Truffula

Thoughts on going faster

sustainability

It seems such a waste, that in this time in which we have such technology at our disposal, such efficiency faciliated by our fast cars, smart phones, international flights, blistering computational power, and instantaneous social and informational connectivity, we still manage to end up with a sense of being time-poor— and that people feel it necessary to work harder and harder in order to meet the expectations of the world. The unhindered, in-control life epitomised by the motorbike is perhaps a reality for some, particularly in their youth, and it can be experienced, as opposed to the treadmill of the daily grind, in decisive lifestyle choices— the choice to travel for long periods (as we have done before, and as some have chosen to do indefinitely), or to downsize, seachange or treechange, or the pursuit of intentional simplicity. But such instances are tragically rare. Buckmister Fuller envisioned a life of leisure, with minimal work necessary, and indeed we do have much leisure available, but in this competitive world, few have opted, or been able for whatever reason, to forego the full-time workload (and additional social expectations) that must be sacrificed in order to achieve the life of leisure. And indeed, with the driving ideology of the modern incarnation of the protestant work ethic, a lack of hard work is frowned upon, even as the 'good life', and the life of relaxation, is revered and pursued, by means of the dogged accumulation of leisure goods and leisure homes, along with the many incarnations of the fitness economy.

At the risk of romanticism: in times gone by (and in some places, still) most people worked their garden for a living. The garden is a place to which we are natural drawn, where peacefulness is instilled, where some of our most raw, dirty, and refined desires are satisfied, through seeing and tasting the fruits of our toils, the feeling if handling soil, and the poetic inspiration of flowers and greenery. The modern life, through various promises (some perfectly valid), drew everyday people out of the garden and into the office, the workshop, the factory. And so we toil for forty years, in jobs we hate producing and buying things we don't need, to save enough money that in our old age we can get back out into the garden, where we wish we were all along.

It seems that the Jevons paradox strikes again in our personal lives, reinforcing an idea I have been mulling over for a while: that efficiency, in many senses is a lie. It brings with it an expectation of more and more. More productivity. More creative pursuits. More money. More leisure. More 'social'. More work. And less time. Rather than accepting the competition, the race, the need for ever more and ever faster, we really do need to consciously channel John Naish's vision and cultivate a culture of 'Enough'.

This post is a response to:

Hartmut Rosa, 'Full Speed Burnout? From the Pleasures of the Motorcycle to the Bleakness of the Treadmill: the Dual Face of Social Acceleration', International Journal of Motorcycle Studies, 6 (1) (2010), online.