I have had to recently accept, and reluctantly embrace, the fact that I can be completely and utterly, momentously and astoundingly, undeniably and relentlessly boring.
As a budding young scientist, trying my absolute best to engage in my MSc, work enough to afford travelling to my MSc and do enough “other” activities to not be driven non-compos mentis by my MSc, I can wholeheartedly say that those “other” activities are usually huddling up with my giant toy penguin whilst wrapped in my anxiety blanket watching cartoons, documentaries I have already watched, and Gordon Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares. My day goes as follows: spend all day stuffing brain with knowledge necessary for scientific success, spend all evening stuffing brain with Ramsey massacring someone. It’s gloriously useless and yet I do it continuously. I get really tired, and therefore find myself snuggling up in solitude… which, by default means I have become quintessentially boring.
It’s obvious that there’s a toss up between fighting against exhaustion in the name of a completed to-do list and embracing it by staying unsociable as a means of rest. Rest allows us to physically and mentally excel, but staying awake means accomplished deadlines AND potential human interaction in a social setting – so what is a girl to do?
I have wonderful people in my life inviting me places and encouraging me to join them, but there’s that small inner voice saying, “don’t forget you have to be up at 6am to get to uni on time otherwise you might fail miserably, at everything, so stay boring and be in bed at a sensible hour, you small, tired science gremlin”. Having said this, I can have my fair share of late nights (hello to last week’s me finding a tricycle on the street and riding it home at 4am after a lock in…or me who sat on my pal’s sofa drinking rum and singing songs we adored as 14 year olds dreaming of being in a rock band until, once again 4am), and still pull myself out the house at 7:30am to get to uni for 9. As they say, the early bird catches the worm…which for me means “the early bird catches the last desk on campus with a working plug socket nearby”.
This doesn’t mean I don’t end up feeling a little worse for wear, and tired, sleep deprived me has many kindred spirits in the animal world, here are some examples:
- A dead stag beetle
- Scared woodlouse in ball-mode
- Baby pangolin in ball-mode
- And when it’s been a really bad day and my hair is a mess post-self-pity-nap, this baby bird;
The lack of sleep some animals can get by on is mind boggling to me. Horses sleep for a total of 2 hours each day, in 15-minute bursts, then get on with their busy lives. Dolphins simply switch off one side of their brain to make sure they’re resting whilst simultaneously swimming, feeding their young and half-communicating with the rest of their pod. My hamster probably sleeps for 18 hours a day and will still do more cardio each night than I do in a month… So how can I fit everything in? Sadly, I must sleep like a regular person (though I probably do spend a lot of my time with half my brain shut off).
Last week, the World Health Organisation officially announced that you can be diagnosed with “burnout”, with the criteria for this diagnosis being; energy depletion or exhaustion, increased mental distance from or cynicism towards one’s job and reduced professional efficacy. At present, my to-do lists appear never ending (standard), and my stamina for the ordinary appears to be depleting. The almost-comatose version of myself that makes an almost-daily appearance seems to be a symptom of today’s culture, where the expectation to constantly work (and in my field – work for free) is the standard, opposed to me being fundamentally boring. The worry about not doing myself proud, the fear of unfulfilled potential, is possibly the only thing about me I can truly applaud myself for as it really keeps me going. No matter how tired and snug I am, I bring myself out of bed, and try. In this world, that’s got to be how the fittest survive right?
There’s a species of jellyfish, Turritopsis nutricula, that is the only known animal to be “biologically immortal”. It does this by return to what’s called a “polyp” stage (younger/baby life stage where the organism is sexually immature and thus can’t reproduce), by regenerating every cell in its body. You know when you’ve had a tough day, and you think to yourself “God I would just LOVE to be 5 again, it was just an easier time”? Well that’s what this guy does. He decides that his surrounding environment isn’t good enough for him to keep going, it’s just not the right time for him to be the best adult he can be, and so he absorbs roughly 70 of his tentacles into this big external cyst, which is used to anchor himself to the sea floor, where he’ll then begin slowly growing into a sexually mature adult all over again, ready to face the world when he decides the conditions are right.
So, I am going to live life as a Turritopsis nutricula. Or just keep him in mind anyway. “Everything in earthly existence, including human life in all of its facets, is involved in a process of ongoing change”, says the paper about the immortal jellyfish. It’s true – all of this time spent juggling a million-and-twelves jobs, errands, chores, social events, gym classes & hobbies is all part of the ongoing change necessary for me to evolve into the next “life-stage” so to speak (I am unfortunately a Magikarp who won’t be evolving into a Gyarados anytime soon…pokémon puns for those who could care for one). Unfortunately, unlike said jellyfish, I can’t regenerate, and to be honest I don’t really want to any type of cyst, but I can anchor myself to a sofa/bed whilst wrapped in a blanket to give myself a break from the world when the conditions aren’t right for me. It can feel contradictory, to stop doing anything when the reason life feels to hard because there’s so much to do, but as I previously mentioned – rest is what allows us to mentally and physically excel. It might come off as boring, to choose to sit and watch a movie you’ve seen a million times on your own (or maybe if you’re lucky enough with a person you love), but really taking a pause in a world that seems to push toward chaotic conditions as a norm is crucial.
Burning out is not an ideal, nor should it be something we accidentally strive for. I must admit, as of recently I’ve spent a little more time away from the dizzying array of things I need to do at uni, and a little more time to do things that make me just a little bit happier. I think I’m alright being a baby jellyfish for the moment, I need to stay anchored for a little while longer – I’ve got a lot of work and play, and most importantly being boring in the name of rest, to be doing before I can let the sea take me wherever it wants me to go – when the conditions are right for me.
Field Notes From Life 