The Fake Intellectual is an online collection of articles and essays written and curated by writer & photographer Thomas W Coombs, published bi-annually.

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Issue 48; The Day In the Life Of

It is a strange feeling suddenly having nothing to do.  Going from being busy every day with work then all other tasks with the family at the weekends, no matter how small my family is, the dog takes up time.  I have always been busy and then I wasn’t, when out of the blue (even though it was seen coming, you believe it was just you) the company I worked for went belly up and I was made redundant after a couple of weeks of twiddling my thumbs “working” for administrators. Then my calendar emptied for the week and coming weeks for the foreseeable future, instantly.  What the hell was I supposed to do?

Of course my wife gave me a list, not a physical list, a few days of “you could do this?” in that it is an option but it needs doing so please get it done tone, that I love as to be fair it gets me moving.  I found time to contemplate, not something I am great at I will admit, but time none-the-less.  I spent this slow moment in my life with a couple of freelance jobs, writing and photography which kept me busy for all of a few days. I do wonder what people do that do not work for lengths of time, I was still getting up early, walking the dog, heading to the gym, then sitting with my double espresso before me in my kitchen, like every morning before, but then, another coffee, more reading, looking through the news, then social media, then what?

I am fortunate to have too many hobbies, but one is wine, so I had some time on my hands so I had wine, at lunch, I wasn’t quite waiting at the door of Wetherspoons ready to be first at the bar.  I had to manage this as it could become a slippery slope, I had not been unemployed for more than two weeks for twenty years, it was an alien world to be in. I did another thing and cooked good food, using the time to prep and delight my taste buds.  Spaghetti alla Bolognese, paella, pesto, marinated roasted veg the list went on. My time for another week was filled with food and wine, at this point I may have needed to double my gym sessions daily before I stopped fitting in my clothes.


Within this time of staring at things I could buy once I had a job again, I was working towards getting a job, it is a slow process one that will bare fruit if I do not do what my mind is telling me and have a lay in, there is in theory no reason to get up, being unemployed I believe is just a battle of wills, to keep yourself motivated to get moving each day, though the task list gets smaller.  I have found a nice medium for my “working” week.  Even coming across as a cliche by sitting in a coffee shop with my tablet and keyboard, typing away. Even when it is just the shopping list for Aldi.


Thank the gods of capitalism as after just over a month I am back working, doing a real job, something new and completely different.  Time will tell how this goes but so far so good.  I only slightly miss downtime, and I really only mean slightly.