Anguishing in Languish

It has a name. That’s the first step, right? It’s been difficult to describe to those around me the lack of motivation I have when I’ve been home. Starting anything new, be it a book, game, or Netflix series has been impossible. Writing has been a challenge and my normal time of upload hasn’t always been before new. Creativity isn’t the problem as I have a multitude of ideas, but the execution of ideas is.

My entire writing life has been based on identifying a problem, isolating it, writing about it, and creating a pathway forward through understanding. Since the beginning of the pandemic the process has changed. I accounted for many different variables, but when my girlfriend showed me an interview with a New York Times writer, well, things finally made sense.

Hearing that interview, I instantly began visually seeing the problem. I knew the problem wasn’t when I’m away from home when I’m amid the long hours of working with INDYCAR. What could be the issue then? I knew it wasn’t simple laziness because working 50+ hours in five days is a breeze. What then could cause such a split depending on the environment? I believe it’s languish with a hint of autism spectrum thrown in.

When the pandemic began, I lost my livelihood. The only thing I had was accepting fate and staying at home with no prospect of anything new ever happening again. As the months progressed this feeling grew more and more solid as if wet cement were turning into hardened concrete. Then, in June of 2020, I picked up working for INDYCAR, which helped being away from home, but being home remained a problem.

Talking with my girlfriend after the video I worked through the issue. Why was there this gap? Why, when I’m home, does everything seem impossible? As the interview said, those that reported this didn’t report straight up depression. I then thought about my statements of both, “whatever happens first always has to happen” and, “whatever is now is forever”. During the pandemic I learned, through flawed logic, that any chance of me recovering my career was over. This has proven to be a falsehood, but it lasted so long that the inertia of the “forever” was strong. This would mean that I can’t simply “forget” the anguish that led to the languish.

What could help me, though? I was hung up on this. I then drew a shape that illustrated my routine right now. Imagine a circus tent with outer poles with wires stretched straight out to a curved semi-circle in the middle before going straight out again. This is much like my routine with INDYCAR being the straight lines and being home the dip. In the dip, like the onset of the pandemic, I’m a demagnetized compass attempting to find my way.

Seeing a visual representation of my schedule helped. Actually, it blew the solution for me wide open. When I’m home I’ve got to create some sort of structure to escape the chains that were created in the pandemic. Presentations will happen again, I’ve got my dream job with INDYCAR, and things are the best I’ve ever had them. Living this duality of either being fully engaged at the track or being lost at home is not sustainable. I don’t have much home time though through the rest of the season, and the month of May in Indianapolis begins in just two weeks, but simple things during the season should help.

I’m excited to see if the simple adjustments I’m envisioning will help. I will be instituting a schedule of sorts to build the routine to end the spinning compass. Perhaps I dedicate a day for golf and another day to go bicycle riding. One of the solutions that the interview said was to become lost in a topic or activity. This used to not be a problem for me, as it is for most of us on the autism spectrum. Think about that for a second because, for myself, I don’t think that can be stated enough. One of the things I lost in the pandemic was the ability to become obsessed about something. True, that in school this was hindrance to learning new things or time management skills, but a “Kansas” becoming a “hyper-Kansas” has been the way my brain has operated my entire life. There is such a sense of life and peace when one of these occurs and, while it may cut back on sleep hours when I want to learn everything there is to know about a certain topic, there’s such a sense of being complete to it. However, it’s impossible to hyperfocus on something when the ability to start any given task is impossible.

Maybe I’ve written something that sounds like what you’ve gone through the past two years. I hope either my words, or the interview about languish has helped, and I’m excited about the prospect of getting back to the person I was so I can once again enjoy life on, and especially off the track.