There Are No Clocks in Boot Camp
Image by Fernando González from Pixabay
Life is endlessly interesting. Every phase seems utterly important, which might make you worry that none of it is, but somehow every phase really is important. I suspect many people are coming to consider this phase of our lives as having started with Coronavirus and yet to end. Just the fact that we are defining this phase by an event instead of a timeframe goes to illustrate what this article is about to become–a statement on how we quantify rhythm while working remotely.
One of the most interesting things about experiencing boot camp (of which there were many) was that there are no clocks.
Although it’s never directly addressed, Trainees are intentionally kept ignorant of the time of day. You anticipate shifts in man-made and natural routines instead of clock-watching. For me, COVID quarantine has felt much the same. Whenever a family member asks me, “Which day did we cook this chili?” or “Which weekday is your birthday next week?” I inevitably respond in a comically detached tone, “Time has ceased to hold meaning for me”.
So, Coronavirus ushered in a new phase of life where calendars and clocks are useful only for making sure you show up to a Zoom meeting at the right spot in time. Otherwise, it all flows together into a big wave that everyone got swept up in and is still flowing. Where is the wave going, when will it cease to flow? Nobody knows.
It reminds me very much of boot camp. How many weeks have we been here? What day of the week is it, even?
When you shift from 9-5s at the office to surfing an existential wave at home, your focus shifts. I am almost at the end of a month-long class that focuses on following natural rhythms instead of a clock. Instead of pushing through all hours of the workday, I stop whenever I feel like it for whatever reason I feel like. If I did not have such an innately strong work ethic, this could be dangerous, but I do, so it is not. Sometimes I stop typing in the middle of a sentence and look around.
This phase is strange because everything is so simultaneously unreal and tangible. The shift to this unreal phase was disorienting.
And yet, over the past few weeks, this feeling has been stealthily creeping that I somehow have a leg-up here. I have been in a land where time does not matter before and did strangely well. Everyone just got stranded on a clockless, remote island, but I have been here before and I am watching them from the bushes.
During this phase that feels like nothing is going well for anybody at all, my technical communicator career is doing well. There it is, like a dirty secret. I am not special and there are literal and metaphorical fires everywhere, but professionally, I am doing not-so-badly. Living as a time outlaw is just something I know about, so if you also feel as though a wave has swept you off your feet and disconnected you from society: instead of flailing, consider carefully taking control of the surfboard. Believe you can surf, feel calm because you know you are going to surf. There is no other possible outcome, and it does not matter how tall the wave or long the ride is.
Oddly, the way you will get control during this weird phase is by letting go and leaning in.
Let go of time (except for tracking scheduled events) and follow the rhythm of your instincts all day long. If you don’t enjoy it (which frankly seems like a more natural reaction) accept it anyway and know that one day this interesting phase will end and the next interesting one will be different.
And as always, I’m over here feeling surprisingly grounded and ready to help with your documentation needs.
Thoughts? Drop a line!
