How I came to hate weekends and holidays

I just stepped outside for a bite to eat only to find myself wedged between a family and some high school kids as soon as hit the main street. I got to my destination and there was a line out the door. I walked back to my house and made some soba noodles.

Weekends and Holidays just don't feel as fun as they used to. I'd be lying if I said the whole pandemic hasn't affected me at all. I don't live in fear but I certainly don't want to invite such an unpleasant thing into my life. The pandemic is not the main reason I hide away on weekends and holidays though.

I remember when I was younger. The weekend meant I had 2 and a half days to do whatever my heart desired, at least between some homework and family gatherings. It was a short time outside of the cage. When I started work it was a 8-5 job, Monday to Friday and weekends felt just the same, like freedom. I’d be my laziest and most hedonistic self and it would pass to quickly and then back to work.

After 4 years though, I quit my job, started travelling, worked online as a translator, played music and started writing and my schedule became chaotic. At first I still enjoyed weekends because it's when everyone else had that freedom and there were events and things to do. Everything seemed to change once the cameras on everyone’s phone started taking better pictures than digital cameras though.

Tourism started to explode where I was living and weekends became more and more crowded, to the degree where you had to wait in line absolutely everywhere, and most events were crowded to the brim. It probably had something to do with the high population density, but I feel it had more to do with consumer habits and social media.

Now that everyone was sharing pictures of what they were doing on the weekend, no one wanted to be left out and so every meal became a search for something instagramable. I noticed fewer relaxed spots where people could talk and feel at home, and more shops that catered towards tourists, couples, and young girls looking to take pictures of pretty things. I felt community dying.

I didn't just feel it in one place. I felt it all over Asia, and I felt it in NYC and my hometown when I went home to visit. Everywhere became a tourist trap. It felt like socializing had become a caricature of itself. The events I used to enjoy became packed to the brim where it was difficult or to breath.

Look at me! Look at me having fun! Look at my meal! Look at the shiny lights!

I don't really have a problem with people wanting to take pictures of things they like or things that make them happy. But as the market began to cater only to that, the soul of everything seemed to dry up.

I am not in the “social media is evil and needs to be ended” camp either. I feel that social media has added a lot to my life. But I see it bringing a lot of deeply held insecurities to the surface and those insecurities have ended up shaping the world.

Now with fears of a global pandemic and economic collapse, the effects have only been exacerbated.

The desires and fears we carry can shape our lives. When many people feel the same thing, the manifestations compound and we will actually shape the world around us.

I feel humanity struggling with a fear of death, a fear of meaninglessness and also deep desires to connect and to achieve greater things than previously imagined. Heavy though is the fear of failure and the fear of being alone.

And so we are all together here in these big cities, because our desire is to be together and to be connected but we feel alone because we fear being alone and act against our intuitions, trying our best to feel relevant instead of going with the flow.

I can’t say I’m perfect, I’m guilty as charged too.

Two years ago our desires, wrapped in fear gave way to a pandemic. There were multiple points of failure, all born out of our emotional state which caused us to act a certain way. Our prayers to work less and have more time to ourselves were answered. Our frustration with the system led us all to behave in accordance with that which might lead to its collapse. At the same time, our fears boiled and led us to lose much of freedom of movement and left many of us not sure how to support ourselves.

This is not to say we need to blame ourselves for any misfortune. I am just reflecting on the different ways that we shape our world. I can’t force myself to be happy when I’m not, but I can be more aware of my emotions and steer them as best as I can.

Focus is where our power lies.

Unwanted things can all serve to help us hone our desires. The better we get at cutting out the fear and focusing on the desire, the more our lives begin to reflect our ideals. Those who fail do not need to be blamed, just guided softly. We need to guide ourselves too, because it’s so easy to be reactionary.

Today I find myself frustrated with the way the world is. But beneath the frustration is both desire and fear. I long for those fun events and a sense of comfort with people around me. I long for travel and freedom of movement. Rather than focus on the discomfort, I focus on the desire and give my power to it and allow it to grow. Meanwhile, the fear that I will never experience those great days again, that humanity is fucked, that things will inevitably get worse, those I calm and slowly detach from.

Focus is our power.

I begins to look for things within this reality in front of me which feel good. I don’t deny the fact that there is shit. Not for a second. To deny it is to overlook reality and to miss a chance to find a deep desire within myself. But I focus on the way that the shit exists to show me how much I desire something better. I treat everything as a reflection to help me hone in on possibilities that are both desirable and realistic.

If socializing has become a caricature, perhaps that gives me a chance to work towards bringing it back to what I used to love about it. Perhaps that can give me a chance to be a better leader, a better teacher, a better friend or a better member of the community. It allows me not to take those good things for granted. It allows me to become a better version of myself.

So today I’ll reflect on how I can make my immediate surroundings more pleasant and revive or reimagine my social life and better adapt to the current situation in a way that feels good.

I’m basically my own boss now and there aren’t many events on the weekends now so there is no need for me to be outside on the weekends or holidays. Perhaps I can go back to the old ways, treating them as days for self reflection and prayer, even if I don’t pray in the religious sense. Maybe I can get a lot of work done on those days too. Maybe those are the best days to retreat from the physical world so I can be more present the rest of the time.

There is no reason that this can’t serve me in some way.

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