Sitting on the icy beach: A seaworthy ideology on time-wasting?
This is why both Hawaii and Alaska are the top two US states with the highest well-being score.
This week, I am reminded of this piece of “On Time,” The Prophet, by Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931).
And an astronomer said, Master, what of Time?
And he answered:
You would measure time the measureless and the immeasureable.
You would adjust your conduct and even direct the course of your spirit according to hours and seasons.
Of time you would make a stream upon whose bank you would sit and watch its flowing.
My relationship with time is like that with molten lava.
It’s underneath everything. And I never think much of it. Until everything explodes.
It always seems to be the running theme in all of my internal warfare. Like whenever I have to make decisions. Suddenly a wall of questions is hushed down into a singular one:
Is it worth it?
Like how a trip home involves almost half a year of advance plane ticket bookings. This is a decision that, unless you are the few who likes to throw money around, is pretty much irreversible. It wouldn’t matter if you’re sick. It wouldn’t matter if plans change.
If your family lives far away like mine, a trip to visit them half-way around the world always costs almost as much as renting a decent apartment for one whole month in the US.
And yet, when you get home, it isn’t always the reception you expect.
Firstly, after twenty-something hours of being stuck in an airplane, you are expected to smile, entertain, and be social for anyone who picks you up at the airport.
Secondly, you are then expected to answer well-intentioned yet mind-numbing questions. Like …
When will you do that next thing?
Will you buy a house if you move?
When will you settle?
When will you have kids?
When will *they* graduate?
All the while, we’re thinking,
And THIS is what we chose to spend vacation time on?
Is there something going on underneath that we’re not really aware of?
Then the mind might wander off into some place otherworldly. Like a quiet beach-resort in Bali or Hawaii. Far from the expectations of life.
Basically, we want to be in a warm place, and freeze all our activities. It’s almost like we want an idealized version of a cool beach. Or even an “icy beach,” if such a thing exist. And though we don’t exactly know what that looks like, we’re holding on to the hope that it exists.
But then another quiet voice creeps up.
As much as we want to, it might sometimes feel like it’s a “waste” just to sit on the beach and do absolutely nothing. Even if we deserved it.
When we have just two weeks of time off each year, the decision-making can get more complex. Especially if the family we haven’t visited in some time lives far away. Or if they live so far that it takes all of two weeks to even recover from the abrupt 12-hour time zone difference.
At the same time, though, what about that quiet place by the ocean? The mind might then race back to our work. And to the sneaky feeling that, if we stay away from work for too long, we feel bad for the people who have to carry the load while we’re gone.
Worse, we might worry that we start to become replaceable.
It’s like we’re experiencing Time Claustrophobia.
The long search for the perfect seat: Measuring worth by walking far to get near (enough) to the beach
Of course, if and when you DO get to the beach, because of this feeling of time claustrophobia, the main activity becomes: finding the perfect spot for sitting on the beach and doing nothing.
I don’t know about you. But whenever I go to the beach, I’m guilty of this.
I’d walk up and down the coast for thirty minutes looking for the perfect spot.
Mostly because I know that once you get settled in, it’s hard to move. Nor do I want to move. A mix of sand, heat, ocean waves, breeze, sweat, and lethargy—all makes it all the more impossible.
I don’t think I’m the only one who does this, though.
A beach park Master Plan in Maui, Hawaii proves this. In looking at the same stretch of the ocean, the planning officials have to go through the same thought process. Except they do it on a more technical level.
But even THEY go through a list of questions.
Which stretch of flat sands be for beach chairs and umbrellas?
What about public restrooms and wash area?
Where is the highest and best use for cars to park?
What about wastewater and pump station?
The sand berm and vegetation restoration area?
OK, I don’t think about sand berm, of course. But you get the idea. The list goes on. So,
If we’re all constantly looking for the best spot—so that we don’t feel like it’s a total waste of our hard-earned vacation—is there really an underlying warfare we’re not even aware of?
Prime beaches charge a premium for beach chairs and umbrellas. And even more for cabanas. So there’s obviously an invisible seating chart in our heads that we use to judge whether the beach is a waste of our time.
This seating hierarchy actually starts the minute we step foot in a Boeing 787.
Ever notice how the first thing you notice when you walk into the airplane, is the First Class cabin? Why do they take Economy passengers through a supposedly private area that, once they’re seated, they are prohibited to enter?
It’s like if we go to a football stadium, and most of the 80,000 ticket holders have to stroll through the VIP boxes.
It’s strange. And likely intentional. Fear-Of-Missing-Out is real. And as a psychological trigger, it may make u work even harder to get that First Class ticket next time. Or to simply empty out the bank account in reckless abandon.
All in the name of sitting on the beach and doing nothing. After a hard, long year working in the US.
Sometimes I wonder, though, if they can’t fill up first class seats for a particular leg, what is the corporate incentive behind leaving those seats completely empty? What prevents Economy passengers from paying additional fees to fill up seats that would’ve been empty upon departure?
It’s enough to make us think of questions we don’t normally dare to think: “If we are deciding between a two-week vacation to sit on the beach and a visit to our family who lives far away, which would we choose and what price would we pay?”
The unfiltered pros and cons warfare: Sitting on the beach or visiting family?
The reality is that long-haul flights, or any flights, are no joke.
It really makes us look at worth and waste differently.
Years before we’re fighting over who got which spot on the beach, Winston Churchill was fighting France on the beach for territorial sovereignty. They knew beaches are key.
The armed forces were way ahead of us. They believe the beach was not a waste of time. But they hardly had to define the word “waste” to know that the beach is important.
And yet, when you look at signs of what thinkers and doers consider “wasteful” in the US, here’s how they define it:
Definition 1: Things that have no clear endgame, and
Definition 2: Things that are either too specific or aren’t thick or rich.
In other words, in the US, we see waste as anything that lacks humanly perceptible definition. Things that are either too small or too fluid. Things that fall into the categories of Infra and Ultra, Sub and Super, Under and Over.
This means that we tend to say that things are “worth” our time, when they are within our present ability to personally or socially define its outcome.
When we’ve spent the whole year working in the US, and we’re deciding whether to spend two weeks visiting family or sitting on the beach somewhere warm, we’re just trying to find these defined edges. Boundaries that help us categorize what’s superfluous and what’s not. What’s wasteful and what’s worthwhile.
Perhaps this is part of the reason why Hawaii and Alaska holds the top two spot on the US Well-Being Index. Sure, they’re both beautiful places.
But the extreme heat and extreme cold may have little to do with temperature. Because …
Our internal warfare is simply the lifelong pursuit of clarity and the ability to define—and decide—when we’re empty, and when we’re full.
Knowing that this is going on in our heads can help. For me, at least, it helps me feel less at odds with my decisions. Especially when I realize that the oddity has little to do with time. Or with worth. Or with family. Or with income. Or even with me.
And it has everything to do with our tendency to edge-carve our definition of everything.
What about you?
If you have to choose between sitting on the beach and doing nothing, or traveling to visit family, which is more “worth” your time?
Leave a comment, I’d love to hear.
-Thalia
In the next few weeks, I’ll be sharing what I found on:
The underbelly of US’s city squares, and why it’s the reason why the same few people keep winning at everything.
America’s gladiatorial affair with the check-marked bucket list and what the few people do with it to protect their holidays.
Ah, the old but important struggle between familial duty, and self care. Perhaps in these days of zoom etc it is perhaps not so important to fly home, even if there is not the same connection over a screen. But on the other hand there isn’t the attendant jet lag and resulting ‘holiday’ tiredness. As for just being, in silence, this is much underrated, and as a suggestion ( in the context of Buddhist meditation) had it; ‘Don’t just do something, sit there’.
I’ve traveled a LOT during my career in entertainment. This is what we often did and I still do- purchase 3 coach seats and sometimes a whole row of 5. This method guarantees extra seats for you and you can purchase them fairly inexpensive early in advance. If the plane is overcrowded you will be moved up to business or first class.