"Inertia's a helluva drug"

Plus 20 butterflies and AI

For weeks, I've been powered by adrenaline and responsive energy, managing childcare and a labyrinth of major logistical challenges.

I didn’t need to make conscious decisions about my next step, because my next action was always urgent. It demanded my attention, all-consuming and always inevitable.

Now that my kiddo's back in school and the chaos has settled, I get to shift into focus on what’s important but non-urgent. I want to be excited, to immediately jump into the projects that I’ve been fantasizing about working on.

Instead of the steady attention I craved, I felt a sudden whiplash. The adrenaline had dissipated, and my fuel was gone.

In his book Gmorning, gnight!, Lin-Manuel Miranda writes,

Inertia’s a helluva drug.
If you’ve been going nonstop,
be an object at rest.
If you’ve been at rest too long,
get in motion.
YOU decide your momentum, love.

I needed to be an object at rest, at least when it came to tasks with a big cognitive load.

But instead of being entirely at rest, I craved movement: moving my body, moving things off the backburner of my mind.

On Monday, after culling my inbox and staring at my computer for hours, I felt desperate to escape the glowing rectangles that dictate so much of our lives. I invited a friend on a walk in the forest near my house.

We saw 20 butterflies, the friendly toad pictured below, and a gigantic spider who shot 10 feet up his web in a matter of moments. The walk left me grounded, with literal mud on my shoes. I exhaled deeply.

Back at my desk, I finally dipped my toes into AI—something that has evoked disgust and fear in me for the last year. Each article I read left me vacillating between nagging curiosity and existential dread. My instinct to avoid artificial intelligence was strong (the environmental implications alone!), but I knew I couldn’t stay in denial forever.

Two readers of this newsletter, Julie Barton and Jenna H., have excellent Substack newsletters of their own that make AI more accessible. Jenna’s essay Don’t Bury Your Head In The Sand encouraged me to view my use of AI through a feminist lens, which finally gave me the resolve to try it.

I experimented with ChatGPT to draft an email for a coaching client, and once I got my prompts refined, it was surprisingly good. I felt relieved to have made some progress on this topic that, to quote Bluma Zeigarnik, felt like a persistent cognitive itch.

I ended the day with more physical movement, but like exploring AI, it took me out of my comfort zone. The last time I took a cardio dance class was Jazzercise with my mom as a pre-teen. I still have nightmares about not knowing the choreography in the school musical.

But, I’ve agreed to perform in a bhangra dance in front of 350 people for my friend’s wedding next month, and I figured I should face my fear.

My dance cardio instructor told us there were two goals for the class: 1) Sweat. 2) Have fun.

At one point, I was breathing so hard that when sweat dripped down my nose, it went straight up my right nostril. I inhaled my own sweat. My teeth felt gunky after, because I’d been smiling the whole time. I regularly couldn’t keep up with the moves, but I had a blast doing it. It was the ultimate exercise in mindfulness, in staying in the present moment. Plus, after an hour-long class, my 4 minute bhangra dance feels much more doable.

Initially, Monday felt scattered: answering emails, walking in the woods, experimenting with AI, and taking an ecstatic dance class. But I now see it as a day of intentional movement, a transitional day that fostered exploration and grounding.

Instead of berating myself for not reorienting quickly to my big projects, I’m giving myself permission to meet each moment as I need to.

Big announcements are on the horizon, and I finally have the capacity to focus on them. Smiling as I type, thinking about getting to share them with you.

With such love,
Lelia