Sometimes the better way is not the faster way or the easier way.
This is a lesson I’m learning, and a hard one. As a child of my culture I have a sweet tooth for convenience. I like tricks. Gimmicks get me. Subscriptions? Sure, lots of those. These days there’s so many means available for speeding life up, for removing friction. The grocery delivery app applauds me for the precious hours I’ve saved clicking greek yogurt and tortilla chips from the comfort of my couch instead of walking down the aisle and grabbing it myself.
When I lived in Boston I remember an ad that ran on buses for an app that guaranteed to save at least one whole day a week. It was a bribe held out to all of us enamored with time-saving. And who isn’t? Who doesn’t want to squeeze the clock and get more done?
But time-saving is like snake charming in my opinion. The thrill is wrapped up with the poison. We know the cycle: the more the time you save, the more you can do, and the more you can do, the more pressure you feel to do more. The free hour you dreamt of goes poof, and the old habit, well-ingrained by now is upon you; of dicing days, mincing minutes, pulverizing every spare second into a flavorless soup of I don’t know what — a brief, pseudo satisfaction of things checked off the to do list.
The list never gets shorter. I have come to terms with that. However, what has always intrigued me is the comical way that time, like money, seems to blow away despite our very best efforts to keep it tight and under control. Our diligent time saving is offset by a mysterious time snatching.
Back in the 1970s, the journalist Tom Wolfe, wrote something very insightful on this matter of time saving which is pertinent today. The whole passage is a gem, so let me quote him at length. Mind you, at the start he’s talking about the advent of digital calculators…a hot device back then:
This marvelous machine was the 1970s’ most notable contribution to the impressive list of time-and-labor-saving devices that have made it possible for Americans, since the Second World War, to waste time in job lots and get less and less done–with sleekness and precision of style. The time you can waste (I speak from experience) going chuk chuk, chuk on your calculator and watching the little numbers go dancing across the black window–all the while feeling that you are living life at top speed–is breathtaking. Earlier additions to the list: the direct-dial long-distance telephone, the Xerox machine, the in-office computer, the jet airliner (not to mention the Concorde). The jet airliner, for example, encourages you to drop everything, hop on a plane, and go to Los Angeles, or wherever, at a moment’s notice. Later on you can’t understand how the better part of a week got shot.
His point is well made, and sometimes a little bit frightening. Lately my two year old daughter has started saying, out of the blue, ‘What time is it?’ and it catches me off guard. It sounds icky. Maybe this is why our time worry reaches such a fever pitch by the time we’re adults. From our earliest days we feel like we’re behind, like there is an agenda we must attend to, or else.
Time? I feel like telling her, Forget about it for now. Let’s go gaze at stars, then we can talk about time. I want to pass on a more generous outlook. Day need not be synonymous with schedule. Too often it is. The waking day can feel so chopped up, so carrots and hummus, if you catch my drift — fine, nutritious, ok — but give me a Krispy Kreme day once in a while, indulgent to the last; the kind T.S. Eliot meant when he said that at the beach time spent wasting is not time wasted. More of that please.
show & tell 