Making, creating, moving, writing

There is something about active leisure...

This week I listened to recently dropped episodes of Pandora Sykes’ ‘Doing It Right’ podcast, and in one of the episodes she interviews sociologist and psychologist, Corey Keyes, on the topic of ‘Why you might be languishing’. In the episode, Keyes describes languishing as, “the absence of good mental health. …“the absence of the very things that make our lives meaningful’ and “if you are disengaged for a prolonged period.” I first heard the term back in 2021, when organisational psychologist and author Adam Grant wrote about Keyes’ work for the NYT. Grant describes how he and his friends were battling a similar feeling, but that he was struggling to identify it:

It wasn’t burnout — we still had energy. It wasn’t depression — we didn’t feel hopeless. We just felt somewhat joyless and aimless. It turns out there’s a name for that: languishing.

Languishing is a sense of stagnation and emptiness. It feels as if you’re muddling through your days, looking at your life through a foggy windshield.

Back to the ‘Doing it Right’ conversation, flourishing (in opposition to languishing) isn’t a luxury and isn’t about people ‘toughening up’, but instead it’s what builds you up to face life—the stresses, the conflict, the challenges—without letting it take you down. It is a state of optimal functioning where we experience positive emotions, a sense of purpose and accomplishment, engagement in life and positive relationships. Keyes suggests these five ‘vitamins’ are pursuits that will lead towards flourishing:

1. Go out and help someone

2. Go out and learn something new

3. Go out and play (engage in active leisure)

4. Go out and connect (prioritise warm and trusting relationships)

5. Engage in transcendent activities

What I found particularly interesting was their discussion around number three: active leisure as a precipitator of flourishing and passive leisure as a precipitator of languishing. Making, creating, moving, writing, playing, cooking, singing, learning are activities that could fall into this ‘active’ category, where as passive activities might involve listening to music, watching a series, even going to a play. These are all enjoyable and often restful and recharging activities but they do not require active participation in them in order for them to happen (I’m happy to note that Keyes mentioned that more often then not, reading fiction is an active leisure pursuit).

Let me tell you, I am amazing at passive leisure! But when I was thinking about it, and maybe it’s no surprise, it is the ‘active’ leisure pursuits I have, that leave me feeling most myself, most able to process the things going on around me and within me, and help me to bookmark or signify times in my life.

After I listened to the ep, I wrote down a list of different leisure activities I normally take part in across a month, to see what category they fall into.

Passive: Listening to music, watching live music, watching a series, going to the movies, social media, going to watch a play/talk/performances, listening to podcasts.

Active: writing for different projects, swimming in the ocean/pool, reading fiction, bushwalking, pilates classes, cooking/crafting something with my hands.

What populates the ‘passive’ list brings me so much enjoyment and stimulates my creativity and it would be a much dimmer world without many of those things (perhaps sans social media).

But I have to admit that there is a difference when I consider the ‘doing’ of the ‘active’ list. They are restorative ways of combating any notion of feeling lost or ‘blah’ or disengaged. They are mechanisms through which I can produce or act on or create or move, and nine times out of ten, they fill me with real joy.

All of this got me thinking about the countless bush walks and hikes and coastal walks I have taken over the years. Some of these fancy, some very long (by my standards), some of them short and simple but meaningful for other reasons. Some so precious because of what they came after or what they propelled.

Next week I’ll be sharing about a bunch of these walks that have stood out, and stayed with me. I would love to hear about yours too, if you are happy to share. :)

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Listening in on conversations

I found Elizabeth Day being interview on The Imperfects podcast deeply moving, here are two quotes:

“I didn’t really know who I was, and therefore if you don’t know who you are, you can’t make informed decisions from your own place of authenticity. And now I realise that success for me is being able to understand myself, to show up as myself.”

“So many of us feel like imposters in our own lives, and that kind of feeling thrives in silence.”

Please note that Day speaks about her fertility journey and miscarriages in the episode, just in case that isn’t right for you at this time.

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Words that hold

On my recent holiday I got through a few books that I’ll be writing about soon enough, but I also did a reread of, ‘Beautiful World Where are You’, by Sally Rooney, mostly because I had inhaled the book when it first came out and I was now quite hazy on what it was all about. Does that happen to anyone else? I suppose it’s a marker of my binge reading or (maybe it is actually ‘passive’ reading! Oh no.). Anyway, upon my reread I took note of these lovely Rooney sentences and moments that stood out for me, perhaps they might for you too:

Tenderly, it seemed almost painfully, they smiled at one another, saying nothing, and their questions were the same, am I the one you think about, when we made love were you happy, have I hurt you, do you love me, will you always.

I feel so frightened of being hurt — not the suffering, which I know I can handle, but the indignity of suffering, the indignity of being open.

At times I think of human relationships as something soft like sand or water, and by pouring them into particular vessels we give them shape. So a mother’s relationship with her daughter is poured into a vessel marked ‘mother and child’, and the relationship takes the contours of its container and is held inside there, for better or worse. Maybe some unhappy friends would have been perfectly contented as sisters, or married couples as parents and children, who knows. But what would it be like to form a relationship with no preordained shape of any kind? Just to pour the water out and let it fall. I suppose it would take no shape, and run off in all directions.

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How to be outside

Usually this space in good sunday looks at ways to be outside, or little ideas at how to make the most of the great outdoors at different times of the year. But this week I am recovering from a calf tear, and I am looking forward to getting back into activities in a week or two. I find that at the end of recovering from a cold or flu I am often left with a great sense of gratitude for my working body, and this minor injury has been the same- very, very grateful to have two working legs.

Thank you for following along and reading Good Sunday! A letter that includes a musing of the week, words and conversations that hold attention and little chats about the great outdoors. I’m so glad you are here.