Preface
I told Derek Sivers that I don’t hold anything against him that he said verbally during his podcast interviews. (link) I’ve never been interviewed myself, but if I was on a podcast? With a friend? Then surely I could say stuff I don’t mean.
I might exaggerate, maybe to make a point, maybe to briefly “method act” because I am privately annoyed at something everybody else doesn’t even notice. Like I do when I’m talking to a good natured friend in a bar, even if I’ve barely even touched my first glass. What I would say wouldn’t count, not as much as when I write an essay—deliberate, civilized and polite.
As for Derek, like me he is North American, heir to the Puritan ethic, which for Derek means he hates discovering himself addicted to anything.
(Me too, come to think of it: I used to leave my nice ball cap in my college locker every second day so I wouldn’t become dependant on it)
I don’t hold it against him if Derek says coffee is a physical addiction, even disliking the smell, although many of us—including me—will use decaffeinated to get the same emotional reaction. His work ethic means not understanding why many of us waste hours, “a distraction,” watching Game of Thrones, or talking about TV fantasy at the water cooler. But like I say, I don’t hold verbal words against him or me.
Here’s a letter that I won’t mail, which Derek will know is posted on my blog.
Dear Derek,
…As for coffee, for me it is not physiological:
There’s a B.C. cartoon (7-30-20) where for the first three panels, three cave-people swing clubs at the hero. In the last panel he is standing at a rock labeled “Coffee Shop” He says to the proprietor, “Out of coffee again?” “Yep.” … To have coffee would not make people get all frazzled and aggressive, not like in everyone’s jokes about a coffee buzz. Rather, having it would cause calm noble thoughts. Like with tea. Like me with decaffeinated.
In my mid-twenties I earned a two year diploma for Leisure Services.
(Not for physical education, as I had “no interest in wearing a whistle and a T-shirt and a silly baseball cap”)
We explored some concepts, including “leisure versus distraction.” No doubt such exploring could be a “life time leisure” pursuit.
A distraction story
One year my athletic flatmate and I parted forever: I had a new basement suite; she was going several time zones away to follow a boyfriend, who was following a coach.
We hugged, she had a tear track; then I went off to a donut shop, one which always played nice 1950’s music. The shop was one of my happy “hangouts” for reading, writing and journaling. That day I was surprised: I discovered I was “masking” my sad feelings at the shop—and presumably I always had been: My “coffee and music” cafe was a form of “medicating.” I would never have realized, except my contrast in emotions that day was so extreme once I entered the shop.
I went home and pondered whether my cafe was leisure or distraction.
Of course, many people manage their “ambient feelings” by, say, playing motivational tapes in their car, or listening to a heavy metal album at home, or a gospel radio station while doing laundry, or lighting incense and putting on new age music. I think I am only human, I like my books and cafes and distractions; it’s all fine, the trick is to be aware of what feelings I am choosing to encourage or dull.
A Game of Thrones story:
Visiting Edmonton, staying with Blair, a lawyer and bibliophile, I watched as every visitor was shown the books of Game of Thrones, their attention enthusiastically drawn to the appendix, showing a detailed list of dramatis personae for each royal house, complete with crest, a list that varied from volume to volume as the people perished.
(Link to Blair’s “I still hate television” enthusiastic review of TV’s Firefly)
… One day I walk into my favourite greasy spoon cafe, and spot a regular, an artist and avid reader, wearing a beret and goatee. I walk over, drop my bag at his booth and ask, “Have you got a dollar I can have?” I did not say “borrow” although that’s the usual word.
He checks, starts going through pocket after pocket. As all this searching is going on I say firmly, “I will take a two-dollar coin, but I won’t give change.”
At last he comes up with a dollar, puts in my palm, and I say,“Terrific!” Reach into my bag: “Here, this is for you.” In huge hardcover was the latest instalment of Game of Thrones. Wow! He was very pleased.
I don’t plan to read the series again, (nor Lord of the Rings) but as Blair said, “It was quite a ride!” Call it leisure.
Well aware that Hollywood is only “moving pictures,” I once wore a big button that read, “Never judge a book by its movie.” I won’t use TV for what Harlan Ellison said, “chewing gum for the eyes.” But I won’t reject TV totally. Sometimes? It’s leisure.
Sean Crawford
On the Canadian western prairie,
August 2020
