108. To Allow Myself To Surrender

It’s the middle of the day and I’m hunched over my desk. I’m trying to read through some notes I need to organize. I’m rushing because I foolishly wasted the morning on mindless media, and now I feel obligated to catch up. There are dozens of pages before me, and I’ve only read through two or three.

Then there’s a knock at the door. I almost ignore it at first, but then I realize I’d better see who it is. When I go to check, there’s no one. I look around the empty hallway, halfway expecting someone to appear, but there really is no one. Strange, but I don’t have time to think about it.

I go back to work and get through about half a page before I hear the muffled roar of a garbage truck entering the alley. The windows are closed but the truck is still loud. I sigh, and decide to take a short break. There’s no point in trying to work through the banging of dumpsters that will necessarily follow.

Soon enough, I’m back to the notes. I’m stuck on one paragraph in particular, trying to decipher what it says when my phone starts to vibrate. It’s a spam call so I mute it, and go back to the paragraph, which I now realize must be in another language. I’m making little progress and my frustration is growing. I decide I must cut down on note taking.

I’m finally starting to get somewhere when I hear the distinct buzz of a small engine. I glance out the window and I see the neighbour has decided now is the ideal time to cut grass. I also hear the sound of sirens. At first, I think I’m hallucinating, but I’m not. There’s not one or two but many sirens, all growing steadily louder. Probably a traffic accident nearby. The city seems to be conspiring against me. A pact was made to generate all possible noise exactly now, just so that I would never finish with these infernal notes.

Of course, this is absurd and I know it. The coincidence has nothing to do with me. Still I am at war with the noise and with everything. I want to exist in a way that I cannot presently exist. The world has offered a challenge, and I must rise to it. The challenge is not to fight but to allow myself to surrender. I must allow the world to be as it is. Only then is there a chance I might prevail.