Member-only story
I have a new job that takes me in a reverse commute — up the Hudson in the late afternoons; I love this commute, at least I do right now. Just getting out of the city; hearing crickets and enjoying a little quiet. I have a complicated relationship with work, and I have a complicated relationship with the rhythm of daily life in general, but the smallest things make the biggest difference — long commutes are not created equal, where you’re going, and how you’re going matter. Little squibs of fresh air or fresh sunlight, flexible schedules rather than fixed schedules, small rather than big — even if the work you’re doing is fundamentally the same, the environment is more important than the work. Work in general is changing. Other than civil service and education, the 9–5 is dead or dying; first year lawyers or bankers or doctors work all the time — but I think a vast majority of younger people work irregular hours, and don’t really value work at all. I don’t, not really. I consider reading a book, or forming a new relationship to be work. I consider having an interesting dream work. I consider all authentic creativity work. And I suspect that most members of my generation do as well. The problem is that work destroys authentic creativity; the problem is that a lot of people pass off bullshit creativity — empty creativity — as real creativity, or work. Every moment could be loaded with meaning; we should feel like the framework of our existence can hardly hold up all the meaning its bearing. Heavy — we should feel heavy. Instead, we end up neurotically light. The train crosses from Yonkers into Harlem, I have earbuds in, I type all this in tight quarters, I eat goji berries from a bag in my blazer pocket. I watch the reflections of other travelers in the mirror.
