Quiet Friday Nights

The summer months and I have a complicated, love-hate relationship.

During the school year, I long for some quiet hours of r&r to catch up on some reading, get in a bit more exercise, and generally take time to think. If only I thought half as much as I spoke, what a different world of mine this would be.

Surprisingly, during this summer, I have had all of the above in abundance. My days are long and quiet. I have an excellent space in which to work. And yet, I still spend my time wondering how much more productive I would be in a different situation.

I would chalk up my perpetual unease to living in a "Twilight Zone" of sorts, except that just last week physicists all but proved that we do not live in one.

This is good news really, but not all that good for my pseudo-existentialism. What's next? Worsening unemployment? America shutting down the space program? Lost tribes still in the Amazon? Casey Anthony acquitted of murder? It's all more than my wine-drenched nerves can take.

In truth, my Friday night isn't all that bad. I adore the Pooch in the picture above. The wine isn't bad either, given the $4 I paid for it at Trader Joe's. And the book by Henning Mankell is actually pretty good - a bit heavy on its theme of China as hegemon, but not bad. Even so, in the quiet of the evening, I can't help but wonder if there's more to it all than this.

As if in response to my malaise, I ambled across some life advice tonight from a 97-year-old, Japanese physician. I love the interweb.

According to Dr. Shigeaki Hinohara, the secret to a long, fulfilling life really boils down to 10 or so key points:

1. Don't tire the body with too many rules.
2. Don't let yourself go, and become overweight.
3. Plan ahead.
4. Don't retire.
5. Share your knowledge.
6. Take the stairs. Carry your own stuff.
7. Forget pain by having fun.
8. Don't get caught up in materialism.
9. Life is unpredictable. Get used to it.
10. Find a role model.

[Link]

I think his points are right on balance. I make it a point not to tire my body with too many rules - which is why I consider pizza to be a healthy meal, and why I take it to heart that it's five o'clock somewhere. I also strongly agree with point two. God knows breasts don't belong on men. And I make it a point of personal privilege to lug all my stuff up the stairs of our apartment, per point six, particularly since it wouldn't get up there any other way.

The only point of the venerable Dr. Hinohara that I take issue with is point eight, or getting caught up in materialism. The Ralph Lauren penny loafers that graced this page last week are really too sweet to pass up, and if that makes me materialistic, then so be it.

What surprises me most about the good Doc's advice is that it aligns so well with the recent advice of one of my favorite bloggers, the always, yet never urbane, Penelope Trunk.

For those with a life outside the internets, Ms. Trunk has probably been fired from more jobs than she cares to admit. Yet she has a clear knack for reinventing herself, to the point that she has positioned herself as a six-figure blogger, writer, and entrepreneur, all after getting fired from her last job with Yahoo. In the mean time, she has managed to get married, have a kid, get divorced, get re-married, and run her latest empire from the wilds of Wisconsin. Her site boasts that her columns run in some 200 newspapers across the country, and she has repeatedly turned down book deals for her life's story. Book deals! Sigh. Don't get me wrong. I like my self-funded, slice of the web. But it isn't exactly on par with 200 paying newspapers.

Anyway, Trunk's latest advice is really a spin on Dr. Hinohara's point three. He says to plan ahead. She says, create a routine.

Given that you can't really have a routine without planning ahead, I think the pitfall of my summer is rather obvious: I simply didn't plan a routine for these few months. And as a result, I spend some Friday nights home alone with the dog, while my lovely wife spends a night on the town with co-workers.

Maybe there is justice in the world after all.