☕ saturday mornings - june 3, 2023
screen time, unhappiness & resting like a roman
Happy Saturday!
I hope you’re having a lovely start to your first June weekend.
What I’ve been up to:
I finished my backcountry hiking trip in Algonquin National Park and returned home.
For the time being, besides marketing Noah Kagan’s book, my days are a blank canvas. I'll be spending time designing my days to support my goals and my well-being. I have some big announcements to share with you soon.
I was reading an interview with one of my favourite singers Noah Kahan. He mentioned, “My ability to write honest music, to write songs from the heart is my greatest asset.” I want my writing to be the same. Honest. Not pretending I have it all figured out. Not walking in front of you, but walking beside you as we try to make sense of the world and make our lives a little better each week.
Good luck to my Mom who's running her first half-marathon today.
Here's an inside look at the most interesting ideas I've explored this week.
Enjoy.
✍️ quote i’m pondering:
Naval Ravikant, entrepreneur and investor, on technology vs happiness:
No exceptions—all screen activities linked to less happiness, all non-screen activities linked to more happiness.
📚 book passage i loved:
If I could sink my teeth into the whole earth
And actually taste it,
I’d be happier for a moment…
But I don’t always want to be happy.
To be unhappy now and then
Is part of being natural.
Not all days are sunny,
And when rain is scarce, we pray for it.
And so I take unhappiness with happiness
Naturally, just as I don’t marvel
That there are mountains and plains
And that there are rocks and grass…
What matters is to be natural and calm
In happiness and in unhappiness,
To feel as if feeling were seeing,
To think as if thinking were walking,
And to remember, when death comes, that each day dies,
And the sunset is beautiful, and so is the night that remains…
That’s how it is and how I want it to be…
― The Keeper of Sheep by Fernando Pessoa
💡 idea from me: rest like a roman
On Tuesday, I returned home after spending four days in the raw wilderness of Algonquin National Park.
My days were simple.
In the mornings, waking at sunrise, hiking for several hours, stopping at rushing rivers for water. In the evenings, staring into the flickering flames of a fire, listening to shrill loon calls pierce the night sky, sleeping at sunset.
Unshackled from my day-to-day rituals and routines, I was able to step back from my life.
I didn’t realize how tired, drained, and stretched thin I was until I experienced a different way of being. I didn’t notice the mental fog I was living in until the air cleared. I didn’t know how much better I could feel until I had some rest.
I’m terrible at relaxing. Like air ball during a free throw terrible.
I feel a twinge of guilt whenever I’m not being productive. I get antsy, unsettled, restless, like an addict away from their drug. Or as my psychological evaluation nicely puts it “made extraordinarily uncomfortable by inactivity”.
A lot of ambitious people I know share this same struggle.
We live in a productivity-driven culture. Infatuated with self-help, obsessed with hacks, and addicted to goal-setting.
In his 1932 essay ‘In Praise of Idleness’, Bertrand Russel theorizes that Western culture has been hypnotized into worshipping work as virtuous and scorning leisure as laziness by a wealthy upper class who wanted the poor (they profited from) to work hard.
Yet, ambition, drive, and achievement aren’t a problem. The problem arises when we don’t know how to turn them off. When our devotion to forward motion distracts from our ability to simply enjoy life.
It’s hard to make time for rest in a culture where exhaustion and exertion are status symbols. But rest is essential. Both for well-being and productivity.
The value of rest for your well-being is an ancient idea.
Both Judaism and Christianity have a Sabbath, a day in the week that was commanded by God to be preserved for rest. To prevent people from working themselves to death.
Stoics discovered the same truth. Seneca: The mind must be given relaxation, it will rise improved and sharper after a good break… We must indulge the mind and from time to time allow it the leisure which is its food and strength.
It seems great work can’t be done without a bit of goofing off, messing around and, dare I say it, laziness. Idleness and boredom unlock parts of our brain that lie dormant in a purely task-oriented existence. Although we often convince ourselves that rest ruins productivity, I believe it increases it tenfold.
As Slime Mold Time Mold wrote:
Pistons are always moving up and down. A piston moves up; it fires; but that action is matched by the piston moving down, and spending some time not firing. It would be foolish to complain that the piston is not firing all the time, but this is what some people do in trying to work hard all the time.
They are trying to keep the piston in the down position the whole time, not recognizing that this will stop the piston from firing again, and will damage the whole engine.
Albert Einstein claimed to get some of his best ideas in the morning while shaving. He knew the mind needs to be left to wander and breathe for brilliance to emerge.
Creatives throughout history have praised boredom and idleness as the kindling for their creativity and imagination to spark and set ablaze.
The poet May Sarton wrote: "A day when one has not pushed oneself to the limit seems a damaged, damaging day, a sinful day. Not so! The most valuable thing one can do for the psyche, occasionally, is to let it rest, wander, live in the changing light of a room."
Looking for a way to balance labour with leisure, I’ve found no better model than Brunello Cucinelli.
He’s the founder of a billion-dollar fashion brand that makes the best cashmere garments in the world. But, Brunello achieves excellence in work without sacrificing the sanctity of the human spirit.
Work at his company begins at 8am, with a 90-minute break for lunch, and ends at 5:30pm, after which work is strictly forbidden. Including email.
Brunello: “I have always claimed that the human being should work a fair amount of hours and after that it is necessary to devote time to your spirit, your soul, and your body.”
On weekends, Brunello avoids technology and makes time for otium. The Ancient Roman form of leisure. Where you engage in activities that nourish your mind and replenish your soul: playing sports, contemplating life, and consuming great art.
For me, I want to test a few habits:
Stop work by 7pm.
Screen-free Saturdays.
Weekend walks in nature.
Quarterly 3-day sabbaticals.
Trips to art galleries, concerts, comedy shows, sports games.
This break has taught me how much better I can feel. How much bigger life is than my to-do list. How vibrant life can become after some rest.
Bertrand Russel: While a certain amount of [work] is necessary to our existence, it is emphatically not one of the ends of human life… Good nature is [what] the world needs most, and good nature is the result of ease and security, not of a life of arduous struggle.”
Life should be more than a tyrannical treadmill of tasks. If there’s something you enjoy, go do it.
Make some time for rest today.
❓ question i’m asking:
What does my ideal day look like? How could I make today a little more similar?
📸 photo of the week:
Sonder: The moment when you realize that everyone around you has an internal life as rich and as conflicted as yours.
Thank you for reading!
Each week, I share fragments of my heart and soul to try and make your day just a little more beautiful than it was before.
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Much love to you and yours,
Tommy
Thanks for the well wishes, Tommy! Much appreciated!!!
Loved your piece on relaxation and how this rejuvenates our mind, body and soul!
It’s a privilege to read the honesty and depth which comes through in your writing. You come across as nothing short of genuine which is refreshing. Your articles really do open your readers up to reflections and new ideas! Love Mum!
Loved the essay this week, well worded Tommy