I don’t really know how it happened, but one fine day, a couple of years ago, one of my most sprightly and energetic friends met up with me and told me that she no longer wanted to go out anymore because she was tired. I thought it was a phase, but one by one all the friends in my age group started to drop like flies.
Weekend meetings became something that had to be planned well in advance and even then many would cancel at the last minute citing tiredness.
Even if we did manage to meet, half the conversation would be taken up by how tired we all were and how we either needed to change job/lifestyle/partner or simply just sleep more yet two or three years have passed and we are still saying the same thing. At first I thought we were all just being a whiny bunch of so and sos but the thing is, it’s not just us; exhaustion is very much en vogue.
Ask any late 20, early 30-some-thing without children what he or she wants to spend his weekend doing and it will inevitably involve watching a series in bed or laid out on a sofa like a beached whale. If the memes are to be believed (and they should be), all we want for Christmas is Netflix but please hold the chill because we don’t have the time or energy to meet someone to drag into our dark caves and blankly stare at a screen with.
To be exhausted means that you are in demand, successful
Exhaustion has not only become a something that happens to your body after several long days of work but something which you’re expected to feel. It’s become the status quo, the default of a generation stuck in a world of rapid technological advancement undreamt of by their parents. We no longer have time to recharge, time to just be, because there is always more demand on our attention. Interaction is no longer optional and our brains simply can’t cope from the constant stimulation of having to do something or speak to someone. Exhaustion is inevitable in such a climate and for many has become a badge of success: to be exhausted means that you are in demand, successful. The problem is, we don’t have the energy for anything else. Not for long talks, long walks and just looking around and taking in the world the way generations before us were able to.
It’s in moments like this that I’m always reminded of Welsh poet William Henry Davies’ poem Leisure where his closing lines state: “A poor life this if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare.” A poor life it is indeed.