“Relax!”

How droll.

I was reading a piece about the lost art of relaxation that found italics and an exclamation mark necessary to emphasize their point. Seems to me relaxed folk don’t require italicized commands. Then I remembered the TV commercials for inducing sleep, the ultimate relaxation, with appropriate background sounds: rain falling, birds chirping, leaves rustling.

“Ah . . . !”

So it’s come to this: A pleasant, restful state of mind has become just another download. Sitting and staring into space a no-no. Every nanosecond must be filled with thought, problem-solving, Beyoncé, something. Then, when the brain wears out, we are ordered to Relax!

A similar fate awaits the napper. Back in the day short power naps were in fashion. Some employee-friendly offices provided napping chairs. No time anymore for refreshing 20-minute snoozes. Gotta check the stock market, the weather, NFL scores. Did I miss Aunt Hattie’s birthday? Soon, restaurants posted “Turn off cell phones” signs, not necessary with vibrate and text. There they sit, next to the cutlery.

Technology has become the enemy of relaxation. An entire generation has progressed from pacifiers to GameBoys to iPhones to Siri and AI functions I can’t even name. Just pondering it creates tension.

The really scary part is how this relaxation wasteland has spread from Generation Whatever to their grandparents who, instead of a relaxing daydream, struggle over Sudoku and Wordle.

I notice this in waiting rooms which, devoid of magazines since COVID, have become mailrooms, newsrooms, download parlors. In my files covering 30-plus years, there remain three columns about air travel, especially the decline of people-watching in departure lounges. This pastime requires keen observation, imagination. Relationships play out over whether to spend $5 for a cup of coffee, or who packed the earbuds. Outfits go from gym-chic to military fatigues to beachy flip-flops. From business suits to pre-stressed jeans. On long layovers I entertained myself by concocting stories about couples and how they met, sometimes laughing out loud, all without clutching a slippery little electronic device.

Then, the crazy lady with no visible cellphone would don big sunglasses, yawn, stretch out and relax.

I suspect relaxation has a chemical element that creeps up slowly, silently, largely unnoticed. It is the transitional state between hectic brain activity and sleep, a twilight zone visible on no screen, whether set to airplane mode or not.

It is delicious, refreshing, blissfully unproductive.

Of course relaxation can be achieved by other methods — a walk in the woods on a chilly afternoon; watching a toddler build a skyscraper from alphabet blocks; staring into a fireplace as pine logs sputter and burn; petting a kitten; feeling the spray of a waterfall — all in person, not online.

Like the time I strolled by a house where an elderly gentleman sat alone on the porch, head leaned back, hands idle, smiling.

“Hi there,” I said and waved. “Whatcha doin’?”

“Nothin’.” He waved back.

Right answer.