Rules for a Sane Vacation

I'm sitting on the beach last week trying to relax into an abbreaviated summer vacation when someone I barely know comes up to me with a scowl. "Did you read that dumb-fuck middle-class agenda Hillary just put out? If that's all the Dems have to offer to deal with widening inequality, we're screwed," he says, and walks off. I feel my spine tingle, my shoulders begin to ache. To distract myself I pick up the paper and skim the headlines -- Hezbollah and Hamas attacking Israwl, Israel bombing Lebanon, Iraq tumbling into civil war, more chaos. Bird flu deaths rising in Indonesia, Iran and North Korea closer to having nuclear weapons. Famine in sub-Sahara Africa. Genocide continuing in Darfur.

By now I'm feeling nauseous. My cell phone rings. It's my good friend John, a welcome distraction. "How'dja like to go to a movie tonight?" he asks, a welcome distraction. Great, I say, eager for any escape. "Fine, he says, I just got tickets to Al Gore's film on global warming."

As a general rule I don't believe in escapism. I think citizens ought to get involved, be engaged in the world. Don't put your head in the sand. But in order to be engaged most of the time, you have to disengage a bit of the time or you'll go nuts. Before instant communications, before we knew everything going on everywhere, all the time, vacations were about taking a break. Even during the Great Depression and World War II my grandparents once a year trundled off to some remote spot to get away from it all for a week or two. At least they looked happy in the photos.

So how is it possible today to have a real vacation, to get away from it all when it all comes to us and when so much of it is so awful? For the last day (the last day I'm here) I've followed three simple rules, and frankly I feel much better. First, don't read anything. Second, don't watch anything. Third, don't talk with anyone.