spontaneity
how to have more leisure time
I want to be on a beach at some point this summer I texted C after missing out on a chance to do just that because I had a three-hour acting class smack in the middle of the day. I want to lie on a beach for hours and re-read “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” while soaking up the sun and feeling the salt-licked breeze against my face. But when I look at my calendar, it seems impossible: the next three weekends are completely packed.
The concept of a lazy summer is a fantasy. Everyone wants to be out doing things. Byung-Chul Han writes about how our society values activity over contemplation. As a result, we’re living faster lives devoid of meaning, losing the “scent of time,” and constantly wondering why we don’t have more of it.
I met someone who recently moved to New York from SF. His impression is that in New York people can be very selective about which social activities they say yes to because there’s always something fun and interesting to do. It’s true: we have choices. But we’re not always exercising our choice in a way that feels satisfying.
As much as I appreciate the convenience of Partiful, it has made the problem worse. Now, you don’t even have to look for fun activities. You get invited by friends and friends of friends and people you swear you’ve never met but whom you’ve apparently “partied with,” and because your friends are going and you don’t want to miss out, you say yes and yes and yes, and before you know it, yet another app is controlling your life.
One of the reasons I want to live in the same neighborhood as my friends is to be able to call someone up and ask if they’d like to go for a walk or grab a drink in a few hours. Spontaneity is hard to come by as adults because of how scheduled our lives are. If you want to catch up with a friend you haven’t seen in a while, you have to make plans in advance. Otherwise, it won’t happen. I love the certainty of scheduling. But I don’t like that it prevents me from being able to just sit on the pier after work and read if I want to or go to the beach on a whim.
So how do we spend our time in a way that’s meaningful? I think the answer isn’t to stop planning and scheduling and RSVP’ing. It’s actually to lean more into it—but to do so in a way that’s active, not passive:
1. Stop signing up for activities you won’t enjoy
It sounds obvious, but we’re conditioned by social media to fear missing out. If you hate big, loud parties where you have to scream to be heard, don’t go to big, loud parties where you have to scream to be heard even if all your friends are going. If someone you barely know asks you to hang out, and you’re not sure you have much to talk about and don’t feel particularly excited to get to know them, don’t agree to it. Sometimes, we’re too nice and openminded for our own good.
2. Host your own events
Take back control of your time by hosting your own events and inviting your friends. The great thing about organizing your own event is you can get creative. You can do whatever you want (within reason). For example, instead of a big, generic party, I’d rather host a small gathering where we play a silly, experimental game or make art.
3. Plan unplanned time
Don’t treat solo time as free time that’s up for grabs. If you want a quiet evening to yourself, schedule it, and if someone wants to meet up that night, tell them you already have plans (because you do). The Artist’s Way encourages taking yourself out on dates. You don’t have to book a fancy dinner, but you should make plans with yourself even if you don’t know what you’ll be doing. The beauty of unplanned time is you can be spontaneous.
4. Spend your time according to your values
It’s well known that people are happier when they can spend their time and money in ways that align with their values. I don’t believe in over-engineering my life, but I tried this the other day, and it was somewhat useful: make a list of all the things you want to do (e.g. take piano lessons, apply to jobs, build a website), and for each one, ask yourself why it matters to you. Based on those reasons, cluster your activities into themes, e.g., creativity, adventure, friendship, family, health. Those are your values. By the way, if “money” is one of your values, you should dig deeper and ask why you want money because it’s probably masking the real thing you value. When you do this, you might find that you actually don’t want to build a website. If that’s the case, scratch it off the list. You’ve just taken a mental load off. You might also find that you’re currently doing things that don’t align with any of your values. Scratch those off too. You’ve just created more leisure time.
I want to spend my days writing, reading, painting, taking long walks, acting, and practicing piano. Basically, I want to live like an 18th century aristocrat. Unfortunately, I lack the means to do so. A life of leisure is a luxury few of us can afford, but that doesn’t mean we can’t spend our time in a way that’s more satisfying.
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In the spirit of spontaneity, if you’re in New York and want to read Eula Biss’s Having and Being Had and talk about work, creative labor, money, time, capitalism, etc., I’m going to be in Washington Square Park near the water fountain on Sunday, August 4th at 1pm. No commitment, just show up! If it rains, I’ll post a new location on Twitter/Instagram.
At the moment, I’m refusing to create a Partiful because it would defeat the whole purpose of being spontaneous, but it might also mean that no one shows up, in which case, I will happily lie on the grass and cloud gaze.
