UNPLUGGED

My beautiful,

Why is it that the word awe holds two meanings at opposite ends of the spectrum?
My mind - unusually agitated at the moment - keeps tripping over things like this.

Mind: Important question.
Body: We are tired.
Mind: Still important.

We say “I am in awe” and mean wonder, reverence - like standing under the Milky Way while it blinks back at you.
And then there’s “awful.”
Which, etymologically speaking, could be read as full of awe - yet we use it as a synonym for terrible.

Is this a peculiarity of the English language?
Or simply my language brain short-circuiting?

Photo by hajperlink on Unsplash

Either way, my mind is currently operating like that childhood Heaven-or-Hell hopping game we drew with coloured chalk on concrete.
Jump. Jump. Jump. No pause in between.
Like a caffeinated grasshopper with a degree (in what exactly, I don’t know…).

What I actually wanted to do was unplug.
And reload through nothingness.

Even that word - unplugged - opens into multiple meanings, depending on the plane you’re looking from.

1. Unplugged as withdrawal from noise

Unplugging as:
– stepping out of constant communication
– pausing the reflex to respond
– refusing the demand to be available, interpretable, productive

Mind: Finally. Silence. We will transcend now.
Body: We will… dance. And you anyway can’t shut up.

Not as escape - but as listening.
To feel, to see what is actually happening inside.
To notice what might have been present all along, but drowned out by the outer turbulence of the last weeks.

Which leads directly to a second, more visceral layer.

2. Unplugged as nervous system regulation

A quieter, embodied reading:
– unplugging from overstimulation
– unplugging from constant vigilance
– unplugging from the stress-survival loop

Body (hopeful): Oh. You mean me.
Mind (already planning): Yes, but, well done, efficiently.

Then…

3. Unplugged as raw presence (musical origin)

As in an acoustic concert:
– no distortion
– no amplification
– no hiding behind production

Where breath becomes part of the vocals.
Where the voice trembles.
Where everything reduces to essence.

And of course…

4. Unplugged as creative honesty in writing

Unplugged writing as:
– writing without knowing where it goes
– not shaping the ending first
– allowing fragments, pauses, contradictions

All of this feels true to where I am now.
Though my imagination of how it would feel was… different.

When I was still inside that emotionally charged, demanding, restless period - one intensity stacked on top of the next - I longed for a reset.
My dad’s condition.
The goodbye to Nico.
Rebelleheart being released.
And - something I haven’t told you yet - on the very day of the surgery (!), I was pressured by a business partner to sign a contract that was completely one-sided and would have made me- and only me- responsible for the bodies and health of group course participants I had never even met. (Simplified version.)

There was:
Sadness.
Hesitant Joy.
Fear.
Rage.

All at once. Mingled. Mixed.
And no obvious way out.

Nervous system: Ah. So we’re doing “everything everywhere all at once.”
Me: Apparently.

We know what that does to the nervous system.

So I remembered other times when my response - once I was able - was to unplug radically.

When I wrote the letters that later became Rebelleheart, I didn’t just step out of communication several times - I refused to speak at all for ten days.
Not in the contained safety of a silent retreat.
In daily life.

It was a fascinating experiment (I love experiments): communicating at gas stations, in restaurants, with passing strangers - using only hands, nods, smiles, gaze.
You’d be surprised how few words are actually needed to participate fully in life.

Cashier (wildly waving it in front of my eyes): Bag?
Me (with hands, thumbs up or prayer…don’t know anymore): Yes, pleeeaaassee.

The second major period was during the pandemic, after separating from my partner.
I sat, walked, ate in silence for about a month - letting everything inside and outside unfold without interference.

And the battery reloaded.
Relaxation.
A return.

So I carried a tender, almost romantic memory of that and thought: That’s it.
Turn the outside volume to absolute minimum and enjoy the silence.

Haha.
So No.

My mind just announced: I stink.

I know.
I can smell it.

(“Smell is the most ancient sense and the only one fully developed at birth…”
Yes, thank you, inner lecturer. God damn.)

Even Ben isn’t following his usual pattern of calming down when we return to Styria - where there’s far less stimulation than near Vienna (my mother’s area is plastered with dogs… and, inevitably, people).

Instead, I race with him through woods and town and - because of course - it’s freezing and foggy (another expectation- the glorious idea of here being sunny- quietly dying).
I’m dressed like I’m heading for a polar expedition, because it is so cold… and start sweating immediately. And the next walk. And the next.
Sweat over sweat over sweat.

Ben hums like a thousand-volt battery, perfectly mirroring my restlessness.
Which is tango-dancing with exhaustion.
Brake and accelerator pressed at the same time.
Like revving a Ferrari with the handbrake on - very impressive, going nowhere.

No WhatsApp.
No calls.
Barely exchanges.

Not a single spoken word to the outside - except a few murmured sounds to Ben, not quite language.

Still hypervigilance.
Still hypersensitivity to the slightest noise.
Still protective tension.

Mind: But we did everything right.
Body: Yes. Maybe that’s the problem.

So I unplugged - with beautiful ideas in mind - yet the reload isn’t happening.
Silence isn’t doing its usual magic.
It’s not comfortable.
Nature, normally an abundant docking station, remains… offline although it’s beneath my feet, in my ears and eyes.

None of that imagined is happening.

None of that! None of that!
screams the mind.

It shouts at the body to let go now that there is stillness.

“What stillness?”
asks the body.

Oh.

---

What’s happening right now reminds me strongly of what unfolded while writing Rebelleheart.
It surprises me to encounter it again - at least in this intensity.

But life is surprising, isn’t it?
We are. Always.

I hope you had a few chuckles along the way - because something here (I’m not entirely sure who) is quietly giggling too at this futile, expectation-loaded attempt at unplugging.

If this spoke to something in you, there are other pages written from a similar place - not explained, just lived.