Americans don’t do nothing well
Bertrand Russell said that organized people are just too lazy to look for things. Some people are fanatical about David Allen and his getting things done (GTD) promise. But what happens when you have got all those things done? If the goal is to do nothing, then I can appreciate that. But getting things done in order to do more things seems slightly bonkers to me. Is life just about cramming more things in?
We are not machines. Machines are efficient. People are proficient. There is a difference.
Thinking of ourselves as ‘productive’ is a kind of violence. Many of us have jobs in which we are treated like machines. We are measured by output. But this mechanistic approach doesn’t need to seep into how we see ourselves. All of us have private lives. More than that, each of us is a singularity. Each of us is unique. We inhabit our own territory. It’s easier to find that territory when we slow down.
Doing nothing is at best suspect and at worst subversive. If we slow down enough maybe—just maybe—we will discover our own thinking; our own unique perspectives; our own way of being in the world.
We live in a culture obsessed with hard work. I would never say anything bad about hard work. Hard work is necessary—sometimes. But hard work isn’t an end in itself. Some of us have forgotten how to slow down— how to enjoy. Americans don’t do nothing well.
We take frenetic vacations. We try to impress our peers by where we have been. Vacations are a status symbol. But what is enjoyment? There is that word joy in there. Are we capable of joy by going somewhere else? Isn’t joy a spontaneous experience? Sometimes we are miserable. Sometimes we are happy. None of this lasts. I don’t think we can buy joy. But we can have a relationship with ourselves. And that takes time and, for me at least, solitude.
Anthony Storr, in his book Solitude, understands solitude as a virtue, a pleasure, and the ground of creativity. Our fast-paced lives are designed to keep us from this experience.
I learned to slow down in school. Right after lunch we had a nap on a blanket. I admit that this was a long time ago, and I was only about three or four. But this wise practice should be reinstated. I respond well to rest and renewal. I am useless when exhausted.
We need a slow school. We need get industry on board. We need a nap room. Why work hard if there is no reward? My quality of life is better when I’m rested.
As current thinking goes, we work hard now for a better future. I am all for it. But we shouldn’t mortgage the present for an imagined future. Slow is a moderate approach. Our present is revealed to us the more we slow down.
Efficiency has its place, but let’s not over do it. No matter how much of an organized system I could put in place, I would spend more time trying to maintain it. I may spend time looking for that missing sock, or try to find my keys, but a certain amount of mess is fine with me. I am not too lazy to look for things. And when puttering about I sometimes make remarkable discoveries.
Not all of us can slow down, but it is a worthy goal.