, and say, "no, not now."
I could take action. I felt this first desire to push back while I was at the gym exercising. I was in the middle of pulling up some weights in a bicep curl. The Brown seemed to rise up with the curl of my arm. It made me want to stop the set, put down the weights, pick up my keys and leave the gym. I'd go sit in the car and just sit. And ruminate, on all the reasons I couldn't finish the work-out, on all the reasons I couldn't get moving in life.
Pushing back: the solution seemed simple. Just finish the set of curls, and then move onto the next exercise, and the next, and finish the work-out. I had a choice. Give up and go sit in my car and stay immobile, or finish this set and the rest of the work-out.
I finished the work-out. The Brown went away.
It would come back an hour later, and a dozen more times over the rest of the morning. But I accepted that I had a choice, and each time, I said "no" to the Brown, and finished the small task I had started, or made the phone call that was on my list of things to do.
When I woke up this morning, I felt the Brown sweeping over me. Reading the newspaper made it worse. I sat down and started writing this entry. The first few sentences were hard to get out. "This is dumb," I told myself. "I'm not ready to write this. I can't write this. The words won't come."
I pushed forward a few more sentences. And now, I've written about my fight against the Brown. The Brown has retreated. For now.
I started calling it the Brown when I was trying to do that thing you learn in meditation: as it was cresting over me, I tried to feel where it was in my body. It seemed to rise up, not always inside of me, but beside me. I could feel it along my right shoulder, then swell up inside my head and over it. I tried to visualize it. The color "brown" instantly came to mind.
I had written previously of waking up some mornings with a black hollow feeling. The color "black" or the idea of "hollow" both described a sensation that was too clean to me, too pure, to easily deliniated. "Brown" is more descriptive and more accurate. Brown is mud. It's murky, thick, dirty, a mix of so many things. Brown is dirty water. Brown is shit. A dull orange brown is the color you get when you take the primary colors of paint or Play-Doh, and blend them all together.
The Brown was hitting me rather relentlessly for a couple weeks. The feeling would come over me first thing in the morning, as I was making coffee, trying to exercise, writing anything in my notebook, at work, trying to craft a sentence, before I had to make a simple phone call. It was this constant presence.
Then some ideas hit me. First, I thought, in each moment that I start to feel the Brown, I have a choice. I can let it come and give into it, and sit immobile. Or I can push back, and say, "no, not now."
I could take action. I felt this first desire to push back while I was at the gym exercising. I was in the middle of pulling up some weights in a bicep curl. The Brown seemed to rise up with the curl of my arm. It made me want to stop the set, put down the weights, pick up my keys and leave the gym. I'd go sit in the car and just sit. And ruminate, on all the reasons I couldn't finish the work-out, on all the reasons I couldn't get moving in life.
Pushing back: the solution seemed simple. Just finish the set of curls, and then move onto the next exercise, and the next, and finish the work-out. I had a choice. Give up and go sit in my car and stay immobile, or finish this set and the rest of the work-out.
I finished the work-out. The Brown went away.
It would come back an hour later, and a dozen more times over the rest of the morning. But I accepted that I had a choice, and each time, I said "no" to the Brown, and finished the small task I had started, or made the phone call that was on my list of things to do.
When I woke up this morning, I felt the Brown sweeping over me. Reading the newspaper made it worse. I sat down and started writing this entry. The first few sentences were hard to get out. "This is dumb," I told myself. "I'm not ready to write this. I can't write this. The words won't come."
I pushed forward a few more sentences. And now, I've written about my fight against the Brown. The Brown has retreated. For now.
