Life needs rhythm

For the last week, I’ve started and ended my day reading a novel. Among Friends by Hal Ebbot. It is a truly wonderful book. I enjoyed every page of it. And still, every morning and every night, I had to grapple with myself to pick up the book and commit to reading. Not because of a lack of interest, but for fear there was something else more valuable, more productive to be done with this time. I was not pursuing a passion or monetizing my time. Could I really spare 45 minutes to simply enjoy a story for no other reason than to enjoy a story? When there were several non-fiction books, The New Yorker, and work emails sitting within reach, each promising to make me more informed, more ready for tomorrow’s work conversations. Could I simply read someone else’s made-up words? Is that allowed? In this economy? 

We––maybe just me, but I think we––are at a point where the simple pleasures of life no longer seem worth the squeeze. Or maybe that we no longer feel ourselves worthy of the juice? It’s hard to remember a time when I’ve given myself over to an activity whose value was no more than the pleasure it offered me. Rather, each of these moments feel like something that must be acquired through sleight of hand while engaging in more worthwhile pursuits that offer quantifiable value. Like feigning a phone call just to step outside to gain a moment to oneself. 

Even as I’m writing this it feels blasphemous, or maybe just weak, to want to enjoy life while living it rather than only after some future point in time when I have earned, and have the receipts to show I have earned, the right to enjoy. Or maybe if I was stronger, more cut from a different cloth, I would find enjoyment in the grind, in the ascent, in the discomfort of doing what is necessary at every moment. I do actually, though. I enjoy hard work. I pride myself in my sense of duty. But it is only one slice of life. And I would love to partake in the whole pie, and before it gets cold. 

That’s the rub I think. Modern life has become flat. It’s become thin. A well-lived life now a gossamer thousands of feet long that can be seen by many but shouldn’t be felt. The surface of life has stretched far beyond what any generation before us could have imagined. But seemingly at the expense of its depth. Its rhythm. Its naturalness. 

Everything is at our fingertips, but our fingers have grown numb to the touch. Feeling is no longer something to be experienced. It’s something to be noted in a ledger, analyzed through various lenses of comparison and expectations, and then fabricated into a synthetic event fit for public viewing, not designed for future memory but rather the present deflection of judgement. 

There’s a rhythm that’s missing. We’re lacking fiber in our experiential diets.

People, human beings, organic entities can’t just be engines of production. We can’t just be documented and evaluated. We need to be nurtured. We need to rise, feel the warmth of the sun, the earth in our hands, and toil that blends the physical and mental. That’s a bit overly romantic, but only a bit. 

We’ve lost a lot of that in our current way of living. We have an abundance of sustenance, but very little nourishment. An endless stream of activities, but no rhythm to make any one feel like a true moment in which to relish. 

Modern life looks great on paper. Even better on a screen. But in the living, not very filling.  

There was a time when everyday life and natural human striving imposed a rhythm on life that aligned, or at least did not contradict, with human nature. Work was part hand part brain, both systems working with and enhancing the other. We are no longer in that time. Life is fragmented across screens, swivel chairs, notifications. Variety is no longer the spice of life; it is a constant in this life of abundance and immediacy. 

Waiting, working, thinking, moving, being bored, being thrilled, driving to a place only to find they don’t have the thing, spikes of stress, elongated periods of calm, a day spent fixing something that could have easily been outsourced. While I don’t want to go back in time, back in time had some inconveniences that may have offered benefits taken for granted. 

We are in cycles of depletion. We are more productive than ever yet none of the things we produce feel like they are building on the last or bolstering the next. We never had to be intentional about being human. Today we have to schedule it into our calendars. Go for a walk. Eat lunch. Talk with Charley. 

Every generation has had to deal with its own thing. War, disease, depression, recession. Some were forced to grow up too soon. It feels like we are being forced to grow up too late, or more so live in a constant state of newness in which we are forced to grow up over and over again without anything to show for it. And showing-for-it is everything. 

So in conclusion, I read a book. A book that was completely made up. A book of fiction. It was enjoyable. It transported me from my couch to a different time and a different place. It tossed an asymmetrical shape into a perfectly squared day in between brushing my teeth and getting breakfast ready for my daughters. It gave me rhythm. It reminded me that stories including my own are intended to be enjoyed for their own sake. They actually have to be to make everything else worthwhile.