In which Our Hero ages in a cave for 24 months.
This has so far been my favorite Christmas season.
Why?
Is it the general chillness?
The presence of a 16-month-old nephew (our activities constrained by nap windows like a benevolent dictator)?
The absence of sprinting – from task to task, from obligation to obligation – so that family time feels calm instead of stolen?
No running and only a little work means I’m easy and jovial. I like this version of myself.
Part of this is the skill clown school taught me: the ability to choose fun instead of waiting for it to arrive accidentally.
And part of it is contrast: the calm after an absurdly intense storm.
January looms.
I’m buying an apartment.
Interviewing for a job.
Considering family visiting me in France.
For now, though, the assignment appears to be: do less. Enjoy more. Taste the cheese.
—
Tonight we performed a statistical analysis on cheese.
Ten cheeses. France, Spain, the UK.
Who liked what. How much. Whose tastes clustered. Who outlied in what ways?
My partner started a masters in statistics during her genetics PhD. This is her preferred form of play: turning pleasure into a dataset. Not just “which cheese did everyone enjoy the most” but “what were the standard deviations” and “who had the most similar taste in cheeses? The most divergent?”
It occurred to me that this – thinking carefully about what we like – is a behavior often poo-pooed.
Anti-intellectualism runs rampant. In part because it’s easier to form a mob than to compete on precision. If you can’t articulate why something is good, it’s comforting to declare articulation itself suspicious. If you can’t relate to someone who knows 1/7th in percentages, it’s comforting to outgroup them as mad scientist-y.
And yet:
Some of our favorite cheeses were cheap, mass-market cheeses from France and Spain.
Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.
It’s funny how the everyday object in one country becomes a delicacy in another—just by crossing a border and being paid attention to.
Maybe this is also a clown lesson.
Attention is not seriousness.
Analysis is not joy-killing.
And play doesn’t require intensity—sometimes it requires rest.
All in all, a very chill day.
Which is nice.
Especially
Because
I’m not in charge of the toddler napping
🤡
Julian Wise 