You can’t enjoy fishing until you’ve learnt to cast
But anyone can get out there and make the public part of public holidays mean something, writes Mark Barnes
It’s public holiday season and if you throw in weekends that’s another 12 days. Seventeen days out of 42 is a lot of time at home, especially when we’re spending all the “work” days at home too, thanks to the pandemic. Let’s hope this isn’t the fifth wave of Covid we see coming.
Some people are working. It’s flat out for restaurants and resorts at this time of year, when everybody who isn’t nobody is on holiday at the coast or in the bush. They’re liking being busy after the quiet and costly past couple of years.
In truth, if you’ve not been busy then getting time off isn’t fun. Friday after-work drinks were always the best after a tough week at the office. The best rest is earned. We know that.
Our unemployment figures are alarming. We know that too. It’ sa privilege to have a job, to earn a living, to earn a rest. The more challenged you are, the better. Time passes more quickly when we’re flat out and busy, against a deadline, under pressure, doing something worthwhile, or having fun. It slows down when we’re lazing about with nothing to do — even if the science tells us otherwise.
The vast majority of our population doesn’t find themselves hard at work. If you do, shut up and get on with it, no complaints. Whatever our different work situations may be, we still have spare time and filling it with things you like doing is necessary for an interesting life.
Physical exercise may be the best use of free time, but don’t stress yourself mentally for not doing the physical stuff. If it’s a cold and rainy Sunday, stay in bed, for goodness sake (this can also work on warm, sunny days). Being kind to yourself is good karma.
The worst kinds of exercise are those which judge and measure. Gym. The trick is to do something you enjoy, where exercise is a by-product and not the sole purpose of the activity. Watching sport is also exercise, if you’re enthusiastic enough.
Whatever it is, reading or writing or gardening or painting, our brains prefer to be engaged rather than idle. We don’t enjoy doing nothing, other than by exception.
If you’re really lucky you’ll find something beyond work — and exercise — that you can’t wait to get stuck into whenever you have a spare moment. Such luck can be made, but you first have to make the effort to acquire the minimum level of competence required for you to start enjoying yourself. You can’t enjoy fishing until you’ve learnt to cast.
Life is a series of equations that must be kept in balance to ensure equilibrium and build foundations for peace and prosperity.
Whatever you do, don’t punish yourself in your free time. Don’t think too much. Don’t regret things for longer than is necessary. Don’t compare or judge yourself by what you think you see in others. We often see a rehearsed surface, and usually only the asset side of the balance sheet is public knowledge (if not on display).
If, despite your best efforts at keeping yourself busy, you still have a free day on your hands, you could do worse than indulge in a bit of people spotting.
Head out to a side-walk café, plonk yourself down, and watch the species at play. I recently went for fish and chips in Kalk Bay. It was live theatre, just sitting at my table on the pavement.
Couples are always the best. Some so obviously “soort soek soort” and others so “opposites attract”. Some bored, some in love, some just managing, some needing, but all in some way playing a role in making the free time worth sharing.
There’s no dress code in Kalk Bay. Local threadbare cool comfort meets Joburg, “We always dress up, okay?”, obvious and out of place, but noticed and accepted. Lots of people comfortably barefoot, others trying to be, but not there yet. Everybody eating ice cream. The drone of traffic (single lane, no overtaking) becomes white noise, apart from the odd show-off who spent more cash on the music system than the car, and insists on sharing, widows open to avoid being shattered by the vibrations. Bits ’n pieces shops line the main drag, some of them actually selling real antiques among their wares. All of them with something to offer spendthrift visitors. Plenty of dogs on leads, most better groomed than their human best friends. Occasional musicians, some dressed up, old instruments fighting their way through familiar tunes, earning a crust.
We’re a wonderful mix, we humans, especially when we have a day off and nothing better to do than wander about together, in public, on a public holiday. See you there next year, for battered pollock, chips and a side salad. Don’t wear gym tights.