How to Relax

It’s become fairly obvious to me that most people—at least those who find it necessary to eat—no longer know how to relax. Perhaps this is genetic; our earliest ancestors are called hunter-gatherers after all, not hunter-gatherer-relaxers. Perhaps, though it’s a sign of the times; contemporary technology has made it possible for us to never be more than a mouse-click away from piles work that, historically, could have been moved to the bottom of the in-box and avoided for weeks.

The upshot of this is that you never see anyone fully cutting loose blowing it all off. Sure, I had beer for breakfast yesterday, but that didn’t stop me from responding to my emails in the afternoon. Today, of course, I’m deep into damage-control mode (who would have thought my dean would so object to being referred to as a “warthog” in the attachment I mistakenly included in my tell-all confessional to her) and so pretty much all the relaxation I accumulated in the last 24 hours has been used up.

And this, I guess, is what I’m talking about: unless you’re the chief executive of a major corporation like Microsoft or the U.S. Government, you’re hardly ever going to have a chance to lie around doing nothing but lie. Mostly, you’re going to have that nattering voice in the back of your head reminding you off all you should be doing but are trying hard not to—which of course, defeats the whole purpose, since few things are less relaxing than making an effort to not make an effort.

Sophisticated readers—and even ones who use the salad fork to spear their entrée—will recognize immediately where I’m going with all of this. Few, naturally, will want to follow, preferring instead to forge their own pathways straight from bed to the couch. As for me, I’m satisfied; having churned out this page, I’m free to take the rest of the day off.