Trivial?
The pattern repeats itself
7 minutes past 7AM. Frank should start work at 7AM.
Right in front of him he has a locker filled with his gym clothes, a hanging wet towel, a backpack with a fresh shirt, a pair of jeans, and his work laptop. In addition to that, gym sneakers are lost on the floor, socks lie in sweat behind the bench, phone got lost somewhere, and his work badge is stuck in between the benches. Frank is standing there trying to catch his breath after a shower. The upside to the corporate monotony is the comfort part — they put a gym for you in the same building that you work in. Four floors up and you’re at the desk serving the customer. Neat.
But this is not about that. Frank had this trivial matter to take care of — get his shit together and get to work. Already late.
trivial
adjective of little value or importance.
Similar: unimportant, insignificant, inconsequential, minor.
Chickenshit compared to the work that he had to do. A small, insignificant matter condensed into these five minutes that would fade out of his mind instantaneously after.
But he couldn’t handle the undertaking with equivalent ease. All this micro chaos unfolded before Frank and made him a slave, lost like a child in the company’s gym locker room. This sense of powerlessness seemed familiar for a second, but his mind couldn’t bother registering it clearly enough to find out exactly how. Once his pale reflexes got activated, he started grabbing everything in front of him, making a mess all around. Hands full of clothes, quickly looking right and left, notices his phone, grabs it. Hands are too full — drops it. What a mess! Someone walks into the locker room — Hello! — said the guy to Frank and his friend protruding in his trousers.
Pretty comical sight.
Frank stopped for a moment. He put everything down, and a stream of consciousness was gifted to him from above. Or perhaps the guy who came in was Jesus himself! Regardless, Frank had connected some dots. It dawned on him: the pattern repeats itself once again. He’s trying to grab the situation into his hands too quickly. Control everything, handle the problem and get it over with! Stumbling, clouded with anxiety. Stressed out, aperture closing by the millisecond. The same thing, like each and every time. The same pattern, regardless if trivial or “important”.
Frank got it together for a moment. His consciousness gained a stable level and his focus shifted to the things at hand. One by one, he took his belongings in front of him, and at a calm and steady pace he gathered everything together. Simply doing whatever he could, handling whatever was at hand, not being reckless in his actions. Completely focused, completely at ease. Minutes later, he was off to work.
Frank had a morning of contemplation.
Matters labeled as trivial have gained a trivial status, a trivial approach, a trivial outlook overall. But things that make up the majority of Frank’s life are trivial, they have become unimportant, insignificant, inconsequential and minor. 80% of Frank’s life has become that. And, on top of that, he doesn’t know how to handle it. Since it’s not that important, why bother paying attention!
Trivial matters. They matter.
But we work on automation.
Separating things the way we were taught in school. Hearing all about the important things in life. And the trivial? Barely even mentioned.
Frank forgot the significance of focus. All was ingrained in him from those early days in the summer of ‘03 when he used to burn ants with a magnifying glass in the yard. A brutal act of local genocide that went unnoticed, but it was carried out with absolute precision. Back then focus seemed to have served a different purpose, but unfortunately it failed to evolve into something beautiful. Now, all these trivial matters are a microcosm of Frank’s psychological state. A reflection of his strengths and weaknesses, his character, his traumas, his biggest dreams and fears. They are pieces of a larger puzzle, a puzzle representing a picture of who he actually is. Frank had an obscure conception of the puzzle’s depicted portrait, but at this point even the idea of the puzzle was only a part of folklore that he failed to comprehend. For him, every puzzle piece was just smoke in the air.
The way he got ready for work or did the dishes spoke magnitudes of how he dealt with his relationships. That chaos, that unfolded in his hands whenever he was pressed by time and circumstance had the same dynamics and was the same chaos that unfolded when he would talk to certain people.
It was all there. Laid out for him like a present.
As blind as he was all these years, today something began cracking the concrete.
Hello fellow beautiful mole, throbbed down the pipeline! My name is Elliott, and I’m just reporting the latest news from up above the underground. Here in the catacombs, we issue a good dose of intellectual masturbation.
The Electric Pipeline is providing a perspective on the psychological human state and its dynamics, where the world’s heading, and what can the (wo)man in the mirror do about it. Thanks for reading and see you around!