Lollygaggle + meander

I’ve been thinking about rest a lot lately, as one does in this day and age.

One of the things I wonder about, though I do this less than I did first semester, is whether or not there is a place for me in design, at SALA, in landscape.

If I can’t give and give, if my body can’t take the strain and demands of a brutal educational pedagogy and design culture then what am I doing here? Do I belong in this field? Will people make space for me? Will I be able to make space for myself?

How do I deal with the demands of a program that often expects enormous sacrifices of physical and mental well-being in order to complete work on time and to the expected standard.

I have been looking at yoga classes, dance class, adult swim classes at UBC. They seem fun. They’re the type of thing I’d love to do, but I probably don’t have time for them.

My life for the next two years is SALA, is keeping up with the demands of my program.

First semester when we were overwhelmed and struggling with the work load we were told to manage our time as though a lack of organization was the issue at hand rather than the fact that it took me a long time to do basic things quite badly. I was a beginner, slow, clumsy, clueless. Instead of being told that it was hard and it took time to get faster I was told to manage my time.

This cut into time for sleep, self-care. Happiness.

It’s a problem in grad school in general but it seems like the culture of design is particularly brutal.

Which brings me to rest.

I learn better when I’m not scrambling to just finish my work but when I have time to make mistakes and meander, when I get to see my friends and take breaks.

My goal for school is to figure out what work has to be done and do it as quickly and seamlessly as possible. There will never be enough time so I minimize what else is in my life.

I was listening to On Being with Krista Tippet and she interviewed Ross Gay who thinks a lot about delight. He reads out:

Even though I subtly dosed in the late afternoon sun pouring under the awning the two bucks spent protects me, at least temporarily, from the designation of loiterer. Though the dosing, if done long enough or ostentatiously enough or with enough delight, might transgress me over.

The Webster’s definition of loiter reads thus, “To stand or wait around idly without apparent purpose and to travel indolently with frequent pauses.”

Among the synonyms for this behavior are linger, loaf, laze, lounge, lollygaggle, dawdle, amble, saunter, meander, puddle, dillydally and mosey.

Any one of these words in the wrong frame of mind might be considered critique or noun epithet Lollygagger or Loafer.

These words instead of being desirable or nice or pleasant are insults. If you do these things you are a problem.

All of these words to me imply having a nice day, they imply having the best day.

They also imply being unproductive, which leads to being even if only temporarily non-consumptive.

Delight ties in directly with rest.

You’re in a bit of non-productive delight, heads up.

Which points to another of the synonyms for loitering, which I almost wrote as delight, taking ones time.

For while the previous list of synonyms alude to time, taking one’s time makes it plain.

For the crime of loitering, the idea of it is about ownership of one’s own time, which must be sometimes wrestled from the assumed owners of it who are not you, to the rightful who is

In a world where we must always be on, where we must always be making ourselves useful, getting something done pausing and resting and doing nothing doesn’t get the space it needs.

I don’t need to manage my time better. I need breaks and rest. I need to meander and lollygag. I need a society that values those things more.