There are good days. There are poor days. There are days that feel ‘just went well’. And there are days which you ‘wish that never really happened’. But among this wide variety of days, there is a kind of days called as ‘the zippy day’.
What is a ‘Zippy Day’?
Well, the word ‘zippy’ comes from the word ‘zip’ which
implies, “to move, act or function with
speed, energy, momentum or vigour”. Thereupon, a zippy day refers to a kind of day in which we find ourselves moving
through the day with fullness of enthusiasm, energy and flow.
Remember that day when everything seemed to be as
perfect as it could be. From the moment till you woke up till the end of the
evening, each moment appeared to be strung into a perfect harmony with each
other. That morning, which led to an unlikely stream of surprising events
throughout the day; or that call which made you jump like amazeballs, hence,
making your day. Perhaps, it was a day when you were wishing that the day never
ended at all. The summer vacations of the 90’s schooltime, is another such example
for many of us. In essence, we could, metaphorically, call days like these, zippy days.
Although, almost each one of us have had experienced a
zippy day like this, still and all, days like these don’t happen more often in
the total span of our lifetime. In fact, days like these tend to skip
themselves out of sight more often than not.
But whenever they are, mostly, we tend to love days
like this.
There is a big deal of reason for this. That is, as
human beings, we love the experience of spontaneity. Spontaneous living doesn’t
just make us feel good, but slightly adventurous too. There is an adrenaline
rush and a literal domino of emotions playing itself through our cellular
trajectories.
However, to live each day immersed in uttermost alignment,
balance and flow, is both a science as well as an art, the skill of which,
tends to build itself over the bricks of practice, and not just over passing moments
of time. Commonly, it is easier said than done.
Usually, the excitement of a zippy day doesn’t seem to last for long, except for merely a hangover
of its memories; even that seems to wear out soon enough. Little before we
realize, the shadows of our core insecurities and survival fears wailing behind
our heads, seem to pull us down into the terrains of compensation rather than towards
living each moment to the fullest.
In a way, a life of spontaneity do comes with its own
unique set of repurcussions. The biggest of these being, the greater the pleasure of a zippy day, the greater is the agony of an
unfulfilling day.
That’s life. There is no way out of it. But look,
there is a way through it. That is,
by marrying the spontaneity with the outlines of a structure. But before we do,
let’s take a note of what spontaneity is, really.
What is ‘spontaneity’? Is it impulsiveness? Well, yes and no. To put it in simpler words, we can say,
‘Spontaneity is like conscious impulsiveness’
.
That is, here, there is neither chase nor resistance
to any outcome seeming, in possibility or otherwise. In fact, the idea of
‘spontaneity’, in itself, is based on one’s total acceptance of the uncertainty
of the outer world.
For example, let’s say, I am working on a project and
a client assigns me to write a catalogue copy in a month, which consists of
about hundred products. Now, this is absolutely true that I do need the
spontaneity and flow essential for coming up with creative ideas for writing
the product copies. But if I depend on mere memorization to complete this
project, then I might set myself up for overwhelm or mismanagement. I might
even end up missing the project deadline or failing to spell-check my writing.
On the other hand, if I divide the thirty or
thirty-one day month into hundred small parts, or if I plan in advance my
processes of ideation, writing, editing, etc., then I could possibly traverse
the project timeline smoothly and successfully. I wouldn’t possibly be able to
carry out the creative process with ease unless I had a structure for it in the
first place. The crux, that, spontaneity is a result of passing through
impulsiveness, experiencing disintegration hands-on and re-integrating with a
fresh structure.
Marrying Spontaneity With Structure
“Spontaneity is a meticulously prepared art”
― Oscar Wilde
As also mentioned above, we humans love to live our
days with spontaneity and flow. However, with this, there appears yet another
side of it. That is, we like to resist structures too. Especially, to begin
with, a structure might feel like a confinement, a kind of loss of our freedom.
So, what is this ‘structure’ we’re talking about?
Well, it could be seen like, sort of, an outline that we provide ourselves in
order to navigate through the challenges of life with relatively lesser amount
of panic and more amount of ease.
Consider another example. Lets say, for instance, you
are traveling to a city or a town which, is relatively stranger to you in the
sense of your life’s experience. You might have read some books about it, or
you might have watched some documentaries on it, but unless you take a trip to
this town and experience it yourself in person, the town is nothing except one
of the ideas among a zillion others swimming in the space of your head. Be it a
full-fledged itinerary or simply a map on a piece of paper, it is evident that
you’re going to carry something with
you in order to guide you in this new, strange town. You might lose this piece
of paper on the roads of a street market or in waters of a beach, still and
all, till the time the piece of paper is with you, it is going to help you in
finding the direction. And even if it gets lost in the roads or waters, even
then it is going to help you find a direction, this time a direction leading you
towards locating a ‘map store’ in the town!!
The next question, probably, which pops up following
this, is, what do we need this structure for, when it comes to our life? Unlike
the stranger town, life doesn’t seem to be a stranger to us after all, right?
In one sense, yes. And in another no.
Just in the way, if we have a map of the town, it is
very possible that the map might or might not contain each and every detail of
the town. A small street market might not be mentioned in it, or a famous gift
shop. Just alike, no particular structure will possibly include all the details
of your life but it could offer some sort of guidance for you on the way.
There are mainly two kinds of structures possible.
That is, inner structure and outer structure.
Inner structure refers to a structure which you design
for your inner life whereas an outer structure is something which you design
for the purpose of functioning in the outer world. How and in what form these
structures are designed usually varies from individual to individual.
Ending with…
So, this is all about the significance of marrying
spontaneity with structures and about the zip-zippy days. How we can design
these structures for ourselves, I am going to write something about it in my
upcoming posts. Stay tuned till then!
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