Hit and Miss #297: Free time
Hello!
I was already a few minutes from home during a walk earlier today, when I realized I hadn’t taken an antihistamine. Miraculously, I emerged mostly un-irritated—a sign, perhaps, of my slowly adapting to this pollen-y season, or of its slowly fading in intensity. Either way, no complaints!
I’ve been grappling lately with “how best to fill my free time”—an urge to relax well, to not waste my free time, as it were. I don’t have a particular goal or vision in mind for how best to spend my life—work can’t be the whole thing, I’m convinced of that, but I don’t have an excellent answer to “So what about the rest of your time?”
Time with friends and family is usually excellent, but I’ve been struggling more often than not lately with a gnawing sense that I should be up to more. In one attempt to grow and challenge myself, I’ve been exploring new hobbies, fumbling through unfamiliar motions and wondering if it’s really worth it. This leaves me grappling with “not knowing”, a sure sign of growth, but no less comfortable for being so.
A few pieces on related subjects, which I don’t quite have the wherewithal to connect directly, but assure you they’re worth a ponder:
- L.M. Sacasas invokes historians and philosophers of technology to challenge the idea that we must always be seeking to save time, to be more efficient. Sacasas points out that there’s rarely a well-defined sense of for what purpose we’re saving that time, with it often going toward consumption. Instead, perhaps, we might dedicate more time to “the one element of most profound human consequence—care”. (An interesting exercise would be to ponder “free time” with “free” as both an adjective and a verb—how does the meaning change, what sense does it evoke?)
- Mary Ruefle, via Mandy Brown, encouraging us to waste time, noting that “there is so little time to waste during a life, what little there is being so precious, that we must waste it, in whatever way we come to waste it, with all our heart”. Serendipitously, I encountered that while re-reading Mandy Brown’s “The case for rereading”, which I’ve been thinking about often as I consider re-organizing my bookshelves and itch to start my next book.
- Mini-piece by me: I’ve recently been printing essays, including the above. Highly recommended if you like to read writing only found on the web, but don’t want to be on a screen all the time. (Bonus is how easy it is to write in the margins, and you get a physical artefact of your reading, to store on a shelf and return to down the line.)
How did I waste time today? (see above) Well, though I don’t need to account for it (see also above), I wandered a ways off the walking route I had in mind to admire a flowering tree. Doing so led me to some delightful birds, and to a few goslings—I hadn’t realized how quickly we’ve come into spring, but our outdoor friends have a way of reminding us.
All the best for the week ahead!
Lucas