It started with the pandemic of course. I was going to the grocery store and spraying down my packages and hauling my laundry up 5 flights of stairs with a mask on. In the shock and trauma of it all, I couldn’t understand why I was so weary. After all, getting groceries was a common practice. So was doing laundry. Why the exhaustion? Why would “sheltering in place” be taxing?
It seems obvious now, but at the time it was revelatory: I was doing things full-out. I was beyond full-out. I was hyper-extended.
Since then, I have been researching the invisible ways we contour our actions. I have been curious about effort and curious about what effort even is. It is something I know in the body. It is something I know through practice. To write it is something else.
—Londs, CC Co-editor
Effort is trying. It’s not just force. It’s not the push, it's how you push. And, often, it’s our only chance at agency and style.
Give me dynamic!
Effort is your own. I have no idea what it took for you to be here with me. Thanks for coming.
Effort begins before you can see it. Small fibers fire on in the belly of a muscle as you press into the ground. The is the invisible work and it is required to hold yourself up.
In Buddhism, there’s a concept of Right Effort. Right Effort is achieved through cultivation and restraint. Force and yield. It’s the way you push, but it isn’t the push itself. It’s also not pushing sometimes!! A violin tuned to produce a note in the right key.
A lot of the push happens before the push. You had to tune the violin first. Do you get what I mean?
I’m trying, but you can’t tell — — — — — — unless I tell you.
Photo courtesy of the artist
[ID: Close up of an orange bud at the end of a stem attached to a tree with bright green leaves]
Our math:
How much to keep this time.
Our math:
How much to give just this once.
Video courtesy of the artist
[Video description: A seated white woman wears headphones and moves in a chair. A fan spins beside her. Text flashes across the screen to describe various attempts at moving.]
100% effort
- Practicing compassion for someone who holds harmful views
- Imagining futures I’ve never experienced
- Sticking with myself when I get rejected
90% effort
- Being a supportive friend when really I’m jealous
- Forgiving myself for doing something I’m ashamed of
80% effort
- Teaching when I sense you don’t trust me
- You can’t make it look easy
- Doing assemblés after age 30
70% effort
- Letting someone you love tell you the same story for the umpteenth time
- Continuing to go uphill
- Sending the check-in text you’d rather receive
- Calling your senators + representatives
60% effort
- Tasting the thing you’re eating
- Noticing the quietest thing
- Taking the compliment
50% effort
- Watering the plants a little every day
- Easy motion sustained for 15 minutes
- Difficult motion sustained for 2 minutes
40% effort
- Teaching when I feel confident
- Sharing a related anecdote instead of asking a question
- Holding the door open
30% effort
- Assembling a cold breakfast
- Overwatering the plants erratically
20% effort
- Noticing the loudest thing
- The email you write while doing something else
- Floating in water
10% effort
- “I’m sorry you feel that way”
- The moment between balancing and falling
0% effort
- Reflexes?
- Someone else does the work for you?
Image courtesy of the artist
[ID: A tree collapses forward, breaking at hard angles in a lush spruce forest]
A creeping suspicion: if I under-effort, do I require your over-effort?
Photo courtesy of the artist
[ID: Open notebook reveals the written text “NEW EFFORT SCALES @ EBF” with lines connecting 0%-100%, with gravity-against gravity, pleasure-arguous, part-whole, fast-fast, and slow-slow.]
