I am a robot. Step near me, and you won’t hear gears whirring, and my tumbledown face bears no resemblance to today’s beauty bots, but know me by my robot ways:
- Wake workdays at 5:45 am, summoned by the automatic coffee beans grinding
- Meditate for 20 minutes, bathing my positronic matrix in alpha waves
- Duolingo for 15 minutes to practice Spanish (years of this, yet mucho más para aprender)
- Writing tasks until 11:30, then 30-45 minutes of exercise.
- 20-minute post-lunch nap in the cocoon of my vintage Airstream office. Even robots need downtime.
- A soft alarm halts afternoon writing tasks at 4:15 — read for 1/2 hour
- Another clock tingle; record a few sentences of gratitude at 4:45
- At 5:00 pm, exercise with light weights and stretch bands; 20–30 minutes
The Robot Routine Has Round Corners
I do these things because, you know: robot. But another trick of robots: if the routine is fugged up, we reboot. Start over. Robots, despite our cladded wiring, are flexible. (And after fug-ups, we always remember to breathe.)
But on weekends, even robots release their 1s and 0s. The weekends allow for cocktails and desserts because robots need chocolate like bees need honey. Those privations during the work week? They build a sweet — literally — anticipation for the cheatin’ weekend.
Another fact contradictory to robotic reputation: robots love to daydream. This one muses on his mom’s chocolate chip cookies, the dizzying undersea carnivals of color snorkeling in Micronesia, the first thing he shoplifted.
Order Is Freedom
The robot’s life is one of those lovely contradictions: even though it sounds like something from Brave New World, order is freedom. Remember, Flaubert said:
Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.
Gustave meant violence of the imagination, those electric sheep that androids dream of.
Within boundaries’ constraints, the fence lines give you a playground, but with maps. “Do not go past this fence” signs tell you that “Write a 900-word essay” is a stimulant to purpose on the page.
Often, surprising rewards. I practice some version of the Pomodoro technique of stretches of focused work followed by breaks. During breaks, I look out my Airstream window or step outside to the surrounding fields. Many times, I’ve seen bobcats, wild turkeys, deer, and rabbits.
There was a beautiful kestrel who hung around for a while, a great horned owl that sadly died in the neighbor’s field. Rhododendron, lilac, and jasmine blossoms. It’s a secret, but robots like being surprised and are renewed by nature. Release your inner robot, and you’ll know.
The robot’s life seems tight, but it’s looser than you’d think. Stop by on a Friday, and I’ll make you a Sazerac that will tingle your batteries. Perfectly proportioned, of course.
