Consecutive Days

This fall, Rosh Hashanah and Sukkot occupy Thursday-Friday.  Add shabbos, which makes three consecutive restricted days three weekends out of four.  While our Rabbis regard these as special times to escape daily obligations, I kinda like what I do most days.  No electronic devices for three consecutive days, three weekends out of four?  That's a lot of FOMO.  The purpose of Yom Tovim and shabbos might be separation.  They have a measure of compensation for what will be missed.  Special dinners.  The preparatory efforts for shabbos each week and the Yom Tovim as they arise.  A completed sukkah.  Special liturgy.  An OLLI schedule that omits Thursday and Friday classes this semester.  But nine days of separation all in the same calendar month seems a lot.

I don't really miss the laptop when it is off.  Social Media really does get too absorbing.  It needs a break. Not much happens if I don't do crosswords for a few days.  FB, Reddit, and email avoidance challenge me more, though they shouldn't.  I've largely abandoned Twitter.  It's a detriment to me.  Minor withdrawal symptoms but don't miss it.  FB has a few contacts with friends, offset in a big way by unsolicited posts that the psych major Stanford alumni think will keep me on their screen instead of somebody else's.  Reddit might be a little harder, as I make contributions that others might find helpful, though few make contributions that I find helpful.  Setting these aside for shabbos each week is not hard.  Three consecutive days generates minor withdrawal, though never overt FOMO.

These three day breaks never really become Me Time, though.  I have guests or am a guest.  But some Me Time gets carved into those three days.  Social Media is not Me Time.

Rosh Hashanah with its social strains but new horizons completed.  Some sukkah inspiration ahead.  Then the concluding days.  The designers of the Hebrew calendar anticipated folks like me would be Jewish saturated by the end of this.  They scheduled the subsequent month to be devoid of special days, but nicknamed that month Mar Heshvan, or Bitter Heshvan, due to the absence of designated times other than shabbos.  I think of it more as respite.