A Dangerous TV Table
How easy should you make your life? I am never quite sure how I feel about that issue. There is a fine theoretical argument that says that struggle is the grit that makes for a better life. But then that’s all very theoretical. Who would make their life harder when they can make it easier? Not very many people I know. And how exactly does one discount that future “better” state being suggested and thereby measure if today’s ease is greater than tomorrow’s better?
I think in lifestyle issues there are several forms of making one’s life too easy. One that I always remember is my friend whose wife regularly admonished him against vending out his life. It was her belief that it was important to do things for yourself in life rather than depend on others to do things for you. He would come home late from a long day on the trading floor with all the stresses of a highly competitive arena. If he missed the family dinner time he still had to do the dishes for the family. Once when there was no dinner left for his dinner he was in the midst of ordering Chinese food while washing the family’s dishes and his wife told him to hang up. She did not find it acceptable for him to miss dinner and then order in, even if he was doing the dishes. Such was the strength of her conviction that her family not vend their lives. Obviously there are many dimensions for this issue that range from the economic concept of the division of labor to attain efficiency to the simple egalitarian view that one should not foist one’s dirty linen on others.
I am not clear on what is or is not the righteous answer here because this crosses many personal freedom lines all at once. What I do know is that in this new lifestyle we are creating out here in San Diego, there are many slippery slopes that one can go down if one is not careful. The first and most pernicious one is our positioning at the top of our little hill with all its glorious views. I often say that I could stare out at these views forever, and I fear that there are days that could easily come true. I’ve had two days this week that I didn’t leave my little hilltop and I felt more sluggish for that outcome. I went so far as to not leave my far northern end study except for two trips to the kitchen one day. That cannot possibly be a good pattern for my body or my soul. Since I spent nine hours earning a decent hourly expert witness rate, at least my pocketbook didn’t suffer for the sluggishness.
I have created a little self-contained unit out of my study. It’s off our master bath, so after my morning ablutions and putting on a simple Duluth long-sleeved t-shirt and shorts, I wander in, take a soda from my mini-fridge (which I restock once a week), munch on some bottom-drawer pretzel sticks (also regularly replenished) and get to work using a combination of my laptop and my iPad with an assist as needed from my iPhone and iPods. I will soon have my TV here to install so I can keep up with MSNBC while I work. When it’s time to relieve myself, I prefer to go out to the cactus garden and pull a “Burt Munro” by not wasting my bodily nutrients and thereby pee on the cactus garden rather than add fill to my septic system. It all goes into the ground one way or another. So, I barely have to come out at all if I am seriously engrossed in whatever it is that I’m doing.
Once I find my way out of my study, I have to get past the Living Room with its panoramic views over the surrounding hills and out to the ocean. I have a wonderful custom-designed modern sofa on the home theater side of the Living Room. The other half of the Living Room is a conversation grouping which is always in use for our guests and just to relax and enjoy the surroundings. The TV sofa has a spot I designed for myself to relax and watch TV with my feet up. It’s more or less a chaise attached to the end of a sofa and it is very comfortable. I have position A for the TV, but I also have a nice view out to the northern part of our deck and on to the San Gabriel Mountains. I often sit in the evenings watching TV (MSNBC cable news or a movie most likely) and have my iPad to do light work or writing while I watch. I find the spot inspirational with the view and now I have a large eagle statue done in natural wood and metal by my favorite sculptor, Tomashevsky. We moved it out to our Juliet Balcony off our Master Bedroom and now it sits regally looking out at the wide western expanse, looking like how I feel whenever I loose myself in the view.
The other day I decided I needed a writing table for my lounging spot. I went on Levenger’s online store, which I have always liked for some reason (it seems more cerebral if a an online store can do that). They had a perfect pneumatic table in slate grey wood grain that perfectly matches the sofa, so I bought it. It arrived, I wrenched it together in good IKEA fashion and voila, I had my perfect spot made more perfect because I could now type instead of hunt and peck my way through my writings on the iPad. If I let myself, I can feel very geriatric about this little side table. It is, after all, the sort of thing you get for someone who is bed-riden so they can reach their jello easily. But I don’t want to go there. I want to think of this as a great way to spend more time out of my study.
The problem is that this convenience thing is a bit catching. I have also now decided that I need a writing table to use in my hot tub when I go in for my morning soak. Sure enough, I found an online spa store that sold something that fills the bill and keeps my iPad our of the bubbling water and lets me comfortably stay in the tepid 100 degree water as long as I want. I justify this minor purchase by telling myself that it should help save me from dunking my iPad some day when I absent-mindedly bobble it into the water. Let’s face it, I haven’t done that yet in eight years, but you never know.
I am worried that I might be allowing my laziness and sedentary tendency to become an institutionalized phenomenon in my new retirement home. Here I was worried that I might not have enough to engage me intellectually or have enough to get up and do every day. Not so. I still have my CEO job and have just negotiated a new arrangement that takes me forward for the foreseeable future. I have my expert witness work that had ramped up tremendously at the moment and it giving me lots of interesting and challenging work. And now my local University has engaged me to join the faculty part-time in the Fall Semester and give me something to put together as a course to teach. All that and my writing keeps me too much at my desk/lounge table/spa table and I need to find my balance. Last night I found my head spinning with all the things I need to do.
For the moment I want to think of my pneumatic TV table as a help and not a dangerous step in the lazy-man path of life. Time will tell.