There are two kinds of vacations: the kind where you’re trying to actually do something—explore a foreign country, see the sights, climb the mountain, learn to scuba dive/ski/blow glass, and the kind where you do nothing at all—you lie out on a beach, read the paper by the pool, or simply slowly decompose in front of the TV. In the movie Office Space, when asked what he would do if he had a million dollars, the antihero replies, “Nothing. I would relax, I would sit on my ass all day… I would do nothing.”
When I was a freelancer, and I spent my days alone at home typing on my computer, and the only deadlines I had were the ones I volunteered for, the idea of a passive vegetative vacation seemed utterly pointless. I longed to do things, active things, to have adventures and rack up new experiences. I had on my side psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, who finds that although most people spend their leisure time doing “unstructured activities,” they are more likely to achieve that state of blissful engagement he terms “flow” when they’re working on a task with a clear goal.
I still tend in that direction—in 2006 I went to Mexico twice, to California three times, to Hong Kong, and to Thailand, and in 2007, I went to India, where I visited my family and went on a tiger safari, and learned to scuba dive in the Turks and Caicos Islands. But now that I spend my days working in an office, with a snarling three-train commute bookending my days, I’m much more sympathetic to people who think the point of a vacation is to pass out on a beach. I tend to work late and spending most evenings at parties or events. I wouldn’t have it any other way—I love my job and I love the social life I could only have in New York City. But I very rarely have a moment where I’m doing nothing, and after a stressful close, the thought of just vegging out in front of the TV holds a delirious appeal.
On tiger safari in Kanha National Park, the setting for Kipling's The Jungle Book
And indeed, when my vacations take me home to my family in Canada rather than to some exotic foreign locale, I find myself doing just that. Nothing gives me a greater sense of being free and unburdened than staying up into the wee hours of the morning watching old movies on TV. That’s it—that’s my fantasy. And that’s exactly what I do when I’m home. My mom kisses me goodnight and eventually my brother turns in too, and then it’s just me happily biodegrading on the couch. My mind is turning to slime and it never felt so good.
I do this too whenever I go to another city and stay in a hotel. I’m mesmerized by the TV. I go to my friends’ weddings in other cities and offer to give toasts, but I always show up bleary-eyed because I’ve stayed up late the previous night watching HBO.
Maybe it’s because it symbolizes an easier existence. I’m a striver, and if I have a free moment alone in my ordinary life in New York, I try to spend it productively, doing work, reading a book that will improve me, or catching up on my correspondence. Maybe it’s because it brings me back to those weekends during high school, having sleepovers with my friends, ordering pizza, staying up watching reruns of the old Star Trek.
That’s my fantasy—to give up ambition. I imagine with envy the people who work from 9 to 5, who, when they’re done working, they’re done—no staying up late writing a journal. There are only sixpacks and Monday Night Football, or bottles of port and French movies. Forget moving to a country house, if I ever bow out of the rat race, all I’ll need is a couch, a TV, and a Netflix account.
Vacate
I've been told me and my family are over-stimulated. My brother's down time consists of banging a guitar for hours and hours on end to superloud rock songs playing in the background. My youngest brother's downtime is a little bit closer to yours. He plays video games or works on creating computer programs until his hands go numb. My older sister cannot sit for five minutes without a notebook in her hand, writing something. And I paint, sing, dance, write, read, draw,etc. whenever I get a free minute. (This includes vacations.) It's not really goal oriented, and we still get with the flow. But we're all introverts, and our vacation away from the world uses includes the least amount of people possible. (That includes television stars.)
Yourself is mad at you!
Life in big cities is always demanding in a lot of ways.
Going from no structure to a structured day suddenly shocks your inner peace and balance. You subconsciously feel that you failed yourself because you went from a freelancer to an employee and in order to do that you had to subconsciously close the doors of the desire to do whatever, whenever, wherever that freelancers can.
Believe it or not- I am pretty sure you do already- but the stimulus that comes out of activities, both outdoors and in doors, is the fuel that can get you going. You take that stimulus away and force not only your free thinking brain to generate structured work but also your body to sit in a chair all day when prior to that you had the ability to stretch, lay down, run, eat drink e.t.c and you have a pretty unhappy whole.
You are subconsciously trying to find that freedom of thought again without having to be jerked back by thoughts of the task in hand and maybe your brain thinks it will find it in the movies; there the impossible is possible.
Hello I disagree with the
Hello
I disagree with the opinion that working free from an employment contract is freedom from being work related restraints. To the contrary, I find self-discipline a great way to restraints and self-imposed compulsion which can be converted into a happy work routine. Althouogh such experience takes time, it is worth the effort for a whole-life time. Love.
I do not believe that down
I do not believe that down time is time spent doing nothing. How come meditation is seen as "something" but video games are "nothing"? In my opinion we need to give ourselves a break and be comfortable with just "being".
Ambition: Blessing, Curse, or Both?
The challenge, in any case, is finding the right balance between consistency and variety, pressure and release, etc.
Before, I'll bet you missed stability. Now, I'll bet you miss the freedom. That's been my (similar) experience...
A-men to your blog entry, Jay.
Are your interests and talents worth money?
I think a lot of what determines the way people spend thier leisure time has to do with the economic structure in relation to personal interests and abilities. I have a friend who is an electrical engineer. He works on sub-stations all day and although his job sounds painfully dull to me, he absolutely loves it. He stays late at work not because he is more ambitious that the rest of us, but because he so enjoys what he does and he's getting paid to do it! I look on people who have abilities and interests that align with financial reward with great envy. I love lots of things but nothing I am likely to get paid for. Sure you can follow your dream and try to do what you love but lets face it,in many cases people will not be paid for doing what they take the most fufillment in. You can only pursue your blossoming singing career for so long before you will have to take an office job to simply survive. I love to paint, to jog, to write music and pen creative stories. I spend much of my "down-time" doing these things because I can't do them at work. My friend who is viewed at work as "Mr. Motivation" comes home and sits on his ass all night. I leave a boring yet not very demanding job and come home and do activities. People seek a balance and thier life's pleasures and life's work sometimes dictate how that balance is found. If you feel like doing nothing then allow yourself to do nothing. Your body and mind likley need that down time and thats something. Now if your work is both demanding and highly unfufilling, maybe reconsider the job.
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