Five Things I Enjoyed This Week

A Friday afternoon synopsis

I started writing a piece called What I Think About 'Hard Work' When I'm Working Hard

However, I never got round to reaching a conclusion. It was a lovely process that reminded me some thoughts - even with some extra articulation - don’t amount to anything really worth saying.

Anyway, the gist was something like this:

Collectively, we admire hard work. Forty-five hour weeks to kick-start a career. Good. Fifty hour weeks to provide for a family. Good. Fifty-five hour weeks to future proof for retirement. Good. A bit of stress, a few takeaways here and there, compromising on the occasional week of exercise. No problem, you’re working hard!

- but somewhere, our love of work ethic (is that a different thing altogether?!) fades, and the tone changes. I think they need to look after themselves more, or they’re always busy with work or I think they need to find a little more balance. On an individual and personal level, this type of comment - from concerned friends and family - alludes to a tipping point where hard work no longer justifies a certain lifestyle. Damn - you’re working too hard!

Keenan the business guru will tell you that hard work is about how you’ve “gotta do the tasks you fucking hate”, whilst the New York Times will profess the dangers of performative workaholism. Ultimately, deciding on where you’ll find the tipping point is subjective and unequivocally complicated.

That was where my brain got to, all whilst adding some horticultural touches to the harbour view of a Sydney apartment; my lower back aching and my hamstrings at their elastic limit from carrying endless soil bags.

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So instead of finding a neat conclusion that makes sense, I’m sharing Five Things I Enjoyed This Week.

1. Walking slowly - at least 30% slower than your usual pace - on a full stomach. A small amount of tilt backwards, feeling very medieval, and rotund. Three variations of pizza inside me, with absolutely no interest in getting home, and a strong appetite to chat with anyone that gives me an excuse to stop.

2. Watching someone else acknowledge that they’ve been caught by me doing something that they probably shouldn’t be doing. Example: 50 year old adult male sneaking outside the grounds of APIA Leichhardt FC, to have a cigarette at the half time of a kids game he is refereeing. Not showing best practice for aspiring athletes and he knows it.

3. Feeling so tired that you’re happy to risk the micro-nap on public transport. Three stops until you’re home, but My God! how good does 3 minutes sleep feel?

4. Not so much a straightforward feeling of enjoyment - but I enjoyed the stimulation of thoughts that followed seeing an industrial scale recycling centre. Just a reminder around Christmas time that 90% of the things you want this year will become someone else’s responsibility one day, and most likely end up in landfill. And nothing you can buy will ever make you more whole, as Kae Tempest said.

5. Buying old magazines and reading opinion/editorial pieces. I got a copy of Quarterly Essay, published just a few months after the ‘08 Financial Crisis. Lots of words written with authority that could not have predicted the future state of the world any less well. So I’ll be reading this week’s news columns with a close critical eye.

What did you enjoy this week, or what did you hate? It’s Friday, so take a moment to reply via this email! Might just reach 200 subscribers by Sunday.