routine & games
back to your regularly scheduled existential programing
Drew finds me at a farewell party in williamsburg to tell me he’s been following more fashion bloggers on substack as of late. He continues, and I really thought they’d be wearing more color this fall. My eyes roll so far back into my head but I can feel myself smiling.
It’s been a minute since I’ve been out on a friday night, I’d actually forgotten how good a high noon tastes during a september heat wave. To be honest, I can’t remember the last time I went to a party on a friday night. Or had a canned beverage while sweating with my 50 closest acquaintances crammed like tin fish into a 1BR-apartment.
I keep saying 2023 is my year of growth and discomfort, but the net effect is that 2023 has also been my year of solitude and social recluse. I grew up as an only child so spending time alone has always been comfortable and peaceful, but lately I’ve been spending so much time working on myself that it seems like I’ve missed out on an entire season of seeing my friends.
My doorman stops me to tell me this exact observation on monday after my parents come to visit. It’s so nice that they’re here, he says to me earnestly, you’re always up there all alone. I try to read that in the least offensive way but I’m not sure there is one.
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I run into a coworker in the office kitchen, and exchange the prerequisite pleasantries and platitudes. I ask him how he is, he says same old. He asks me how I am, I say, running a lot. He laughs, and asks if I’m now channeling my existential angst towards running. I feel myself smile but I’m momentarily caught of guard. Since when did men become so self aware.
He’s right though. I’ve been putting in the work this year: exercising 6 times a week, waking up before 7 most weekdays, leaning into creative outlets and watering little sprouts of traction. I got a promotion this year. Moved into a studio apartment. And yet, it feels like I’m more the same than anything else.
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Two weeks ago, someone left this comment on my blog and I haven’t stopped thinking about it. I feel it most viscerally when I’m cleaning apartment. My entire life has been around environments in various states of disarray — life tends towards entropy after all. But I’ve realized that a lot of your mind exists in your subconscious, and the little piles of trash and junk in your periphery pile up in your mental storage and end up tangling up your neural pathways.
But it will forever frustrate me that in order to have a clean apartment (one that is actually clean, not just that you’ve picked up the clothes off the ground clean), you have to carve out time every day to put away the dishes, wipe down counters, vacuum, fold up clothes.
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I’ve become the type of person to have one drink and start recounting my life story to whoever will listen at a party. I laugh about this to Skye but it doesn’t stop me from lamenting how much of life is about routine. She corrects me to say that, life is about routines and games.
Routine like cleaning your apartment, and games like hanging out with your friends. Work is a game. Exercise is a routine. Going out to dinner is a game, but making dinner is a routine. Or making dinner can be a game, if you put on an apron and make it a game. It doesn’t have to be that deep, she shrugs (which I take to be good life advice for most situations).
The truth is, a lot of life is repetitive and tedious. It’s the inevitable effect of trying to carve out a life for yourself. A non-trivial amount of your time is going to be spent doing life admin or human pet maintenance: cleaning your studio apartment, cooking for one, commuting to midtown, scheduling pilates classes, cancelling reservations.
The thing about games is that games have a cleanly defined objective — how to glow up, level up, life hack your way to the top. And while games can keep us motivated, energized, focused, we have to internalize that games are just games. Call it play or call it sport — when we reach the next level, achieve the next objective, we still exist as the same player. The greatest trap is believing that the next achievement will be the one that unlocks real, lasting happiness.
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At sunday night dinner with M, I notice this bad habit I have of finishing off every bite of my meal even if I’m physically full. Somehow I don’t feel satisfied until the plate is visually cleared off — like it’s a job to be completed rather than a game to be enjoyed.
Do you ever feel like you go through the day and forget that you’re living your life, I ask M. He says no like I’m insane. And maybe I am, but much of my life I find that I live in autopilot, a treadmill of tasks I’m checking off one by one. I finish pilates and then shower at the gym, if it’s wednesday or friday i’ll wash my hair, if it’s tuesday or wednesday i’ll take the train, if i’m on the train i’ll do my duolingo, if i’m in the office i’ll make my office breakfast, get my office coffee, and start grinding away at my office to-do list. Life starts to feel especially tedious and repetitive if you treat it as a series of routine tasks in steady monotonous pursuit of an endgame.
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If you’re reading this and life feels tedious and repetitive, the question I’d ask is what parts of life feel that way? If it’s the routines of human maintenance, understand that these things oftentimes are. But there are little things you can do to make it less boring. Play kacey musgraves while cleaning your apartment. Put on a cute little apron when you’re cooking. Take a photo of your dinner and send it to your mother. There are ways to find enjoyment in things that are tedious, or at least finding space to be present and find comfort in a mindless task.
And if your games start to feel repetitive and tedious, maybe it’s a sign that your goals aren’t challenging enough or in line with your true desires. I find that I have two overarching moods: I’m either doing something that pushes me and terrifies me or I’m comfortable and bored. Both have merits, but if your life is veering too steadily into comfort and boredom, sometimes it’s good to shock the system. I find that the more I do things that scare me, the closer I am to growing into the person I want to be and building confidence in who I am.
If you don’t know where to start, start by spending time by yourself. Or if you’re spending too much time in your studio apartment, try spending some time with your friends again. Life is about games and routines, and the nuance is balancing between the two
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Love this post! I feel like you have the ability to take my jumbled thoughts and write about them in an eloquent yet approachable way. Any tips on self work? I feel like every time I make progress towards something I fall back like Square 1
reading from a solo weekend in Cornwall to get some perspective and space away from “the game” ✌🏼