Each day we en-ter-tain (v.): provide (someone) with amusement or enjoyment; give attention or consideration to (an idea, suggestion, or feeling). People, ideas, suggestions, feelings; en-ter-taining is en-er-gy. When does the en-ter-taining stop?
What about en-ter-taining ourselves? We wake up. We work 40-60 hours a week. We need to make time to cook. We need to make time to eat. We need to make time to clean. We need to make time to en-joy. We need to make time to en-ter-tain. We need to make time to recuperate. We need to make time to human.
To keep up, maintain, to keep someone in a certain frame of mind comes from late 15th Century Middle French. Is this en-ter-taining?
To human is to en-ter-tain. In my post you human, you robot, I leave you to en-ter-tain the idea that we all need to take time to human–to you. I am a chronic busy-body (n.): someone who’s constantly doing shit and seems to never sleep.
If I am not busy, I lose my body.
En-gage with the struggle of en-ter-taining oneself; of maintaining; of humaning. Have you heard about Project Semicolon? To human is to struggle. En-ter-tain the idea–the feeling–of struggle. It is okay to en-ter-tain the struggle; to sit with struggle.
When do we take the time to en-ter-tain ourselves, our dreams, our struggles?
I’m beginning to see en-ter-tain as to keep going. Although the idea of “keep going” sounds intrinsically negative depending on the tone of voice, I am en-ter-taining the idea as a need to keep going.
En-ter-taining oneself, and others, is not always easy. En-ergy only takes you so far. There are days I briefly en-ter-tain the idea of closing the blinds, pulling the blankets over my head, and not leaving my bed, but this is not en-gageing; this feels like letting go.
To en-ter-tain is to keep up.
En-ter-tain the idea that we all struggle to keep up, maintain, to keep someone in a certain frame of mind. Em-brace that the struggle of self-en-ter-tainment is human.