Watching Shadows on the Wall

It’s just after noon on a Friday and, so far today, I’ve done exactly nothing. Over the last few years, I have a lot of days like this, days in which I am expected nowhere and nothing is expected of me. That’s what happens when you are in your early 50’s and looking at a career that has slowed to an almost imperceptible crawl. Days in which I remain pajamaed. Days in which my main companion is the New York Times Spelling Bee. Days in which I out-lazy my cat.

I don’t mind these days, particularly. Unstructured time has never bothered me, and it’s rare that I don’t have something to occupy myself. But I also can’t escape the guilt that accompanies my inactivity.

As Americans, we’re so conditioned to be “productive.” It’s an interesting word, carrying with it the weight of industry and commerce. Entire economies hang on that word. We measure production and productivity, inputs and outputs, and we are encouraged, at all times, to do more, make more, be more.

Why?

For what? For whom? Where is all this productivity supposed to lead? I’m not a total dunce; I do understand that everybody’s well-being rests, to a certain extent, on the contributions of as many people as possible towards the greater good. Productivity generates all sorts of gadgets and gizmos that we rely on. The sale of those gadgets and gizmos keeps the global market liquid and sloshing around so that everybody can get their beaks wet, and on and on it goes. Also, a useful life is, generally, a happier life.

But what constitutes being useful? To be pedantic for a moment, it means being of use, presumably to somebody other than yourself. Which implies community of some sort. It follows, I think, that being useful requires community. One can be useful to one’s self, of course, but that’s just basic survival and doesn’t promote the kind of well-being that usefulness towards others provides - unless you’re toasting marshmallows for yourself.

A priest can be useful, but is he productive? A Wall St. trader can be productive but is she useful? Parenting is hardly productive, but supremely useful. A robot that affixes windshields to automobiles is both productive and useful, but is separate from the community, so it’s total utility benefits fewer people than the other examples. As for basic cable comedians in the penumbra of their professional lives, we are neither particularly useful nor especially productive.

Which presents something of a quandary. I imagine there are many people in my situation. Retirees, perhaps. People with limited mobility or chronic illness People whose skillsets have grown antiquated – consider the nation’s poor switchboard operators! I have an advantage in that my condition is, perhaps, temporary. Unlike those switchboard operators, I could receive a call at any time welcoming me back to the world of the working.

In the meantime, however, I am left with calendars of empty pages I am in no rush to fill. Yes, money is tight, but money always feels tight. Yes, I am whiling away my handsomeness. And yes, I should probably get a job over at Trader Joe’s like that dude who used to be on The Cosby Show. Truthfully, though, I don’t care. And my not caring is a beautiful thing.

I understand that I have gotten very lucky to be able to subsist in my Savannah manse without care. (Can one have worry without care? Because I am worried but I simultaneously don’t care, if that makes sense.) When I was a young and aspiring actor, I always imagined that my life would mostly be lived in a state of unemployment, anyway, so the fact that it’s taken me this long to arrive here is, frankly, astonishing.

Now that I am here, however, I am faced with the dilemma of those with too much free time invariably must confront. What the hell do you do with yourself? Obviously, the correct answer to this question is poker. And I do play my share. But poker is the ultimate “unproductive, not useful” pastime. Although it is fun when it’s not horrible.

(That’s why professional poker players often end up having existential crises: they realize they’ve devoted their most productive years to an activity that benefits almost exactly nobody. But it is fun.)

Thankfully, I have this Substack and my small but mighty readership. Writing is one of the few things I can do with some regularity that makes me feel both productive and useful. In fact, the reason I began writing at all is because I knew that my acting career would always be in the hands of other people, but writing is something I can control myself.

I cook dinner. I practice piano (I have always been, and shall always remain, terrible). I let the lyrics of John Lennon’s “Watching the Wheels” burble across my brain. I watch the birds and walk the dogs. I make idle plans and sometimes follow through. And I try to stay patient with myself and with the people in my life because even though I’m usually pretty good with my inertia, there are times when I start to fold inward like an origami dog turd. When that happens, I have to make a concerted effort to be present for others because, again, community. And when all else fails, there’s always Hint of Lime Tostitos.

So it’s Friday. Pizza night. The sun is out and the birds are squabbling over the backyard birdseed. Some friends are flying in for the weekend, which will be fun, but not productive. And I’m still in my PJs. Guess it’s time to get dressed.