Might As Well Live
I wrote a novel a couple of years ago about a long-divorced couple who are thrown together in a physical rehab center at the outbreak of COVID-19. They hated each other for decades, but being forced into close proximity again led to an unexpected (albeit extremely rocky) re-kindling of their love.
I enjoyed writing the book very much, although it was - and currently remains - unpublished (its fate is still up in the air). The title is “Might As Well Live,” which is the life mantra of the woman. She’s shocked when she discovers what a shut-up oyster of a man her former husband has become over the decades.
She wonders (loudly, the way she does everything) why he’s doing this to himself. She tells him: If you’re gonna be alive, you might as well live, right?
I thought of that book after reading this article in the Wall Street Journal about a retired couple that spends far too much time on social media, rather than doing something productive. They feel that they’re wasting their days scrolling and watching videos, led by the Almighty Algorithm that gives them more of what they want, all day long.
That is living, in a sense. But it ain’t much of a life.
It’s ironic that we look forward to the free time that retirement provides: our days are our own, nobody’s looking over our shoulders, no more daily fires to put out, no clocks to punch. Then what do we do with all that glorious free time? Spend it scrolling. Watching YouTube videos. Stepping inside our ideological echo chambers and slamming the door, yanking out our phones and sliding into the abyss.
It this why we retire? If so, it’s better to un-retire, get a job at McDonalds, and reconnect with life away from our digital taskmasters.
So much of life, especially as we age, is about routines. Those routines can be healthy or destructive. If you’re in a dark routine, understand that it doesn’t have to be that way. Realize that you’re in a place from which there is escape.
In my book, the man starts to see that there’s more out there when his ex, a pilot, takes him up in a little plane and flies him around the Arizona desert for awhile. He’s terrified at first, but when he understands that he’s not about to crash, he starts to smile, and is eventually whooping—something he hadn’t done since he was married.
He does start to live. He begins to understand that he’s shut out the world—and that the world was fine with being shut out. It didn’t insist on barging into his hermetically-sealed existence.
When he begins to break the seal, he starts to understand what he’s done to himself all those years.
This character wasn’t hard to invent. There are so many like him. They’re all around us, and they get more plentiful as we age. We lose that sense of wonder, that desire to be challenged. Instead we welcome our invisible shackles, because of the effort required to shake them off.
Teddy Roosevelt famously said, “Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.” He was right.
The Almighty Algorithm is not to be worshiped. He works in the shadows, sending us articles and videos that keep us clicking to the next one. And the next. Next. Next. Next.
Next. Next. Next. Next. Next. Next. Next. Next. Next. Next. Next. Next. Next. Next. Next. Next. Next. Next. Next. Next. Next. Next. Next. Next. Next. Next. Next. Next. Next. Next. Next. Next. Next. Next. Next. Next. Next. Next. Next. Next. Next. Next. Next. Next. Next. Next. Next. Next. Next. Next. Next. Next. Next. Next. Next. Next.
Before we know it, another precious day has been wasted. Another opportunity to do something hard is gone. Another opportunity to learn, to give, to love, has slipped away, never to return.
That algorithm, far from being almighty, is in fact the devil. The bible says to resist the devil, and he will flee from you. You can resist. You can fight. You can paint a picture or sing a song or hike a mountain or read poetry with your back against a tree.
Yesterday I recorded birds in my front yard. They were heartily celebrating spring. I shared it with my family. What can you do to spread your own version of birdsong with the world?
If you’re gonna be alive, you might as well live.