Unease.

I've been aimlessly scrolling on my phone for hours lately, it keeps my unease at bay. Like when a pot of pasta water is boiling over and you turn it down just enough for the starch bubbles to stop spilling over the edges. I have pretty mild anxiety at the moment, which I don't say lightly. I was in hospital for a panic attack earlier in the year and somehow worked through two months of continuous yawning and taking stupid shallow breaths without medication. Despite a GP practically throwing pills at me and saying 'it's okay, just remember to tell yourself you're not dying'. In one of my favourite scenes from Sister Act 2, Whoopi Goldberg pulls Lauryn Hill's character up and says, 'If when you wake up in the morning you can think of nothing but singing first, then you're supposed to be a singer.' When I wake up in the morning I think, climate change....where is my phone...wow my plants look great...COVID...drink water. Love it. So, just like my first morning thoughts suggest, to curb the unease I turn to my phone which will hopefully calm the bubbling storm & I manage to type in the password despite my eyes not having come into focus yet. I open instagram, look at the first few stories in the line up, all from pages I spend the most time on. You guessed it, they're all related to climate change (this week they feature a side of Brigette Lundy-Paine from Atypical. She kills me). It's like I've somehow created a cone of shame and reward where if I read about all the inaction that's being taken and my personal responsibility for the problems, I will feel bad enough to take action but simultaneously like a better person for actually reading about them. The algorithm is so well curated, that my entire feed across multiple platforms is climate crisis news, the US election, flowers, Greta Thunberg, poverty, charity groups and the occasional advert for linen bedding. Oh and food. I know fully and without hesitation that the way I have designed my online experience feeds into my desire to be a 'good person' without perhaps actively living like one. That's the thing about social media, it allows you to feel like you're presenting yourself in a certain light, with steady & developed perspectives and opinions on subjects. You can demonstrate your ability to throw yourself behind a cause or that you really do care. The challenge for me is translating that online portrayal into a real, meaningful life instead of just a digital one. On the weekends, I sleep in, get a coffee and pastry, go for a walk, call a few friends, clean the house and potter around. I'm not saying that's a terrible way to spend the weekend, but a lot of the time by Monday I feel as if I have spent the whole weekend on my phone and aren't quite sure where all the time went. I listen to music all day, I watch interviews, Seinfeld, I take photos, I post them, I scroll some more, I talk to people, I upload my 'one second of the day' video *two years strong! and I swipe through Bumble. Hours I'm telling you, and I think you do it too. Scrolling on my phone is an addiction. Like they talk about in the Netflix Documentary 'The Social Dilemma' there are only two industries that call their customer base 'users' and that is the IT Industry and Drug Dealers. If you think about it, both have the power to remove your focus, assist you in making detrimental decisions and alter your perception of reality. My phone certainly does that for me.... I'm majorly digressing, I could write a whole blog on the use of technology and how it impinges on our presence in reality but that's for another time. I'm here to write about unease and how the feeling of unease comes from the way we are currently living. It has seeped into my skin, it's living there just waiting to come out in some awful comment I say to my housemate in a moment of panic or yelling at someone for not indicating. I have a job, a home, an organic fruit and veggie box that comes bi-weekly. I have a support network, access to health care, internet, a car and financial security. I am healthy, caucasian and have been through the education system for over 16years. This blog is not the place for me to go into some of the difficult and shitty things I've faced and I don't diminish those experiences just because life is peachy in other aspects, but let's just say, I'm doing pretty well for 2020. Despite doing well, I have an unrelenting haze of worry just wafting around me. I'm scared, nervous, exhausted. Should I have kids? Is that even humane anymore? Do I need to have kids to raise 'good' people? Should I stop eating meat completely? Why was I born with so much when other people are born with so little? Am I happy? Do I make other people happy? Why do I hate exercise so much and why do other people seem to enjoy it? How may times is too many times to watch Kath and Kim? Do I have COVID....my eyes are watering is that a sign? Constant. I think what I'm trying to say is, things are hard at the moment and there is a collective stress we are all under, not just in our personal lives but as a species. We are staring down the nose of a global pandemic, the climate crisis, racism, sexism, classism, discrimination and the future of our race. But you know what won't help? Collecting likes & scrolling. You know what will help? Spending time outside, taking a break with you need one, not over committing your time just because you're allowed out more, giving to those less fortunate, having difficult conversations, cooking a meal for someone. Cleaning out your closet, learning to say no, practicing gratitude, licking the bowl when you make a cake, blasting Van Morrison. Breathing in for 6 and out for 8, a fabulous bottle of wine, buying less crap you don't need and laying in the sun in the middle of the day. If you're feeling like it's all a little too much at the moment, you're not alone. All you need to do is the next right thing. One thing at a time. With love (and the motivation to spend more time in the present), M.

Daily Ceremony acknowledges Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the traditional custodians of the land we work on, and we pay our respects to elders past, present and emerging.