A West Wing character taught me how to stay on top of the housework. But did this fictional political consultant also teach me how to be unhappy?
“It may not be realistic, but it feels real, and it feels right. If this isn’t what the White House is like, it’s what it should be like.” Nancy Franklin, writing about the debut of the The West Wing, nailed the show’s evergreen appeal at the outset.
Two decades later, the gulf between those fictional corridors of power and their modern-day equivalents feels considerably larger. We might be forgiven for thinking that modern politicians, in the USA and other Western democracies, could learn a lot from their fictional 2000s counterparts.
I certainly drew a lot of lessons from The West Wing, although I often wonder if my most enduring takeaway was a helpful one, in the long run. A clip from the third season of the show will explain the situation.
Life lessons learned on a sloop
It’s an Oval Office scene in which campaign manager Bruno Gianelli (Ron Silver) quietly but firmly upbraids President Bartlet (Martin Sheen), who has just dismissed the opportunity to chalk up a small win during his reelection campaign.
The President declines to make a change to his family’s thanksgiving plans – one that private polling suggests will help his image and therefore his hopes of reelection.
In response, Bruno catches him off guard with a non-sequitur: “Sometimes I have difficulty talking to people who don’t race sailboats.”
Bruno elaborates with a life lesson he learned while working on a sloop in his teenage years: you must artfully use every means at your disposal to maintain your speed through the water, and do so as deftly as you can.
His words have stuck with me for two decades:
If you think that I’m going to miss even one opportunity to pick up half a knot of boat speed, you’re absolutely out of your mind. When it costs us nothing? When we give up nothing? You’re out of your mind.
We all have destinations we’re striving to reach. For the fictional President Bartlet it was the grand vista of reelection; for most of us, it’s simply the goal of making it to bed on time.
The Omnipresent Bruno Half-Knot
When you think about it that way, it should be clear that you don’t have to be a campaign manager to recognise one of Bruno’s half-knots.
In the political world, they’re abstract; in the domestic sphere, they’re omnipresent. These days I see them everywhere.
- Having the clothes picked out ready the night before
- Charging your partner’s phone overnight
- Hiding some broccoli – even just a microscopic amount – in your child’s mashed potato
- Draining the top rack of the dishwasher so you can unload it more quickly in five minutes time
- Making sure the iPad has enough entertainment downloaded for the journey
- Adding those tiny little batteries to the shopping list – in the brief, flickering seconds during which you can hold that necessity in your mind
- Setting a calendar reminder – for basically any appointment, financial commitment or expiring policy.
The half-knot is the Big City cousin of Gretchen Rubin’s one-minute rule: “pushing yourself to do any chore that takes less than one minute,” like hanging up towels or disposing of junk mail.
These micro chores are about more than decluttering
These micro chores are about more than decluttering, though – you don’t make up a half-knot of speed because you need to bypass your inner slob.
You do it because you can’t bear the idea that the boat might slow down, that you might squander your progress – you do it for efficiency, for the promise of a better tomorrow (as a soaring West Wing oration might have it).
The price of eternal domestic vigilance
But half-knots only exist when things are going well – or at least, going okay. When housekeeping tasks, professional obligations and personal admin begin to mount up, they mostly cease to exist.
Winds seem to be building to gale force – it feels like it’s only a matter of time before 40ft breakers are looming up around you.
I once saw an Instagram video that summed up that oppressive feeling perfectly: a close-up of a woman’s disenchanted face, as she regarded her house and mentally listed the domestic and parental tasks awaiting her, each one captioned on screen as she spotted it, until the obligations gradually crowded out all the space in the frame.
Half-knots can start to blot out the present moment
If you’re not careful, half-knots can start to blot out the present moment in just the same way. The incessant attention to detail, the constant mindfulness of opportunity – it can feel oppressive to you and your family.
Your kid wants you to play a game with them, not check if the basket is full enough for you to get a headstart on this week’s laundry mountain.
The real paradox with half-knots is this: in your metaphorical sailboat you’re supposed to be the deckhand and the skipper. If you spend too much time checking for kelp on the hull then you don’t get a moment to enjoy the wild majesty of the ocean view, or at least feel the wind on your face.
Most of all, you don’t get time to ask if this sailboat is heading in the right direction. Maybe you’re not heading toward something as grand as reelection, but if you’re moving as fast as you can, you’d better be happy with your destination.
If you don’t use the opportunity to check your bearings… Well, as Bruno might say, you’re out of your mind.
