Modernity Leave

Everyone needs a break. Even as the dog days wind down in favor of something crisper. There’s no shortage of reasons for doing so. Maybe you woke up on the wrong side of the bed – the one that slopes into the floorboards due to an eroding mattress weather-beaten over time and unnecessary rollovers. Or you woke up with a tickle in your throat that requires a steady medley of hot tea and cold silence. Perhaps you drifted off to sleep wondering if the sun would even come up – a dilemma many a medieval farmer dealt with on a daily basis. What then does a person do a cloudy day? When you discover that the sun doesn’t go “up” or “down” at all. It merely hangs there like an enticing pinata. And much like this premier party favor, we’re the ones revolving around it – not the other way around. 

For some, a day off here or there is enough to assuage their innermost crises and moral quandaries. But for others, it’s just a good start. What they want is a sabbatical, a break, a leave. Time apart to contemplate their place in the universe (all while being handsomely paid with benefits to boot). 

Modernity is what sends them into the abyss. Modernity Leave aims to solve that problem. I know, modernity is all relative, all about perspective. I guess. But what did people in the 1600s really have to worry about? It certainly wasn’t the prospect of breaking in a new ergonomic desk chair. Most people didn’t have desks. Modernity Leave gives us the time needed to consider where it all went wrong. Somewhere between the birth of radio and the birth of Snapchat, things went awry. 

Modernity should be novel, weird, and seemingly impractical. Like a late night automat packed with tubed meats or a robot butler waiting to remove your loafers the second you set foot on the doormat.

Employers that permit Modernity Leave gain fresh employees upon their return. These are people who arch their back not like the Pont du Gard but like Saarinen’s greatest monument. They deserve time to think, about themselves and why sunken living rooms haven’t come back. If this doesn’t work, there’s always eternity leave.