My Year of Rest and Relaxation

Not just a book, it's a lifestyle.

In Ottesha Moshfegh’s My Year of Rest and Relaxation, a book I think about at least once a week, the protagonist seeks an unconventional fresh start. She wants to obliterate a year to be reborn again. When I think about the book, I feel a lot of empathy for her. Now it’s been a few years since I read it, and I do remember she was awful, so don’t read too much into my psychology here (save that for the rest of this newsletter 🤪). But I’m moved by the idea of a clean slate, a line in the sand, a death, and a rebirth.

“but…i am and i do”

Receiving existential wisdom from TikTok often feels like a fever dream, nonetheless, I sort of remember a TikTok that said something like, “Isn’t it funny that you’ve lived every day of your life”. And it is funny — and exhausting. So, wouldn’t it be nice to just start again, but better? Like the human version of getting a new iPhone that has all your photos backed up in the cloud or whatever.

One of the most routinely dispensed bits of relationship advice is that you shouldn't keep score or harbour resentments. We're told a perpetual clean slate is required for a healthy and happy partnership. This is, of course, good advice; good advice that almost all of us belligerently ignore at some point. Instead, we cement our partner's crimes or failings into the lore of the relationship, to be brought up and abandoned in service of our reputation to ourselves. Jung speaks about how the ego strives for continuity of identity so that our personal lore remains favorable and flattering. In relationships, this manifests as a tension between our desire for renewal and our need for a consistent self-narrative.

Those of us who are chronically online (me) are frequently exposed to the truism, “We've taken what we expected from a village and expected it from one person.” This annoys me because it misses the point of why romantic love is so special… the village ain't gonna give me shit. It also annoys me because it’s routinely used by the most annoying people (polyamorous people). 😊

Look, the village, for all its virtues, can't provide what romantic love does. It shouldn't. God forbid I don't want to see an essential need as something that can be solved by the gig economy. Real capital-L Love is so hard to find, keep, and cherish because it is so special and unlike anything else. It can't be broken down into its composite parts; it's irreducible — all of the best things are.

What this truism does get right, however, is pinpointing expectations as the source of our woes. Alain de Botton posits that real love is about being charitable. Perhaps the most evolved take would be that our charity towards our partner is grounded in the fullness of knowing them, and that's why it's easy to be charitable. This flies in the face of the so-called “blank slate” and instead suggests that if one can truly hold everything that's happened, good and bad, one is rewarded with shared vulnerability and connection.

And importantly, acceptance. Accepting our loved ones fully isn't an act of charity, it's an act of necessity. One cannot withhold acceptance for another without also withholding self-acceptance. When we truly accept our partners and ourselves, the idea of “scorekeeping” becomes obsolete because, in a relationship built on real acceptance and understanding, there are simply no sides to keep score between.

This stands in contrast to what modern culture sometimes tacitly prescribes: a sort of poor man's charity based on perpetual self-improvement. This mentality bleeds into our partnerships, leading us to treat the less savoury aspects of our partners the same way we treat our own flaws—as temporary construction sites where “good” behavior should eventually emerge.

In this framework, the acts of kindness or understanding we offer our partners aren't true charity, but rather calculated investments in their future improved selves. Love ROI yucky. Our “charitable” actions become less about genuine acceptance and more about signposting the areas we believe need fixing. Instead of being expressions of generosity and love, they transform into subtle (or not-so-subtle) hints at desired changes.

On the surface, this doesn't sound too terrible. But upon closer inspection, we have to recognize that people aren't projects. Zooming out to see the broad yet brief story of a life, we understand that what we label as “good” or “bad” is simply part of being human. We love people as they are, not as their potential. Those who claim otherwise aren't really in love with the person; they're in love with their own vision board facsimile of a human.

Unlike the protagonist in My Year of Rest and Relaxation, I can't just sleep away a year to reset myself. But baby, I've tried. Just ask my Whoop watch, which regularly humiliates me by reporting that I achieved perfect rest despite feeling exhausted. I think the annoying truth is that to really see and be seen anew, to achieve any sort of relaxation in the meaningful sense, you unfortunately, have to do the opposite of rest. I'm sorry, this is as devastating for me as it is for you.

Unfortunately, I think the tech bros, in their relentless pursuit of optimization, were right about one thing: easy choices lead to a hard life, while hard choices pave the way for an easier one. Everything important is a bit hard and a bit shit from time to time, but as Ram Dass observed,

“You can do it like it's a great weight on you, or you can do it like it's part of the dance.”

And what a dance it is — the dance of being human, of trying to love another mess of a person and accept love in return. It's the dance of finding rest and relaxation amidst the chaos, of seeking renewal without obliteration. In this dance, we don't get a clean slate or a fresh start, but we do get the chance to see our partners, ourselves, and our love anew each day. And perhaps that's the most beautiful kind of rebirth after all.