From the ages of 8-11, I spent my summers in Saltaire, Fire Island, a tiny town across the bay from Bayshore Long Island, accessible only by ferry. I vaguely recall the first summer our parents enrolled my younger brother Damon and me in day camp where they made us swim in the cold, jelly-fish-ridden bay early in the morning. We quit the camp within the week and were largely left to our own devices after that.
The island didn’t have cars, so you got around by bike. That meant it was safe for kids, and late-70s/early-80s parents could check out entirely. By the time I was 10 or 11, I would wake up whenever it suited me, scarf down a bowl of cereal, grab my bike and return for dinner. No one knew where we were — though the baseball field was a good bet — and no one cared.
I remember one time we brought a two-man inflatable raft to the ocean on a choppy day and had the bright idea to ride the waves in it. We got so destroyed by one wave, Damon wound up face-down in the sand underneath the raft. He was crying, but no real harm done.
. . .
To this day, I often find myself projecting into the future. “In 12 hours, I’ll be back in Lisbon, in 48 hours, I’ll be done with my running for the week, in 72 hours, etc.” And when the time comes, and I’m done with whatever travel or unpleasant task, I’ll start all over again.
If you tell this to someone, they’ll often say, “You need to be in the present.” Yeah no shit. That’s like telling someone you’re an alcoholic and them saying, “You should stop drinking.” It’s a bad habit, I’m aware. But where did this habit come from, and why is it so entrenched?
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My summers were a stark contrast to the school year where like everyone else I was up at 7:00 am, exhausted and forced to sit through class after class all day, the teachers droning on about something in which I had no interest. I remember watching the clock, as though trying to make the hands move faster with my mind. Only 20 minutes left, only 10 minutes, only five. Thank God it’s Friday.
. . .
I’ve never had a real job. I worked on the Truckee River one summer blowing up rafts, stacking them on trucks and putting people in the water. I cleaned houses one summer, I worked for free during law school for the NY Attorney General’s office, I ghost wrote car blurbs for Motor Trend and Car And Driver and then I worked for RotoWire (in fantasy sports) for 22 years before we sold it. The idea of grinding away at a law firm or some other joyless menial mental labor filled me with dread. Even tedious tasks like editing our annual NFL magazine, going over the copy word by word four or five times was torture. And I had a dream job and owned part of the company.
. . .
I partied a lot in my 20s and 30s, and it was not without consequence. I have a beautiful 12-YO daughter now, but we started too late to have more than one kid. Had I known then what I know now, I would have started a big family much earlier. I would have been more serious and made it a priority. But even though I wasn’t exactly an alcoholic, I had a strong urge to use the weekend as an escape. It was my time, and I wanted to use it to chase the pleasures that were denied to me during the slog of the work week.
. . .
For parents, school is kid storage, but for kids like me it was prison. My biggest takeaway was there are dreadful, pointless things society wants from you, and you should get those done with the least possible effort so you could do whatever you wanted later. That life is divided into appeasing the machine and having fun, and the problem to solve was how to get rich despite having a very low tolerance for appeasement. The point of getting rich was to do whatever you wanted whenever you wanted and to dispense with the dreadful, pointless things forever.
. . .
Now that I have no job, and the dreadful, pointless things are kept to a minimum, I mostly do whatever I want. But the younger version of me would be surprised to know that includes running at the track three times a week, doing pull-ups at the local park, writing and editing my own essays, learning and using to the extent I’m capable the challenging new freedom tech protocols (bitcoin and nostr.) I’ve largely stopped drinking, almost never smoke weed, fast once a week, am gluten-free, rarely eat junk food, don’t drive a fancy car. I save rather than spend most of my money.
There is nothing from which to escape and nowhere to go anymore. And yet my mind still projects into the future, perpetuating the dichotomy between obligations and leisure, indentured servitude and escapism. It’s as if I’m back in Saltaire, the whole day every day in front of me, but it’s only June, and I haven’t yet adjusted fully to the reality that school’s out, and it’s really, actually summer.
Just as soon as I post this essay, walk the dog, do my pull-ups at the park, I’ll start to relax and enjoy myself.