Crab-fishing and the Life of Leisure

A Sunday on La Grande Jatte by Georges Seurat

Routine sucks, despite all it's benefits. I've bootstrapped one over the last couple of weeks, after not having one for most of the last five years. The main benefit of a schedule-less life is that time can expand to meet the needs of the activity at hand. One place I'm particularly feeling this is in my idle thinking time.

I'm no stranger to blankly sitting still at my desk and staring out the window, letting my mind wander for hours on end. The work will get done eventually, and if it doesn't, there's always another day. For all it's quirks, my nervous system has benefitted greatly from this practice.

But mind-wandering is not something that can be time-boxed, so it's not something I can put on a calendar or a todo list so that I make sure I get to every day. And trust me, it's no good for anyone if I don't get that time.

There's no room in the weekday routine, and because of the weekday routine, the random things I formerly fit in during the week need to get done in my weekend routine. A weekend routine?! Blasphemous.

How does everyone live like this? Just moving about the world ticking items off lists and adding new things to lists, but never having any time for true leisure is a drag. Hell, people even schedule their leisure time: gym before work, a run after work, co-ed soccer on Tuesdays at 8, poker on Fridays at 9. Gotta make sure you fit it all in.

Life is long, man. Yeah sure you can get into a car crash or develop a freak form of cancer, but for the most part the stuff about life being short is nonsense. You've got a lot of days, so why be so strict about them? Why not just follow the wind, knowing that getting work done should naturally follow. The trick is setting up your life to be generally free in a world that wants you to be specifically occupied.

Lately, a lot of folks have been pushing for a four day workweek, leaving a certain class of people with an extra day of leisure to schedule on the weekends. It will be good for the economy...blah blah blah...improve work life balance...blah blah...we will be more productive. Yawn.

In response, I've been advocating for something like a crab-fisherman's schedule. I'd like to work 4 straight seven day weeks, fult tilt, followed by two or three full weeks off. This specific plan may or may not be a good one, but I think that a lot of work can and should be done this way. I can do a lot in a short period of time, and enjoy work best when I'm working like a machine. But you do need time away, and lots more than two or three days.

Anyways, I digress, as this wasn't meant to be a bone-picking exercise. I simply wanted to make the point that life seems to go better when I'm free to go wherever I may wander. Give me a few uninterrupted weeks and I'll write a novel or immerse myself in music theory or maybe I'll hitchhike around the midwest. Who knows? I certainly don't. I have intuitions but you can't go forcing plans on them.

I guess most people wait until retirement to life that kind of life, or instead commit themselves to a vagabond lifestyle. I want neither of those things, nor do I want these mini-retirements I keep hearing about. No, I just want to live life a month at a time. That's long enough to accomplish something I can be proud of, but short enough that I don't suffocate on it.

Short of simply being wealthy, I'm not sure how to do this. Most money-making endeavors require you to be consistently working, or at least consistently working at lining up work when you need it. I guess that's why artists have either already made it or have a wealthy benefactor to fund their life. Otherwise, you're working mindless odd jobs to pay the bills and buy your way out of a routine life.

Maybe crab-fishing is actually the answer to all my problems? Or at least my routine ones?