Should I stay home or go out, talk to a friend or read a
good book, walk in nature or write down my thoughts? None of these are mutually
exclusive, of course, I could do them all in the same day or I could do none.
The one that gives me the least choice is staying home, since if I find myself
at home, there are two options: stay or leave. But the way I posed the question
is intended to suggest that I have these two ways of spending time, luxuriating
around the house or luxuriating around in my car or something like that. Since
I set the options up in the series that I did, it sounds like I am one lucky
cuss and that any way I turn, I have time on my hands and I am in harmony with
life, always faced with choices far less than life or death ones - nice choices
to have. But, I could have said it another way.
I could have said: should I hunker down in my house or flee, phone a friend or see if my lawyer can find a loophole in the warrant they have for my arrest, run
through the back alleys or pen a suicide note? Those choices do not sound as good,
do they? I have spent most of my life much closer to the first set of choices
than the second, in fact, I don’t think I have ever been too close to the
latter, not to say I will never be. Those who are on the lam or being literally
or figuratively hunted down are in what might be the least enviable position of
all human beings. I would not want to be Edward Snowden, right now, hanging out
in Russian airports – although I do think he is more hero than villain – these
days, he is someone without good options.
We like to set up our time away from work as a series of
choices, and some of us are even fortunate enough to do it at work; at least to
some extent. If I get up on Saturday during the warm months, I have a choice of
meditating for 45 minutes when I get out of bed or not, going for a run or not,
at some point writing 1000 words or not, going with my wife to the farmer’s
market or not, going to the gym for my 26-station workout or not, eating three
meals or not, juicing beets, carrots and other veggies at some point during the
day or not, going to bed between 10 and 11 or not, getting the car oil changed
or not, eating one of those meals out or not, going to Memphis or not,
listening to music while I write or not, and maybe a few other possibilities.
But really, if my oil needs changing and it is not coming some sort of fierce
storm, I will do all of the things on the left side of those sentences, the
things before the not, except for going to Memphis, which only happens
occasionally and every now and then not listening to music while I write
because I am too lazy to think of putting my earbuds in my phone before I sit
down. In other words, it is not as if I really have much choice of how I spend
my “day off”.
Most of my days are the same, but you won’t hear me
complaining. I don’t feel like screaming or they don’t need to come and get me
in a van with padded walls. I am content with my life of non-choice choices.
The truth is, if my back is hurting or I have pulled a hamstring recently, or
if it is stupid hot, I may not run on a given Saturday. Instead, I might do an
hour on the elliptical, but most likely I will exercise, not because I feel
compelled, well maybe a little bit because of that; but mainly because I like
the way it feels to get the usual stuff done. I do those things because those
are the things I do.
Earlier in my life, say when I was in graduate school, my
days were terribly different. I might choose between heading to the library
first thing on Saturday morning or studying in our apartment. We might choose
to drive to the mall and walk around or not, walk the bike path for a few
minutes or not, watch a little TV before we went to bed or not. As you can see,
at any given time in my life, my discretionary time has really been a matter of
a handful of choices and not real choices at that, just doing or not doing the
same things from a short list; when I am not being told what to do by a work
schedule or some other type of schedule - like the you have when a loved one is
in the hospital and you visit that person three times a day for three straight
days, in a town far from your house.
I wonder if there are people who live differently from that?
Are there people for whom every Saturday is unique from all the others, with
the possible exception of getting up, eating three meals, and going to bed? If
so, I wonder if they are happy? On Saturday number one she might do yoga with
friend one, have lunch with friend two, go to a movie with friend two, have
dinner with friend three, take a bike ride with friends four, five and six.
Then on Saturday number two she might lie in bed until noon, skipping
breakfast, drinking a juice instead of having lunch, reading a book during the
afternoon and going to bed early. On Saturday three she might fly to the coast
and spend the entire weekend there – I don’t know, let’s say- all alone. On
Saturday four she might get up early and cut down a few trees before eating
lunch at the soup kitchen where she is volunteering, after which she tries to
immolate herself on her patio before someone puts her out, so she lives to see
another Saturday and so on like that.
I know there must be people with more predictability in
their life than I have, trappist monks come to mind, but I wonder how those
with little predictability like it. I am guessing those with the least
predictability are the ones whose jobs are quite varied and who work all the
time. Within the confines of their job, they do lots of different things, but
it’s all work. I suppose there are also socialites and party animals who are
flitting and flying hither and yon and never seem to have any pattern to their
days, but can that be sustainable? Would your body and mind not eventually just
fall apart? Are lots of true and actual choices really all that common and
really even, desirable?
No comments:
Post a Comment