There are many conveniences that modern life has brought us — and I do realize that, given my young age and the time I’ve grown up in, it may seem a little ridiculous to talk about in such a way. However, I’ve heard stories of a time when questions were not immediately answerable by Google and Wikipedia, and instead you had to go to the library and ask a reference librarian, consult an encyclopedia, or find an expert on the topic. If you had homework to do (using pencil, paper and a book, no less!), you could not take a break every 3.5 minutes to check your Facebook feed, your RSS reader, or tweet about how much you don’t want to be doing what you’re doing.
As with all changes like these, in retrospect we can usually pick out some positives and negatives. At most of our fingertips is a breadth of knowledge unparalleled in the past. Want to find out more information about a topic that piqued your interest? Google it! Do you want to make a purchase, but are unsure of the quality of the product? Look for reviews! Did your grandfather tell you about something he saw on the news, and you want to see if he got the facts right? Check the website! Do you want to find a new restaurant near you? Pull up an app on your smartphone and a plethora of choices are presented.
However, this also has negatives. Procrastinating is easier than ever, as I’m sure many people can relate to. At the slightest hint of mental resistance, you can simply Command-Tab to your web browser and mindlessly browse the droves of useless information on the internet — most critically, of course, reading about your friends doing the same thing. Instead of going out for a walk or hike, you can instead spend hours reading about other people hiking, and probably bantering about the best shoes in which to do it. And then, once you’ve wasted all of that time, with only a few clicks you can then purchase those new shoes, which will probably sit in your closet unworn, un-hiked-in.
Frank Chimero recently wrote on this optimization of our lives, and how easy it is now to distract ourselves.
I have essays to write, designs to finish, sketches to make, and friends and family to attend to. I’ve got enough meat for most of my day, and to gobble up more cotton candy than I need isn’t just dumb, it’s down right destructive. And I’ll be damned if that little bit of time I have left over is going to be devoted to fluff that isn’t nourishing. Give me fun, but give me substance.
I think we can all relate to this as well — most of us have plenty on our plates to fill our days. A lot of these things are useful, productive, fulfilling and worthwhile. But these days distractions are so accessible that we find ourselves wasting away our lives doing things that, in the end, leave us unfulfilled.
This is a good reminder for myself to step back and think about what I’m spending my time on. I don’t need to be doing productive, important, respectable things all of the time, but at least let those things that I do, even if they aren’t saving the earth or making me rich, be fulfilling.
Go ahead and believe there’s a such thing as a life well-wasted. We’re put here to be productive, not distracted.
via Frank Chimero has a blog – De-optimizing.
