If I Could Give Zoomers And Alphas One Piece Of Advice, It Would Be This:

If I could give Zoomers and Alphas one piece of advice, it would be this:

Get a cemetery hobby.

There are a ton of cemeteries out there where the last burial was in the 1970s and the living relatives are none, and at best someone might mow once or twice a month. Find one near you. Adopt it. Put your phone in airplane mode. Better yet, leave it home.

Clear the dirt and twigs from the graves. You can use plain water. Get one of those bamboo back scrubber brushes if you want to do a thorough job--it'll get into the cracks and crevices but also be gentle enough to not harm the stone. Take crayons and paper and take rubbings of stones you can't read. Think about what the lives of those people might have been like. Take a hobby with you that requires no technology, like fiberwork or drawing or reading. Sit for a couple of hours a week and listen to the birds and the bugs and the dead, away from TikTok dances and buy-buy-buy and CCTV.

You probably won't be questioned--it's highly unlikely a semi-feral cemetery has security. But if a security guard or cop does come by, the best part of this whole thing is that you can literally tell the truth: you're there because it's quiet, and you can think or participate in your hobby uninterrupted. You're showing respect, because it's sad that nobody is ever here. You don't want to harm anything--just to be still for a little while. Hell, depending on your religion you can even honestly say you're fulfilling a religious obligation by caring for the dead.

Cemeteries by design are meant to be stayed in for awhile. It's taken as a given that family and friends of the deceased will want to visit the graves, tidy them, and leave flowers. As long as you're not vandalizing anything, there's no reason for this to be called "loitering." You are using the cemetery for its intended function.

Here's the key to all this: this is not for public consumption, a thing for you to liveblog on social media or do a blow-by-blow writeup of. It's for YOU, only for you. Nothing you do in this time is for mandatory consumption by others. For a short space of time, you're off the grid. Technology can be great in its proper place, but the panopticon is not good for you, so make a blind spot for yourself.

Adopt a cemetery.

And if you happen to be in my hometown, you already know exactly which cemetery you're picking seeing as there's only the one, so do me a favor and mosey on back to the corner by the fence nearest the lake. You'll find a pair of depressions, each about the size of a coffin. If it's close to a federal holiday they'll have those little bronze flag holders on them.

Tell my Revolutionary soldiers I'm still getting them plaques someday, and enjoy my corner. Once upon a time I sheltered from the noise there, too.