Manufactured urgency and thought murmurations
On shapelessness and resisting the urge to conform
This past week, a group of starlings has filled our garden with their chatter.
While our house is hidden between hedgerows and very often unseen, it never feels as if this is the middle of nowhere. For a house has been here in some shape or form for over seven hundred years and the nature that surrounds us carries on regardless.
From the buzzards that swoop and soar overhead to the owl that hoots at night, from the deer who sometimes wander up our lane to the swallows who return every year, we are always surrounded by the company of others.
As my inbox has filled this past week, zoom-fatigue has set in and the weight of my own expectations has frayed my edges, in the background the starlings have made their presence known as they’ve settled among the trees around our home.
Every time I pop outside there is a whoosh and a black flutter of motion as they move, swirling and fluttering overhead.
Each one follows another, picking up on the unknown, unseen signals that prompt a change in direction in the group. (Interestingly, experts are apparently not one hundred percent sure how starlings know which way to turn without colliding into each other.)
It is all at once a delight and a distraction.
And a noisy reminder to look up.
As I do, I watch the group flutter and ripple, the shape shifting constantly.
Yet despite the perpetual motion, they are seemingly effortless and assured in their movement. Listening to each other and those magic signals that pass between them.
It leads me onto a train of thought about writing. (And writing in this space but more on that in a bit.)
It makes me realise that no matter how much I’ve tried to shape my approach to writing in terms of plotting, planning or having a fixed routine, frequently my writing has other plans. Very often, there is a moment when something moves and it starts to follow a different path.
One thought nudges another leading me to shift direction and through that it finds motion. Very often, I don’t know which way I’m going but if I give in to the moment it can have a delightful and very often unexpected effect.
Like the starlings, the signal is unseen but there is a gentle knock on effect that ripples and radiates.
I’m also slowly realising that if I try and meticulously plan my writing it becomes flat, drab and dull—a cardboard cut-out of what it could have been.
If I don’t allow for that space for my thoughts to flutter, ripple and whisper, then my words become fixed and unwieldy and my expectations of them heighten even more so.
If I get caught up in the manufactured urgency of it all, I lose the opportunity to tune into those silent signals and see where it would otherwise take me.
And that brings me on to writing here.
It’s so very tempting for me to ride the wave of urgency and frequency in an effort to conform and to succeed in the eyes of this space.
It’s so very tempting to follow the email prompts and reminders to post consistently, to build a community, to keep interacting and also have a concrete plan for what I share.
It’s so very tempting to attempt to keep up with the noise and ensure that I don’t deviate from the growth path that this place is so determined to push me on to…
But, life is messy, muddled and brimming with interruptions and curveballs for me and any path that I seem to take right now is squiggly.
So for now, I’m enjoying embracing the shapelessness of it all.
I’m revelling in the chance to experiment, slow down and explore where each nudge takes me.
I’m enjoying carving out the space for my mind’s own chatter to find flight and move and shift in its own way.
So… here’s to the chitter and chatter of thought murmurations.
But most importantly, here’s to returning every now and again to the trees for a moment to pause and breathe.
Thank you so much for reading.