Hello! I HAVE INTERNET AT HOME AGAIN! (I’d like to thank post-scheduling for hiding the fact that I didn’t for several of those days.) It is a good thing. It makes so many other things possible!
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It is a three day holiday weekend here in the U.S., and I’m being too productive. I’ve had multiple scheduled appointments, I’ve been to a post office, I’ve reset faulty breakers six times, I’ve ordered excessive numbers of notebooks (because I fill excessive numbers of notebooks), I’ve washed laundry, I’ve attended a fantastic parade (and am awash with images from it to manage), I missed a chance to purchase a limited edition fountain pen that I didn’t know I was interested in until it sold out (oh, well – I’ll forget it ever existed shortly), I’ve performed maintenance on a Roomba which appears to have become senile, I’ve treated my hair and scalp with multiple products, I’ve criticized myself for not being more creatively productive (even though I’m always working, commuting, or performing chores), I’ve enjoyed tapas and white sangria (which I hadn’t realized exists, but of course it does), I wrote a letter with a pretty fountain pen and equally pretty ink…
The problem with holidays feeling rare is that they become so precious I feel I must USE THEM TO THEIR FULL POTENTIAL, which likely isn’t the best choice. That makes them feel like a different type of work. Goal-oriented work. The wrong kind of activity needed to recover from all the other kinds of work.
There are some cultural elements of this. My mother is still wrestling with her upbringing, which included a rather fanatical insistence on not being able to sleep late into the morning, even if you worked nights (!!), and pressure to always be doing SOMETHING. ANYTHING. A sort of haywire protestant work ethic. I may have absorbed some of that, but also live in a culture where being “busy” is proof of importance / worth in itself.
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Speaking of work, here is some context for all of those manhwa I’ve been reading from South Korea whose stories are premised on people dying from working too much:
South Korea is known for its punishing work culture, with some of the longest hours in the developed world. Despite the introduction of the 52-hour weekly work limit in 2018, overwork and exhaustion are still not uncommon. In 2023, the government proposed to increase the maximum weekly working time to 69 hours, sparking a severe backlash and eventual backdown.
–from https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/27/seoul-international-space-out-competition-south-korea.
(Yikes!)
Wish me luck as I attempt to… relax in a goal-oriented way??