Category: Life

  • Rest as a Reward

    “There’ll be time to rest when you’re dead.”

    That particular quote has been attributed to a few people throughout history, including Catholic saints, Greek philosophers and Robert De Niro, but it always brushed me the wrong way.

    The idea of rest being a reward, instead of a requirement, strikes me as one of the worst and poorly executed ideas to take root in human culture. And one doesn’t have to look too far to see some horrendous ideas we’ve been privy to throughout history.

    Going right back to antiquity, the gift of the Genesis creation story is it showcases this omniscient, all-powerful Creator of the Universe who rests on the seventh day. This gave birth to the Sabbath, and ultimately the weekend, because if God needs to rest, then we sure as hell better do it as well.

    Take a look at what all our advances in biology have shown:

    Best thing you can do for your physical and mental health? Good night’s sleep.
    Want to grow stronger? Rest your muscles for a day.
    Need your brain to be more focused? Rest it for a while.

    The closest activities we have to the benefits of rest are walking and proper nutrition.

    Yet, we persist in this insane idea that rest should be something that happens later. We’ve been duped into the damaging ideology that we should be constantly moving, hustling, working until…

    we die?

    Consider how quickly people age when they retire from their workplaces and have nothing to keep them occupied. Having never learned to rest, or even pursue hobbies for pure leisure, they often find death knocking at their door pretty quickly. Understanding there are various other reasons this happens, the sudden lack of purpose in their lives is damaging.

    My biggest angst is the influx of technology, all designed to help us do things faster and easier to “free up time.” Yet, instead of completing tasks in a fraction of the time and using the rest to enjoy life, we’ve accepted an accelerated work schedule that now requires us to create tools to free up time for the tools we’re already using that were meant to free up time in the first place! I mean, instead of implementing “AI Responses to emails to get through them quickly,” maybe we should ask why we’re even fielding so many emails in the first place.

    Now, it is understandable why this idea percolated in our consciousness.

    People who rest have time to think. They have to time to connect with each other. To re-align themselves. They have time to recognize their life isn’t meant to be indentured to others, that a bigger picture exists and life is more than being a busy bee (who, by the way, only live weeks to a few months).

    The most dangerous idea that could come out of all of this is they could fall in line with the existentialists and create their own purpose in life, rather than accepting the one that’s been given to them.

    All this would be horrible to those who have tried to control the narrative of our lives.

    When it comes time to do the work, do it.

    But when it comes time to rest, take it. Defend it. Protect it.

    And don’t let anyone make you feel guilty for it.

  • An Open Letter to the People of My Past

    This requires a great deal of humility on my part and I’m happy to eat that pie as I delve into matters that have weighed on me recently. 

    Growing up, I was a shy and grossly insecure kid who wanted nothing more than to be accepted by others. I was extremely hard on myself and could never live up to my own expectations, which is why I could never accept compliments as they came—even though I cherished them. 

    My social decorum was largely dictated by my observations of others who I felt had a better handle on how to naturally be around people. To say I didn’t know how to read a room would be a gross understatement and if I were to dictate my inner dialogue at the time, someone might accuse me of being on the spectrum.

    The thing is, I was socially awkward, but spent great swaths of energy hiding it. It was a complete facade, but the veneer was transparent and you all saw through it. 

    Yet, despite seeing my act, you still enjoyed the show. While I interpreted everything through a negative lens and made the worst assumptions of what you thought of me, you treated me very well. 

    In fact, you were overly supportive and encouraging. I couldn’t see it at the time because I was stuck in my own world of inadequacy, but you were really amazing towards me. 

    When people speak about advantages in life, I recognize now I was miles ahead of others not because of any financial birthright, but by the incredible people who surrounded me. You encouraged, pushed and inspired me to pursue life to its fullest potential and despite recognizing it decades later, I still want to say thank you. 

    To my English teachers, who I always held in high esteem but held contempt towards, please forgive my misguided anger. At the mention of me wanting to be a writer, you encouraged me instead to pursue computers and I always held that as tinder to fuel my writing goals. What I recognize now is you weren’t swaying me away from the written word. You simply didn’t see how deeply buried that passion was versus the passion I was visibly showing for the computer field. 

    To the few who actually bullied and made fun of me, I’ve let that go a long time ago. You don’t get any space in my life or thoughts, but I do hope you’ve matured. If you haven’t or continue to relish in those days, then please politely go perform extremities upon yourself.

    To those random strangers who would engage me in the wildest conversations, you certainly made my upbringing interesting as it taught me the wild variance of ways people see the world. I always wondered why you felt comfortable just chatting with me, but I appreciate the kindness in the exchange. 

    Some people had it real tough growing up and while I faced my own challenges, I think it’s fair to say the only tough part of my early years was never being able to get out of my own way. And now that I’ve removed that roadblock from my existence, I finally see you all there cheering me on. 

    For that, I love you and I thank you. 

  • Just Shut it Down

    Today’s post by Seth Godin had me light up at this paragraph:

    “Simply shut down some channels of communication. Hand off entire swaths of engagement to someone else. Not next week, but now. Not for awhile, but forever.

    Attention doesn’t scale, no matter how hard we try.”

    While he’s specifically referring to the work environment with the endless incoming streams from numerous angles, it’s an apropos way of thinking about our own lives. 

    We were only built to handle so much and yet we continue to act as if we can do it all, or continue to make space for people who drain us. All for what?

    Hand it off, shut it down and give your attention to where you want it to be.

  • The Unexamined Life

    The final queston on my philosophy exam is as follows:

    “The unexamined life is not worth living.” -Socrates

    After everything we’ve studied in this course, what do you think this means?

    Here’s my favourite answer from a student:

    These are the ramblings of a madman. Socrates was an incredible thinker, but I cannot agree with this statement. He is saying that the beauty of life comes from reflecting upon it; reflecting on the nature of existence, the human condition, and all the aspects of the life that we live. 

    This does resonate greatly with a few people, and I myself am guilty of indulging in the benign pleasures of pressing the inquisitor’s torture devices against the nature of my existence to try and squeeze some answers out of it. However, for the most part, life is better when we live it. If I was given a million dollars, I would spend it. I would not keep it in a pile, staring at it, wondering why I have it. It would be a terrible waste! 

    Life is a gift. I understand that some people are less gifted. Many people live horrible lives and are in terrible conditions. However, there are many beautiful experiences of life that are constant in all environments, no matter how hostile. So for the most part, life is beautiful. We should live it, enjoy it, and, if we want to, reflect critically upon it. But life with no critical reflection is still worth living. 

    Life is worth living because we can feel pleasure. We can feel pain and know we’re alive. We know pleasure because of pain and vice versa. Those are the two forces that hold together the human condition and the experience of life. 

    We can watch our children grow up to become valuable members of society who live life with all the values we raised them with. We can look at this, and know we have done good. We can walk out of the operating room and tell a mother that her baby is going to live, and we will know we’ve done good. We can write beautiful plays and music and watch the audience weep and cheer, and we will know we’ve done good. We can heal the world and make it a good place. We can sleep with people we love and feel the physical and emotional pleasures. This is what it means to live. We live for life itself, not for the ability to reflect upon it. The reflection is an option, and people’s lives are perfectly valuable without it. 

    Life is worth living regardless of whether or not we examine it. Philosophy is a hobby, not a compulsory activity that dictates the value of a life. I understand what Socrates is saying. Many people enjoy philosophy, myself included. But it has never sat right with me that he uses the phrase “not worth living.” Berate me if I am misunderstanding the question. I have told you what I think it means, and I have told you why I think it is grossly incorrect. 

    “Not worth living”. . . It’s a rich joke coming from someone who threw his life away by insulting the jury . . . 

  • Time to Start Again

    In 2015, I started vitomichienzi.com after writing for several other sites in an attempt to make one home for all my work.

    After ten years and 1800 posts, the worst happened: the site went down, completely.

    I’m still not completely sure what happened, but after having issues with my web host for the last few years, I made the decision to transfer the domain to another host. And while I have a backup of all my posts, their online presence is gone and to recover them in a new place is a challenge I’m not ready to tackle.

    This has led me to really face a pressing question on whether I should continue writing online or not. My humble beginnings of doing so date back to the early 2000s and have gone through several reiterations and rebirths.

    Mind you, the early days were very much ego driven in an effort to be “discovered” (the path/dream you’re “supposed” to take as a writer). As time went on, it became an effort to improve, but also an observation of my own thinking.

    When I discovered people were actually reading, sharing and discussing my posts, I recognized a greater good could be had.

    This is my dilemma.

    Writing will always be a big part of who I am, but this latest crash may be a sign that it might be time to move on… or that it’s time to transform it once again. I don’t know.

    My site has been a solo endeavour and paid for as a labour of love. I’ve never asked for donations, nor have I ever attempted to monetize what I’ve offered freely. I never intend to as I don’t want my creative output to be dictated by monetary gain, which, in my observation, hinders its purpose.

    For me, the real value is the attention you have given to my sporadic, and sometimes nonsensical, musings. I can’t say enough how much I’ve appreciated your responses to my work—especially when my focus has dramatically shifted over the decade.

    Hence, I’ve decided to do the following:

    I purchased the domain vitos.blog (upon which this is being written right now) and will use that as my new workbench. In addition to being more focused, it also has a much easier website name to remember.

    vitomichienzi.com still exists, but will redirect to the above website. However, it will still be my main contact email and you can still email me there as it’s back online.

    Finally, after writing for twenty years online, I’ve decided this will be my last hurrah. However long this lasts will be it.

    Do I have it in me to go another ten years? Probably.

    Do I know enough when it’s time to gracefully bow out? Yes, I do.

    We start again.

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