The air is heavy today. It breathes as the plot and the environment. I look up and see a tree with what appears to be an entire dead tree ungrowing out from its midsection. There are young people talking about Europe across the café from me. I want to go. I feel drawn away from my current reality, but that just means I need to look more closely. I drank the last of my bag of coffee today and must replenish. The caffeine makes the early mornings feel not like interrupted sleep, but like a fire-water-ritual. I wonder what it’s like to be 18 and talking about Europe. I didn’t know much about Europe when I was 18.
There is a sign that says “No Idling Zone” with an idling car in front of it. The air is heavy. The sun may be burning away some of the humidity, but the idling feels like my zone. When I reference myself, do I become Hapsburgian? Making children without sufficient fresh genetic material? Is it horrible to make such a metaphor? I still don’t know very much about Europe.
A pandemic has taught me to use my eyes to communicate messages. I walked past the idling Subaru, tried to kindly look at the driver, and then directed my eyes to the No Idling sign. The vehicle is no long running. I’m not looking back to see if she thinks I’m an asshole. I’m happily relaxing in the slightly less toxic air. Though I continue to wonder if my concern with the air is idle paranoia. Perhaps that’s the sign of an unreasonable fear.
I’ve been thinking a lot about work. I’m happily idle right now and the air around my idleness feels like and without combustion. And I’m walking around with a reasonably well-charged battery. But everyone else seems to be working. Except these young people headed to Europe. And going to cafes feels like a performance of work and leisure. Though maybe if there were more idle young and old people in the cafes, I would feel less conspicuous. Though here I am working. If writing can be considered work. Some people think of it that way. When there are editors and publishers? When there is money involved? I’ve been reading about groups of people who have fed themselves not out of surpluses or exchanges, but by getting what they need at the moment they need it. I’m interested in this methodology. It feels strange to consider this while living off of surplus and exchange. Like I’m not experimenting with something that I actually really don’t want, in a society where the accumulation of surplus is the celebrated thing, rather than idleness and art. Where can I go where the accumulation of surplus is not particularly important, where idleness and art proliferate, and where I can eat well and sleep comfortably? New York City does not seem like the place for this. But semi-suburban Madison feels like it is not exactly the place for this either, even if the surplus runs out more slowly here. Ten hours of effort a week feels like a maximum. And certainly I could run websites that have traffic and traffic in advertising. Or build up some other sort of robot asset. The rentier way. Maybe I will do this when the surplus starts to run out. But I’d rather just be in a place where the things I need are relatively available and the effort needed to acquire them feels as though it fits with who I am. Perhaps this is a part of the reason why I write.
Roman Ryan 