Skip to main content

The Great Un-Working

In this episode. 2026—The Year of the Great Un-Working

Welcome to On the Fly. If you’re new here, this is a place for noticing—the small, easily missed moments that quietly turn out to matter. It’s part reflection, part curiosity, and occasionally part grease-stained bicycle rag. If you’re searching for life hacks, hustle culture, or a seven-step plan to optimize your morning coffee, you may have taxied onto the wrong runway.

But if you’ve ever felt the itch to slow down and look around—welcome aboard.

We begin 2026 by analyzing the blog post below. Traditional resolutions are often just "re-work"—tasks we assign ourselves to become more efficient cogs. In the 2026 era of Un-Working, a resolution isn't a goal; it’s an unlearning.

Join Jim & Chloe, our AI analysis team, with the help of NotebookLM, as they unpack, explore, and expand on this blog post.

Happy 2026!

If you’re like us, you spent the last week of 2025 doing three things remarkably well: 

  1. Avoiding unfinished projects.
  2. Eating things wrapped in foil.
  3. Quietly wondering how procrastination still isn’t an Olympic sport.
    Then–the calendar flipped, the air sharpened, and the “R” word floated into view.

No—not Resolutions.

Retirement.

Or, as we prefer to think of it here at On the Fly:
The Great Life Re-Creation Project.

This year isn’t about stopping. It’s about un-working—setting down what no longer fits and picking up what we kept meaning to get back to. Less urgency. More intention. Fewer meetings. Better questions.

Here’s what that looks like as we start the year.

From PowerPoint to Power Chords.

For years, music was something other people did confidently.

In 2026, I’m leaning into finger-style guitar—nylon strings, quieter moods, fewer heroic flourishes—music not as performance, but as practice.

  • The Plan:
    Lessons at the local music store. Supporting local business—and removing my ability to claim I “meant to practice.”
  • The Goal:
    To play something soulful enough that the neighbors stop calling the authorities and start leaving tips on the porch.
  • The Reality Check:
    I’m aiming for Spanish Romance. I’ll settle for not snapping a high-E string and losing an eye.

Dusting Off the Universe

There’s a telescope in the garage.

If you’re new here, you should know this: On the Fly has a soft spot for forgotten tools—the ones we bought with BIG curiosity and then buried under real life.

January skies are clear, cold, and honest. Perfect for reminding us that our daily worries are statistically insignificant in the grand scheme of the Milky Way.

  • The Plan:
    Connect with the local Astronomy Club. Spend time with people who think Andromeda is a perfectly reasonable Saturday night topic.
  • The Goal:
    Locate a galaxy without an app thinking for me.
  • The Likely Outcome:
    Three hours in the cold before realizing I’ve been staring at a distant streetlamp again. Ha ha!

Grease, Gears, and Giving Back

Cycling has been part of my life since I was fourteen. Around here, bikes aren’t just transportation—they’re teachers.

This summer, On the Fly headquarters may transform into a small bicycle classroom.

  • The Plan:
    Teach local kids basic repairs: fixing flats, indexing derailleurs, and mastering the fine art of not tracking grease into the house.
  • The Goal:
    Every kid knows the difference between a tire iron and a screwdriver.
  • The Vibe:
    Exploring new horizons on two wheels—preferably without fixing twenty bikes at once while everyone eats my snacks.

The 2026 “Newly Idle” Reading List (Any suggestions?)

Because un-working takes practice:

  • How to Do Nothing — Jenny Odell
  • The Music Lesson — Victor Wooten
  • Astrophysics for People in a Hurry — Neil deGrasse Tyson

The universe is vast. For the first time in a while, we’re not rushing through it.

If You’re New Here, Start With These Questions

On the Fly isn’t about retirement.
It’s about reinvention at any age.

So let me ask you—directly:

What are you "un-working" on this year?
What habit, identity, or expectation has quietly expired?
What would you pick up if productivity weren’t the point?

A guitar. A telescope. A camera. A wrench. Or simply the habit of noticing.

Stop using AI like a search engine. Click here to see what happens when you treat it like a creative partner.

I’m Patrick Ball. Stay curious. Ask better questions: clear skies—and tailwinds.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Most Popular of All Time

Resurrecting the '90s Graphite

Let’s face it, there’s a certain danger in reading John Gierach's Trout Bum . His wit, self-deprecation, and sharp, effortless satire are entirely infectious. If you aren't careful, his words will inspire you to drop everything, wade into a freezing river, and try to outsmart a creature with a brain the size of a lentil. In my case, re-reading Gierach recently didn't send me straight to the river. It sent me digging through the dusty, spider-guarded corners of my garage. In the early 1990s, seeking a natural escape from Manhattan's concrete canyons, I decided to learn to cast a fly rod. I bought an Orvis Rocky Mountain —eight-and-a-half feet, three ounces, built for a five-weight line—and had absolutely no idea how to use it. To avoid aimlessly whipping the water like scrambling eggs, I took fly-fishing lessons from Al Cucci, co-author of Hatches , on the Delaware River. With his guidance, I fished renowned waters: the AuSable in New York and Michigan, and New Jersey...
Post a Comment
Read more

From Mailbox to Microphone

In this episode, catching up with Sierra . What happens when you combine a little imagination, modern digital tools, and the willingness to make a glorious, muddy mess? You get our guest’s latest project. I’m Patrick Ball. Welcome back to On the Fly . Today, we are diving into the world of native plants and guerrilla gardening with twelve-year-old creator Sierra. After watching her impressive, self-produced tutorial on how to make ‘Seed Balls,’ I had to know how she did it. It’s incredibly inspiring to watch Sierra evolve from a young artist wielding crayons and stationery into a savvy digital creator. She’s writing scripts, mastering voiceovers, and editing—all to make a positive, green impact on her local community. “She shoots, she scores, and she’s here to tell us all about it.” Please welcome Sierra to On the Fly ! Let’s get into it. Audio interview . . . For more blog posts showcasing Sierra’s talents, see: The Mailbox Surprise . . . and The Summer Surprise I’m Patrick Ball. Sta...
Post a Comment
Read more

The AI Debate Was Settled in 1954

In this episode, what a 70-year-old sci-fi mystery teaches us. Welcome back to On the Fly. I’ve been looking for a clear way to explain how we should be handling Artificial Intelligence today. I finally found the answer hidden in a book I just finished. The twist? It was written more than seventy years ago. Isaac Asimov's The Caves of Steel was published in 1954, when a computer filled an entire room, consumed enough electricity to dim the neighborhood, and had roughly the computing power of today's microwave. Yet Asimov set his story nearly 3,000 years in the future—a world where humanity lives in sprawling enclosed cities (New York) and depends on advanced technology for nearly every aspect of daily life. The remarkable part isn't how much of the technology he imagined. It's how accurately he predicted us. In Asimov's future, society struggles with the introduction of highly sophisticated humanoid robots powered by "positronic brains." Naturally, a lou...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Birth of a Cubs Legend

In this episode, The 162-Game Exhale — and the Birth of a Cubs Legend There’s a hush in the baseball world on Game 162 — a collective breath drawn in and slowly released. Scoreboards stop flipping. Dugouts empty. For six months, the game has been our steady heartbeat, pulsing from the cherry blossoms of Tokyo in March to the crisp, playoff-charged winds of late September. And now, as the regular season exhales, baseball fans everywhere pause to absorb the story we’ve just lived. For me, that story has been deeply personal. This season unfolded in the rhythms of my daily life. It was the summer soundtrack echoing beneath the constant turmoil of politics and sensational headlines. It was a handful of carefully chosen ballpark pilgrimages stitched together with countless nights in front of MLB.TV. And at the center of it all, for a lifelong Cubs fan like me, it revolved around one name — a young center fielder who turned hope into history: Pete Crow-Armstrong. The 2025 season didn’t begin...
Post a Comment
Read more