When fixing myself became exhausting

By Elira Venn

6 October 2026

An imagined scene.

The reminder says: Draw for pleasure, 4:00–5:00.

By 4:07, I am disappointed in how it is going. I have sharpened two pencils, moved the lamp, and searched for a demonstration of how to hold my hand more loosely. The sketchbook is still blank. My forearm presses against the edge of the desk, leaving a pale line when I lift it.

I chose drawing because I wanted something in the week that belonged to me. There are emails I cannot leave unanswered and errands that become difficult if I postpone them. This hour was supposed to have more room in it.

Beside the sketchbook lies another notebook. In that one, the pages are ruled and dated. There are small squares for things I intend to do more often. Walking. Going to bed earlier. Taking a proper break. Some of those squares have been useful. Without the reminder, I sometimes work through lunch and wonder why the afternoon feels so long.

But lately I have started returning to the notebook after each activity to decide whether it worked. Did the walk clear my head? Did the break restore my concentration? I can spend the whole break preparing an answer.

Now I am doing it with a pencil in my hand.

I look at the blue cup on the windowsill and begin with its handle. The first curve comes out too wide. I erase it. The second is narrower but joins the cup in the wrong place. I erase that too, brushing the grey crumbs towards the edge of the page.

My fingers feel stiff. I loosen them, then check whether they are loose enough. The effort makes me want to put everything away.

For a while I sit there, annoyed by how easily a small pleasure has become another place to find myself lacking. There is nothing especially mysterious about some of this. I am tired. The chair is uncomfortable. I have given myself an hour and spent the first part of it looking at drawings made by people who practise far more than I do.

I would like those ordinary facts to be sufficient. Instead, I reach for a larger explanation. Perhaps I have lost the ability to play. Perhaps I need to learn how to be a beginner. There will be an exercise for that somewhere, and I am close to searching for it.

What exhausts me is the prospect of another assignment. Even the difficulty of enjoying myself seems to require a plan for becoming better at it.

I move the chair back and stand up. Pins and needles run through the foot I have tucked under me. I wait for them to pass, looking at the dent the pencil has made beside the cup's handle.

The page is thin. I have been pressing hard.

I still want to learn to draw. I like noticing the small differences between what is there and what my hand can manage. A lesson might help with that. There is pleasure in getting better at something, and I do not want to make wanting improvement into one more fault.

But the cup has acquired too many jobs. It must show that I can relax, that I have interests, that I am using this hour well. Before it has a base, it is carrying an argument about the person I ought to be.

NEDS, the Neuro-Entity Dynamics System, asks how an experience becomes organized across feeling, thought, bodily activation, and action. Its proposed ‘neuro-entity’ brings these together with memory and protective intention in a working configuration. Another part of its inquiry concerns how closely I identify myself with what is happening. [1]

Beside the cup, those questions have something concrete to meet: disappointment, stiff fingers, the demand that this hour prove something about me, and another reach for the eraser. I can describe that sequence without deciding that it is the whole of who I am. I still want to improve the drawing. The extra demand is that improving it should also settle whether I am using my life well.

This imagined afternoon offers a way into the questions, not evidence that a neuro-entity has been identified. Whether the same elements repeatedly gather together would need closer attention. No memory or protective purpose has been established. The tiredness and uncomfortable chair remain part of the account too. For now, I have a cup in front of me.

I take it off the windowsill and turn it slightly. There is a chip in the glaze I could not see from the desk. I try drawing that instead, a small uneven patch near the rim. It comes out looking like a leaf.

I am briefly interested in why.

Then I hear myself thinking that this is progress. I should remember what made it possible. Perhaps I should repeat the whole arrangement tomorrow. The thought arrives with such efficiency that I almost laugh.

I leave the notebook where it is. I will still need to organise the week. There are habits I value and practical changes I want to make. I am also reluctant to give this hour a score before I have finished living through it.

At five, the reminder sounds. There are several handles on the page, detached from cups, and one small mark that looks like a leaf. I cannot tell whether I feel refreshed. My shoulder aches a little from leaning over the desk.

I put the pencil down. Then I turn the cup once more. The chip disappears around the other side, and the late light catches on a scratch I have not drawn.

Related reading

Also available in the NEDS Knowledge Hub wiki edition.

Editorial note

Elira Venn is a virtual editorial persona of NEDS Institute. This AI-generated essay uses an imagined first-person scene; it is not a personal testimony or a report of treatment.

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