The Zone

Warning: Navel-gazing, inapposite Tarkovsky references, shockingly old meme

I haven’t written much lately. Forgive me. I was in The Zone.

I have a job. I have a family. I have other interests and other obligations. I have to take out the trash and the recycling. When I’m in The Zone, I attend to most of these things. But not all.

People don’t have hobbies anymore. I’m not totally clear on why not, but I read an article about it once. I still have hobbies. But only one of my hobbies can claim a near somatic hold on me, pick me up from the kitchen counter, and plop me down deep in The Zone.

When genealogy yanks me into The Zone, I lose track of everything non-essential. I subconsciously pare down my obligations to the bare necessities. My work suffers. I subsist on a comically large bag of Costco almonds.¹ I may even miss a trash night.

Honestly, it’s so disruptive that I have to plan for it. When I can see a particularly fascinating and intractable genealogical puzzle pop its head over the horizon, it’s time to pack my bags. I’m about to take a vacation from normal life, return trip TBD. I’m away until the puzzle is solved or—more often— I tucker myself out and quit genealogy cold turkey for a month.

Here’s the weird thing about The Zone. I don’t actually like it in there. Here I am, purporting to be a genealogist, and I can’t stand it. What’s the deal?

Theory #1

The whole journey is suffused with guilt. 80% of my brain is chasing the puzzle and the rest is fretting about the stuff I actually should be doing. And so after a week or so, I’m completely sapped by stress, even though I just spent hours and hours doing one of my favorite things.

This is relatable, right? Don’t leave me hanging, friends. Obviously genealogy doesn’t take most people to The Zone—more often video games, binge-watching Netflix, gambling away your life savings. I imagine that last one feels a little worse, but I’ve tried the first two, and that enervated feeling you get is virtually identical. A week of heedless genealogy makes me feel the same way I do after a rapid-fire season of “The Good Place:” vaguely virtuous but mostly embarrassed and eager to put the whole thing behind me.

And that’s all guilt. Guilt is exhausting, even if it’s just running in the background.

Theory #2

It’s not what I’m doing that’s the problem, nor is it what I’m not doing. It’s the fact that I have no control over either one. When I sit down with the express purpose of solving some hard genealogical problem, spend an hour or two on exactly that, then move on with my life, that feels good. That’s an intentional application of human effort. It’s not always easy, and that’s what makes it rewarding.

But it’s not that hard to get in The Zone. It’s more like jumping into a river and letting the current pull you out to sea. Once you realize you’re somewhere out in the bay and have to swim back to shore, that can be hard. Or the river might take you down a side channel and deposit you in a slough deep within a selva oscura and getting back from there—that’s a real bear of a task.

Letting the river take you is, in a very real sense, surrendering to an addiction. And that doesn’t feel great.

Asserting control over this—your one wild and precious life—feels good.

Yeah, I get all control is illusory. That’s above my pay grade. Also, that’s enough theorizing.

Solutions

The answer, I don’t think, is to stay out of The Zone. Why deny myself one of my favorite things? I’ve looked at a lot of life spans, and take it from me, life is short and unpredictable. If you’ve got something that puts you in a flow state, blessedly ignorant of time, I say hold onto it with both hands.

I’m going to throw out some possibilities. Then I expect one of you to tell me the exact right answer and solve all my problems.

1. I’m not planning enough. Making a meal or two ahead of time is all well and good. But life is more complicated than that. I should be spending a whole day at least putting my affairs in order.

   1. Why this is good: It addresses both theories. I alleviate guilt because I’ve already done what needs doing. And I assert some control by hitting pause on The Zone while I do it. In the abstract this is a great idea.

   2. Why this is bad: The Zone doesn’t politely knock on your front door and ask if you can come over and play. The Zone is calling from inside the house. It is within you always, latent. You can’t plan for it, because when you realize it’s time to plan, you’re already inside. If I could tell The Zone I can’t play right now on account of my mom says I need to clean my room first, we wouldn’t be having this discussion (see #2).

      

      This meme on loan from the internet museum.

2. I am weak. All I need to do is display a little willpower and confine Zone-time to a predetermined and strictly limited part of my day. Early morning or late night, say. If you can’t stop yourself from hitting the kirchenbücher on your lunch break, that’s a you problem. Get a grip.

   1. Why this is good: Well, it’s good because it would obviously work. No guilt, because anytime I have something more pressing to attend to, I’ll just do that instead. No control issues, because I’m in control.

   2. Why this is bad: As discussed, this presupposes that I have the willpower to stop it. So really it’s presupposing that there’s no problem here at all. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. Of course. It doesn’t help me much at all to know that.

3. Stop worrying and love the bomb. Maybe the easiest to say and the hardest to do. But we’re all out here living our absurd existences. If abstracting sixteenth century wills gives me pleasure, and if solving historical puzzles brings me some sort of meaning, why not embrace it?

   1. Why this is good: This is surely part of the solution. Chasing pleasure at all costs and hazard is rather famously bad for us as human beings. But I’m not really in danger of that. Genealogy is fun for me, but it’s not heroin. I might miss trash night once or twice. But never thrice. So, you know. Just stop feeling guilty.

   2. Why this is bad: I would have to quit my job for this to work. And even if genealogy were my full-time occupation, I have a sneaking suspicion that I’d spend an inordinate amount of time working on problems that don’t pay. And you know what that would make me feel? Guilt.

4. Tie yourself to the mast. You’ve proven time and time again that you’re unable to fix this without outside help. So enlist friends and family. Put yourself on a timer. If you spend more than two hours a day on the Russian Revision Lists, tell your spouse to donate $100 to some sort of privatizing vital records legislative initiative. Have her delete one individual from your GEDCOM at random without telling you who it is. Whatever it takes.

   1. Why this is good: It does not require superhuman effort. It respects The Zone. It does not pretend you are endowed with willpower you don’t have it. And, through brute force, it inculcates better habits. It ties the crooked timber of your humanity to an iron stake.

   2. Why this is bad: Err…I don’t want to do it?

1. Don’t worry, of course I still spend time with my family. You think I’m going to admit to neglecting my children on a public Substack? For genealogy, of all the embarrassing things?? You’ll have to pay up for such damaging admissions.