“You were sick, but now you are well, and there’s work to do” – Kilgore Trout, Timequake

When the timequake event runs its course and Trout fails to rouse the people around him with statements of free will he tries this mantra, “You were sick, but now you are well”. Repetition seems to help, and people begin to come to. It’s so poignant because this is exactly how I feel when I suffer malaise or find myself on autopilot (‘automatic pilot’ per Trout, writers are less lazy with words) and try to snap out of it. It really does feel like a sickness. It is a sickness that seems increasingly present today with so many ways to tune-out. For many who would be reading this, life is just…too easy. Too easy to force us to tune-in as much as we should. Despite whatever hardships you are going through, if you are reading this you probably aren’t walking 10 miles to carry the days water back in a bucket or hunting for today’s meal.

We fall into these societal tropes…sit in your cubicle, watch Netflix, stare at smartphone. What percentage of your day right there? Automatic pilot. What happens to me is I start to disassociate, like I’m not really there for all of it. It feels shockingly similar to the folks reliving 1991-2001 in Timequake. Vitality is a word I keep spinning around in my head here, you lose vitality. This loss of vitality I think is the greatest challenge of our modern first world life.

I am grateful so far that I still notice these periods after not too great a time has passed and try to snap out of it. Some ways I’ve ‘snapped out of it’ in the past include taking up rock climbing, abruptly moving to Denver, switching out of an MBA program to a specialty masters degree, taking a summer off to hike big mountains, starting this blog. Each time it felt as though I had been sick for a while and had to find a way to cure myself. I’m just trying to figure out ways to keep the momentum, to stay ‘well’ for longer stretches at a time. To be increasingly ‘more well’ during these times.

Once Trout rouses a few people, he adds a bit to his mantra stating “You were sick, but now you are well, and there’s work to do.” The work to do in his case is saving the lives of others by bringing them back into a state of free will and helping them recognize they can point the direction of their lives again. If you are present, there is work to do. That work differs for everyone but you have to DO something and I bet each and every one of us can do a whole lot more than we are doing. Here’s the key though, the work doesn’t have to be ‘work’, the work is only to tune-in. So, let’s get to work.