I'd Rather Not

The summer malaise seems to be fully upon me, which ought not be terribly shocking considering I have yet to recover from my spring malaise, which followed the winter and autumnal versions of the same. I have become, it seems, malazy.

From where does this burning desire to do almost nothing arise? Hard to say. Perhaps a lifetime of doing things has exhausted my desire to do more things. I suspect, though, that my current lack of gusto has more to do with the accumulated weight of the world, this sense that everything has gotten too heavy to resist. As if we’re all walking around in weighted pants.

(Are weighted pants a thing? Should they be?)

There’s a denseness at play here, a sense that every step costs a little more than I’m willing to pay. Making plans seems like more trouble than they’re worth. My writing feels sluggish. Even feeding myself with anything that doesn’t come out of a bag requires an effort I am almost unwilling to give. I know, it sounds like I’m depressed. Maybe I am, but as a lifelong experiencer of depression, this doesn’t feel like that.

Instead, it has the feel of a summer nap. A half-asleep daydream. Languid and unproductive. I can’t say it feels bad exactly, but the puritanical American in me keeps insisting that I do more, always more.

I know I’ve written about this topic before, both in my writings about here and abroad. I’ve long admired the Italian pace of life, for example, which centers around family, and the French pace of life, which centers around complaining. Both are much more my speed. Here, where life is dictated by the accumulation of dollars, I find myself less and less willing to participate. “I’d rather not,” says Bartleby the Scrivener. And so it is with me.

Ok JD, I see the appeal.

Today, however, I am doing two things outside my current zone of comfort. The first is that I’m going to visit a friend. The second is that I’m going to put on a swimsuit. The two are related, as my friend has a pool. While I have not committed to actually getting into the pool, I am allowing myself the option of doing so should the sun prove too meddlesome.

Further, this friend is a high school friend and there is a second high school friend joining us for the occasion. So not only will I be out there, among other people, it will be among people I have known for decades and decades, which adds a certain piquancy to the day’s activity.

I am, of course, dreading it.

The dread has nothing to do with my desire to see my friends, only my desire to do anything at all. Much better for me would be to do as I usually do, sip tea and park myself on the couch for a day of light novel reading, online chess, and consuming pretzels right out of the bag. Those Japanese teenagers who never leave their rooms – I’m becoming one of those.

That being said, the particulars of my malaise do not prevent me from enjoying myself when I do venture out. Nor does it prevent me from writing these pieces. Nor did it stop me from making a tremendous Middle Eastern rice dish (“Baked mushroom rice with cinnamon and allspice” from the Lugma cookbook by Noor Murad) two nights ago. In other words, I can still walk in my weighted pants but the effort to do so feels as though it’s requiring more and more energy.

I write about it here because I suspect I’m hardly alone. Maybe I’m only projecting here, but the country itself feels as though its struggling with the same symptoms. There are moments when the nation has a joie de vivre, but aside from the few welcome weeks of the World Cup this summer, we haven’t had that around these parts in a long time. Maybe that’s why The Odyssey has struck a grim nerve with audiences; that slog mirrors our own. We, too, are dealing with misshapen monsters. We, too, are being dragged into a whirlpool. Too many of us have also turned into pigs.

Perhaps autumn will bring a new crispness to the air. Something that will get me up and at ‘em. But I doubt it. I think I’ll welcome the shortening days because the long ones feel too long. They hold too much with too little of it good.

Then again, I will welcome whatever replaces our current season of cynicism, greed, and lies. I do think it will pass and I remain confident that a day will come when the couch holds a little less appeal. When my first thought upon rising isn’t, “How long must I stay awake?” In the meantime, though, I’m going to trade my weighted pants for a swimsuit.