Pierce Manhammer
Moderator
An entertaining read:
slate.com
The whole piece boils down to this:
“As the image of Jack suggests, my husband is very disciplined. His only addiction is to regimens. He does not drink. He is very good at streaks: 956 consecutive Duolingo sessions, as many daily pages on a writing project, 25 miles on the bike at least three times a week. He never misses, and he needs no encouragement from anyone to keep at it, least of all me. He high-fives himself at the end of each day, stoked by his own willpower.
I am, relatively, a libertine and slacker, addicted to resolutions, to the forgiveness offered by each new morning, like the ones after the last pour at the dinner party I should have politely refused. I worry about this, as I worry about my weight, as I worry about my productivity, but I tend to freestyle the solutions to such problems. I go easy on the wine, cut out bread (or use the half-slice trick), pound out some pages. Then there’s inevitably a lapse, a heady release from my self-imposed restrictions that I have come to understand as how I experience pleasure. Guilty, maybe, but deep—an afternoon sipping vermentino and dishing with a friend, a hunk of warm ciabatta dipped in oil.”
There’s an Unspoken Truth About Marriage. I’m Living It Almost Every Day.
How do you love someone, not to mention make love to someone, whom you persistently envy?
The whole piece boils down to this:
“As the image of Jack suggests, my husband is very disciplined. His only addiction is to regimens. He does not drink. He is very good at streaks: 956 consecutive Duolingo sessions, as many daily pages on a writing project, 25 miles on the bike at least three times a week. He never misses, and he needs no encouragement from anyone to keep at it, least of all me. He high-fives himself at the end of each day, stoked by his own willpower.
I am, relatively, a libertine and slacker, addicted to resolutions, to the forgiveness offered by each new morning, like the ones after the last pour at the dinner party I should have politely refused. I worry about this, as I worry about my weight, as I worry about my productivity, but I tend to freestyle the solutions to such problems. I go easy on the wine, cut out bread (or use the half-slice trick), pound out some pages. Then there’s inevitably a lapse, a heady release from my self-imposed restrictions that I have come to understand as how I experience pleasure. Guilty, maybe, but deep—an afternoon sipping vermentino and dishing with a friend, a hunk of warm ciabatta dipped in oil.”
