As I sat here this morning, wading through the usual 100 or so email messages that greet me at the beginning of every day, I found myself looking at a few of them with that feeling of "maybe I should SAVE this, in case I ever want to USE that, or have a closer look at that" that sometimes often comes over me.
Perhaps it comes over all of us, from time to time.
Winter View
However, I have become better at living in the real world, in which my... "rational?"... self is perfectly well aware that I will never have time to "look at that" and it will just sit there until the next time I grow so overwhelmed by the inputs in my life that I feel compelled to simply ERASE my "To Look At Later" folder with all its contents.
Truth is, I don't even have enough time for now, so how on Earth could I possibly think I will ever have time for things, "later?"
A large part of my current efforts to simplify life revolves around relieving myself of the accumulation of "hopes, dreams and ambitions" saved along the way... with the illusion that "someday we will have more time" so we can dig our these relics of another time in our lives and enjoy them in peace and quiet.
It all made me just STOP and ponder how it is that we have become slaves to this existence in which we are so eternally busy just dealing with the essential business of keeping our lives afloat and on an even keel that by the time we get ready to simply start our current day, we already feel exhausted purely from dealing with the basic infrastructure of our lives.
On some level, I do understand — on an intellectual level, at least — that in order for "profits" to exist and grow we must consume at all times, whether it's products, services, time or resources. And that consumption "machine" is fueled by appealing to our root emotional FOMO across every aspect of life.
But why would we — as a species — so willingly choose that?
Mt. Baker in late afternoon sun
As a student of life and psychology, I have long observed just how many decisions people make NOT out of authentic joy, but as a result of a subtle background (and even subconscious) voice going "If I don't 'X,' then 'Y' might happen, and people will think 'Z' about me."
We tend to gloss over this seemingly pervasive subtext of existence with fear-instiling "motivational" phrases like "Choices have consequences!" and "The early bird gets the worm!" in order to make ourselves feel more like this is just a shared burden we all must carry as a fundamental part of being human.
Thinking about all this triggered a memory of a discussion I had with my late mother, many years ago... about grating cheese.
She needed to have some grated cheese for the top of a casserole dish she was making, so she brought out the food processor and grated the cheese. She seemed unable — or unwilling(?) — to understand my argument that even though it might take me two minutes longer to grate the cheese on a hand grater, the time it took to get out and set up the food processor and use it, followed by the time it took to wash and dry six dirty parts, and then re-assemble and put the whole thing away again actually turned a very simple process into something far more complicated and time consuming than it needed to be.
This isn't a story about grating cheese, mind you... but the odd cognitive dissonance my mother experienced in the face of her "helpful and time-saving equipment" actually being a waste of time reminds me a lot of how the entire world not only runs, but has been designed to run.
And subsequently how we end up in a place where we feel like "we don't have time" for a lot of things because we're spending all our time on "time-saving" things deigned to give us more time!
The considerable restrictions people have been dealing with due to lockdowns and more offer an interesting (and unexpected) insight into just how addictive human busy-ness has become for many... as they find themselves going slowly "stir crazy" on account of the fact that their access to doing all those things, all the time has suddenly become limited.
Yet... when subjected to a direct line of questioning as to why this "busy-ness" is actually a good thing, answers are typically pretty vague and ambiguous, along the lines of "because it's what we DO!" and "because that's how you GET AHEAD in life!"
Says who?
This bird is watching you...
Is that your own educated perception, or just FOMO speaking?
Sadly, relatively few answers are attributed directly to missing some kind of authentic enjoyment of life. We talk about the "hamster wheel" of life, and how hamsters just keep running and running, without even knowing why OR ever questioning the why.
Well, I guess I'd better add some photos and publish this before it gets so long people won't have time to READ it!
Thanks for reading, and have a great weekend!
How about YOU? Comments, feedback and other interaction is invited and welcomed! Because — after all — SOCIAL content is about interacting, right? Leave a comment — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!
Greetings bloggers and social content creators! This article was created via PeakD, a blogging application that's part of the Hive Social Content Experience. If you're a blogger, writer, poet, artist, vlogger, musician or other creative content wizard, come join us! Hive is a little "different" because it's not run by a "company;" it operates via the consensus of its users and your content can't be banned, censored, taken down or demonetized. And that COUNTS for something, in these uncertain times! So if you're ready for the next generation of social content where YOU retain ownership and control, come by and learn about Hive and make an account!
(As usual, all text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly and uniquely for this platform — NOT cross posted anywhere else!)
Created at 20210212 13:26 PST
0181/1424