Frantic Few Minutes
It should sound silly to say that I’m learning. We all are, all the time. We are students of life if we accept it to be that way. Students of the world. I like to think of myself that way at least—learning from what is around me, learning the world and its flows. But here’s the kicker: the real lessons? They come in flashes. In the frantic, fleeting moments when you don’t have time to overthink, to pause, to plan.
Those moments don’t come naturally. There’s always something more pressing, more exciting than sitting down to map out every thread of your life’s tapestry. And yet, when I find myself in the fleeting minutes—in line at a coffee shop, walking to the next thing, or waiting for the water to boil—my brain erupts with the truest, purest thoughts. Quick! Scribble them down before they vanish! The urgency, the adrenaline, the scratch of pen on paper. There’s no deliberation, no over-editing—just me, raw, colliding with the world around me.
If only there were more time. If only those frantic few minutes could stretch into steady hours, into a whole week, a month. That’s the lie I’ve told myself. That in the calm, in the stillness, I’d find the deeper truths. But now I know—those truths are born in the rush, in the chaos, in the swirl of motion where life demands we grasp at what’s real and hold it for just a second.
So here I am. Five months of steady. Five months of stillness, with one other person and endless time to scrape the sides of my mental bowl for every last bit of thought and feeling. And let me tell you, I miss the frantic few minutes. I miss the rush of life, the way thoughts sparked and collided as I moved through the world. Here, in this endless calm, I can examine everything, lay it all out, dive deep. But the thoughts that come slow? They’re not the same. They’re deliberate, intentional, crafted—but they don’t have the wild spark of those that came unbidden, rushing in and out of my head like waves.
I used to think I wanted this. To settle into the calm, to reflect and simmer and "find myself." But the frantic moments? That’s where I’ve always been most me. That’s where the fire lives. Where thoughts and feelings emerge without effort, where my brain sparks in ways I can’t predict. The steady gives me time to create a routine, to work on projects, to nurture ideas into full bloom. But it’s not enough. I miss the highs and the lows, the dizzying rush of life happening all around me. I miss feeling like a sailor in a storm, fighting the waves, alive in the chaos.
This steady hum—it’s like frosting on a dense cake. Sweet, but heavy, constant. There’s no pressure, no urgency, no rush. Just a straight line on a graph. And as much as I’ve tried to find meaning here, I can’t stop looking at the parabolas, at the highs and lows that make me feel alive. I want to swing to the top and plummet to the bottom because that’s where life is. That’s where the frantic few minutes live, fleeting and wild and full of everything I am.
The steady has taught me things, sure. How to dive deeper, how to savor a thought, how to create something with intention. But it’s in the fleeting moments—the ones that come without warning, without effort—that I find the best of myself. The frantic few minutes, with their rush of adrenaline and raw, unfiltered thoughts, are where I’m most alive. They’re where I’m most me.
There is more time here for me in the steady, whether I want it or not, I will continue to make the best of it, to take myself on dates, to enjoy my own company and to laugh and dance with myself. To talk to myself, talk to the animals around me and to find faces and shapes in the rocks that I skip across. But wow, I can not wait for the highs and the lows of the parabola that lies in the life that is existed while you are not in the middle of Antarctica, alone.
Tomorrow is Christmas, and there is nothing special about that day here. It will be moving along with the constant hum that has been here and the constant hum that will be here.