When the Substack software tells you you’re nearing the length limit, as it did last time, perhaps you have become a bit long-winded, John Moe.
For the purposes of this point, I’m using the second person but you are me. Does that make sense?
A thing that COVID has stolen from me, maybe you too, is leisure. I haven’t felt it in a very long time.
Seems to me, leisure occurs when you are not at your place of employment, you’re either home or in a location that doesn’t carry responsibilities, and you can relax.
For a lot of people, the place of employment is now inside the home so wherever you go around the house, you’re kind of at work. And the responsibilities are patiently waiting in the next room. Perhaps peering around the doorway, looking for you. You can’t (or mustn’t) travel for pleasure. And when you live in a time of massive infections and deaths from an invisible murderer, you can’t relax.
Even things that would be attempts at leisure before (getting out of the house, going somewhere fun) are just micro-medicinal steps aimed at relieving the cooped up feeling for a few minutes.
So it’s much, much more difficult to be at leisure anywhere. Trying to unwind with a good book while still at work and thinking about the virus? Not leisure!
I think leisure is a necessity and is very scarce. If you can achieve it while still behaving responsibly, I would love your ideas.
When COVID is over, I guess I’ll want to go back to movie theaters or Mexican restaurants (Jill and I have been hankering for big tacky Mexican restaurants with the margaritas and sizzling platters) but mostly I want to welcome back leisure.
The Biden coronavirus task force has no one dedicated to mental health. Troubling.
On Ted Lasso, the show I was telling you about, Ted talks about the importance of being, as Walt Whitman said, “curious, not judgmental”. Because it’s a better way to go through life. Don’t decide that you already know all you need to know about a person or a situation. Get curious.
Yesterday, I took my daughter to the coffee shop drive through. She likes to go and have me pay for the people behind us. She hopes they’ll pass it on. So we were ordering and another car cut in front of us on the way to the pickup window.
My instinct? Complain about the cheating! Maybe yell! Instead, I said, “I wonder why that lady did that? What was her reason?”
Turns out she was confused. She drove right past the pickup window and out to the street and she was gone. I looked for more information, found it, avoided being upset or thinking less of the world and that lady. A win.
On our way home, we noticed a street had been blocked off where we usually turn to go back to our house. Like new curbs and stuff. Lexington Parkway was no longer part of that intersection. Inconvenient. “Why do you think they did that?” I asked my daughter. “I don’t know,” she said, “Makes it safer and nicer for the people in that new apartment building. Safer for everyone.” Good points. A new intersection had been made half a block off. Curiosity pays off.
NF is a rapper who approaches his work with vulnerability. Doesn’t knock other rappers, doesn’t swear, echoes the work of Brene Brown, talks about mental health and trauma. Also: is good at rapping. (Found via kottke.org)
I am grateful this Thanksgiving season that you have read this and are reading this. I will build an empire from it. Then we invade Greenland.
The most leisurely experience I've been able to find in these times is watching the Great British Baking Show with the whole household. Instead of binging alone on our phones after the kids are asleep, this one is a shared pleasure, with planned snacks and laughs for all. I think there is a twinkle of magic in having to wait each week for the release of a new episode, like in the old times. It's a whole Friday night thing.
Thank you for this newsletter, I’m always pleased to see it in my inbox. Actually I am pleased to see any email not asking for money. I have been trying to set some time aside every day to have a beverage and read, even if it’s just for half an hour. Usually late afternoon, to separate the day from the evening.