Labour Day.
A virtual Sunday. The most virtual Sundays of all of the Holidays.
Everything I’ve never accomplished comes back to haunt me. Every flawed project, and every disaster comes back to haunt me.
Everything I fear about the future - work, health, family, friends - gives me anxiety. I jump to conclusions all over the place. I am overwhelmed by what I need to do, and what might happen to me. I am full of worry and stress about the consequences of my actions. I think I can’t cope.
I’m tense and nervous and can’t relax.
Low-grade existential dread. I read somewhere that someone described as wondering if she had been productive enough AND whether I had relaxed enough on the weekend/long weekend/holiday/vacation. The answer is “no” to both questions.
This is the burnout syndrome common to the millennial generation, but I’m almost 58. Damn: more anxiety. Have I accomplished enough? Have I been a good father, friend, husband, son, employee? I can’t bear to think about it.
Whether I sleep any other night of the week, I am typically up all night on Fridays, the pressure to “relax” and “let go of the week” too much, so the occasion to do so backfires. Sunday is the other night I can’t generally sleep. And then it’s Sunday: did I get enough done? Did I relax enough? Can I fix everything, finish everything, learn everything,, and do and be everything?
This is ridiculous, but as tangible as can be. This feeling, and “the Sunday Doom Syndrome” in general goes back to when I was 11 and beginning grade 7 at Henry Hudson Senior Public School (still there). I don’t think think there’s much that can actually be done about it, aside from the mindfulness-meditation-yoga-gratitude-YouTube videos-CBD gummies lazy susan of modern non-pharmaceutical treatments for the range of conditions that ail and define us: PTSD, ADHD, OCD, borderline personality disorder, bipolar affective disorder, paranoia, anxiety disorders, schizoaffective disorder, alcoholism and addiction, eating disorders, and on it goes.
Those are good things and, in the form of the AA steps have been largely responsible for saving my ass. The AA steps can be summed up as Surrender, Hope, Commitment, Honesty, Truth (Disclosure?), Willingness, Humility, Reflection, Amendment, Vigilance, Attunement, (Meditation/Mindfulness/Prayer), Service. Something like that. When I have been actively practicing the steps, I swear I’ve been less tormented by Sunday Doom as I am today.
So the answer is obvious.
An end to the current phase of capitalism would be a start. Not that long ago, when I would have been a coal miner in Scotland or in Quebec, my days would have been longer, entirely toxic, and with death perpetually at the door. My only respite would be a Sunday that would revolve around church, its own form of torture for me, despite, I’m sure, momentary blasts of pressure from being part of the congregation, and the joy of music that comes with that. But, a few hours later, back in the mine. We’ve made a tiny bit of progress but, given the massive amount of wealth we’ve managed to generate, we seem stuck with the current model of 40 hours (or much more if you’re “management”), with relatively little time actually to exist as homo ludens (playing-humans) as opposed to home sapiens (thinking-humans or homo ergaster, working-humans).
I can’t actually abolish capitalism, or even postindustrial capitalism or whatever you want to call this strange “wonderland”, which is too bad.
I am stuck then with that lazy susan, starting with acceptance, and then maybe a mix of gratitude and meditation, if that can be separated from rumination. And then - action. Like, why I am I writing this and not reading/ Or at a film? Or meeting with like-minded souls in AA? Or getting in touch with this person and that person and so forth? Or playing with Meredith’s cat, Bob Fosse? Or maybe organizing the basement (which I have turned into a creative activity in the past). Or perusing the archives at the TPL? Or wandering through some Toronto park? Or, perhaps (and only perhaps), cooking, but that activity is so full of anxiety and negative feelings, that I’m not sure I can move it back to where it might be helpful for some time.
Otherwise I am simply listening to Nick Cave and hoping that something transformational will come from it.