Or “How I Didn’t Spend My Summer Vacation.”
This is one of those posts that, perhaps, is better suited in some ways for Old Man, Talking, but this one has pictures and that other site is involved in a new novel which you should probably read, so we’re going to put this one here for the convenience of having here for the purpose of putting things.
I wrote recently of the need for everyone to take a vacation, and some people, I’ve noticed by the endless parade of beach and lake pictures on social media, have done so. Not all of us can take those risks, though, which hardly seems fair, but then, nothing ever is, so, whatever, man. We have to find our own leisure.
If Dudeism has a sacrament, and nothing officially says that it does, it is bowling; not necessarily in the literal sense, though that’s where this is ultimately going, but at least in the metaphorical sense of engaging in an activity that requires absolutely no skill for one to enjoy the act of participation. Just don’t step over the line, man. We’d have to mark it a zero.
Turns out, there’s a lot of wisdom in doing nothing. Kierkegaard, when he wasn’t doing something else, said “Far from idleness being the root of all evil, it is rather the only true good.” Gertrude Stein took it a bit further with, “It takes a lot of time to be a genius, you have to sit around so much doing nothing, really doing nothing.” Extrapolate out a bit and that honorary Ph.D. one gets for doing nothing starts to feel pretty weighty.
Perhaps the quote that best gets to the point is this one from The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu, translated by Burton Watson. Pay attention to this:
Once there was a man who was afraid of his shadow and who hated his footprints, and so he tried to get away from them by running. But the more he lifted his feet and put them down again, the more footprints he made. And no matter how fast he ran, this shadow never left him, and so, thinking that he was still going too slowly, he ran faster and faster without a stop until his strength gave out and he fell down dead. He didn’t understand that by lolling in the shade he could have gotten rid of his shadow and by resting in quietude he could have put an end to his footprints.
Leisure comes in many forms and to say that one has to go bowling in the literal sense would be antithetical to the most basic premise of Dudeism. You’ve got to be you. Still, there’s something to be said for sitting around in rented shoes and heaving a 14-pound ball at ten carefully-weighted pieces of shaped wood. Personally, I find it cathartic right up until about the eighth frame when my shoulder starts hurting, causing me to drop the last two frames. My diagnosis is that I should probably spend more time bowling.
Looking for something we could do with children led us to this reliable form of recreation. We confirmed with the bowling alley that no one was allowed in without a mask (they were delightfully fierce about that qualification), social distancing was excessively enforced, and that every reasonable sanitation method was being applied, piled the offspring into the van, and introduced them to this most sacred of Dudeist pastimes, which, qualifying as vacation this year, necessitated pictures.
Who won or even how high the scores were is irrelevant. There’s no proof that the Dude himself ever actually bowled a frame; he just sat there as though he might if he’d wanted to. The whole scoring thing is digital now anyway, which makes that bowling class I took in college, where the final exam was correctly scoring a game, by hand, on paper, rather moot at this point. What’s important is that we were introducing the children to the skill of leisure, a skill that, when properly refined, will do them much good for the rest of their lives. They’re too young for bowling alley beer, of course, but there were chili dogs so, in some ways, from a gastrointestinal perspective, I guess that’s the same.
I guess what I’m showing you this week are, kind of, our family vacation photos. And one might notice that I’m not in any of the photos. That’s not a bad thing. The evidence of my presence is the fact that the photos exist. Of course, I couldn’t just dump them on you with standard processing. I’d be just like everyone else on social media if I did that. They’re what we’ll call “enhanced”. Whether you like them or not is, like, just your opinion, man. What’s important is that we understand the great importance of leisure, of actively, intentionally, doing nothing. Look at the pictures and then take a nap.
Remember these words of Oscar Wilde: “To do nothing is the most difficult thing in the world. The most difficult, and the most intellectual.”
Enjoy.
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The Art Of Being Chill
I don’t want to sound like a grumpy old man, but nothing winds me up more than people saying, ‘Chill out’ to me when I’m irritated! —Martin Freeman
Being chill comes easily for many people, but there are some who have turned it into an art form
Like many people my age, I have to deal with high blood pressure. Medically, there are a lot of reasons for having blood-pumping issues: our lifestyles being hectic, our diets being too high in sodium, and a general fear that we might die without having accomplished enough. There are plenty of things that would probably solve all but the worst of blood pressure problems without medication, but that would require we actually alter how we live rather dramatically. We’re not likely to do that, being the stubborn folk that we are, so the doctor gives us pills that try to force our blood pressure back down to a manageable level that won’t kill us quite so quickly.
The pills don’t always work, though. The doctor has increased the strength of my medication twice before and I’m still generating systolic and diastolic readings that are far too high to be safe. Kat keeps telling me I need to chill. She makes it sound so easy. She makes it look so easy. Just “chill.” She drinks coffee and relaxes. I drink coffee and feel the need to take a thousand new pictures. She sees something stupid in her news feed and ignores it. I see something stupid in my news feed and am ready to rip someone’s head off their shoulders. I am so very much not chill.
About a month ago, Forbes magazine published a story Finding Chill in ValparaÃso, Chile. The article contains beautiful photos full of the color and culture of this relatively small Chilean city. The author talks about his hotel with hammocks on the roof, the delicious yet inexpensive food, and stray dogs that will walk you home at night (not kidding). Everything in the article sounds so wonderful that I was almost ready to pack my bags and go, until the author discloses that, while there, he tripped on a seawall and broke his leg in two places. That’s a risk I can’t take. Scratch Chile off my travel list.
It seems obvious that I need to go somewhere to chill. Indianapolis is definitely not a chill type of city. We get uptight about almost everything around here. With the 100th running of the Indianapolis 500 this year, the entire neighborhood around us is anything but chill. But with ValparaÃso off the list, where should I go?
Back in 2010, Forbes also published a list of the most relaxed cities in America. The twin cities of Minneapolis-St. Paul topped the list. They won because they have short commute times, get plenty of exercise, and had good insurance. Note, this survey took place before the Affordable Care Act took affect so that last detail might have changed. Looking through the other cities on the list, Milwaukee, Portland, Seattle, Denver, San Jose, it seems to me that all those cities have experienced some significant change in the past six years. Political changes have ruined Wisconsin. Portland’s population of hipsters has exploded. Seattle has become one of the most expensive cities in the country. Denver won a Super Bowl. San Jose’s Silicon Valley has experienced a lot of employment upheaval while real estate prices soared. Not seeing a number of benefits there.
Music is supposed to help people chill, right? According to the British Academy of Sound Therapy, the song Weightless is the best choice to help people chill. In fact, the song is apparently so effective one some people that the scientists involved in the study recommend that one not drive while listening to the piece. The song, which was specifically composed for this study. starts at 60 beats per minute and gradually slows to 50. I tried listening. I made it about 30 seconds before wanting to shoot something. Weightless has no freaking melody! It’s just electronic noise with carefully constructed pulsing.
From what I can tell, if one is going to master the art of being chill, they need to successfully do the following:
Anyone who can successfully do those things can master the art of being chill.
I’m probably going to die.
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