6/3/2014

I guess a good thing about the cult of busyness is that you work yourself into sickness and New York has great paid sick leave, so you end up getting back the vacation days you didn't take.  Let me tell you this:  I don't care about how many hours you work, and if you say a shockingly large number, I will be unimpressed.  I will be concerned and worried for you, because I know for a fact that this is a destructive part of our culture.

I'm not saying this to complain about my lot.  I am enjoying all of this, of course, more than I have been able to adequately describe in these posts.  I was sitting in the Chambers of City Council and smirking, realizing that this is how I am spending my summer vacation.  It is magnificent, and I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world, or, rather, anything short of a trip to west Africa.  But it also has an expiration date.  There is an end and it is near, and so long days don’t bother me one bit.  I also have almost literally zero obligations outside my job, or at least zero obligations in the tri-state area--I do not have to look in on family or hang out with friends or maintain any other sort of relationship.  I am in a uniquely good position to enjoy this strain.

But it is not hard for me to see how we are burning ourselves out, all of us who are involved in this cult of busyness.  These jobs don't end, that's the thing, and so even on this, the day of your daughter's wedding, you are checking your email, you are answering phone calls.  This isn't unique to city politics, of course.  It's not unique to New York.  In college we are constantly comparing calendars, we are so proud of our workloads and paper lengths and tiredness. Don't even talk to us until we've had our coffee.  I am a part of this.  I felt so good about the fact that I had worked 50 hours my first week here.  But that’s kind of fucked up, isn’t it?  I don’t know if it’s fucked up because it’s not actual pride of results or if it’s because it’s self-indulgent and aggrandizing or if it’s because it devalues the aspects of a person’s life that are not on the clock, but I know it doesn’t make me feel good.  The cult of busyness doesn’t sit right with me, that’s all I know.

I don’t really know where I’m going with this.  Consider this post my way of sticking a pin this topic, to use a phrase I do not really understand but adore wholeheartedly.  I would strain and try to write more and more cogently about it, but instead I’m going to do this:  Tell you I’m tired, watch baseball on my phone and go to sleep.