Not Being Informed

“Oh, there’s that guy again. Should I wave again? Or do the knowing smile of Here we (still) are? No. Too corny.”

This is what I’m thinking as I pass the same person for the second time near the end of my daily walk.

And then I realize I don’t remember where I passed him the first time.

Or how I’m almost done with the walk at all.

I glance down at my watch. My heart rate’s up. I’ve hit mile three. I’m nearing my car. Everything checks out.

Except, fuck, have I been this checked out the whole time?

To be fair, I’ve had Scott and Kara discussing geopolitical and social collapse in my ears for the past forty minutes.

Two very smart people explaining what’s happening and what’s likely to happen next. And me, quietly believing that if I absorb enough of their insight, I might be able to navigate this insane world. Maybe even become the kind of person who can succeed (read: survive) in it.

You know that feeling when you’ve driven home exhausted and suddenly realize you don’t remember the drive? Like your body did the job without asking you? Except you’re not in a Waymo and it’s not the future and you’re briefly terrified you’ve been operating heavy machinery in a fugue state.

That feeling. And I don’t love how familiar it’s become.

I walk at Reid Park most mornings. It’s a strange Tucson mashup of zoo, golf course, baseball fields, busy roads, mountain views, and unhoused people beginning their days under concrete pavilions. I park near the UofA baseball stadium and loop past landscapers, exhaust from their machinery, and cold morning air that turns warm by mile two. I tilt my hat depending on which direction I’m walking to protect my face from the sun. By the time I get back to the car, I’m sweating.

My body is getting healthier. But I’m not sure my brain is.

So I’ve started leaving the AirPods in the car.

For the past couple weeks, I press the little triangle on my watch to track the walk, but I don’t choose a podcast or a friend to call or a self-help audiobook or music. I just walk.

And then the thoughts begin.

“Oh, I think that’s a cactus wren.”

“Why am I making myself do this?”

“This is kind of stupid, right?”

“I don’t even have a problem. I’m just refreshing the system. I’ll go back to listening to things soon.”

The first ten minutes are the most difficult; right at the beginning.

The minute I step out of the car and shut the door. Cold air. Tight knees. Feet on pavement.

I press “start” on the watch and deliberately don’t press play on anything else.

That’s when my brain starts screaming.

It feels irresponsible and lonely not to be consuming something useful.

My thoughts get loud and impatient. I keep waiting to abandon the whole thing and put the ole ‘buds in. Like silence is something I’m enduring instead of choosing.

Very why-can’t-I-just-be-normal-again?

But then, usually around minute eleven, I settle.

My shoulders drop. My legs loosen. I breathe in through my nose; out through my mouth.

And instead of catastrophe, there’s just space.

“That house really did nail their landscape design.”

“That jet fighter overhead is so loud. Why do they practice some days and not others?”

“Why didn’t those white boomers say hi back to me? Uh, we’re living in your world, y’all. We hate it here too. Next.”

The thoughts aren’t enlightened. They’re not organized. They’re not even especially kind.

And here’s the part I don’t love admitting: for a long time, I’ve assumed that if I gave my thoughts too much room, they’d turn on me.

Not in some dramatic thunderstorm way. Just in a daily performance review.

• Did you reply to that client the right way?

• Did you sound too harsh?

• Are you sabotaging this partnership?

• Did you text your friend back?

• Are you ever going to make money again?

• Are you secretly behind everyone?

Silence, I was sure, would become a list. A list of everything I’m not doing fast enough. And I already have enough lists.

But after minute eleven, the voice doesn’t disappear; it just stops yelling.

It turns out it isn’t trying to condemn me. It’s trying to orient me.

And when I don’t immediately react to it — don’t draft a plan, don’t redesign my life mid-stride — it softens. It asks smaller questions:

What do I actually want today?

What feels good lately?

I still don’t know what I’m doing with the next year. Or decade. I still don’t know how all of this works out. Some days that feels terrifying. Most days it feels honest.

But for roughly fifty minutes in a weird park in Tucson, between a zoo and a golf course and a baseball stadium and some stunning mountains, I’m not being graded. Or informed.

I’m just walking. Listening to myself. And that’s loud enough.