Was there a moment in the ’90s when we decided that efficiency was life’s greatest aim? Maybe it’s my age. I was born on the last hour of the last day of the last year of the ’70s, but it feels like my early twenties not only marked my fall from serendipity and wonder into protein bars and inboxes, but the whole world’s. Maybe we became efficiency zombies when cell phone adoption hit critical mass.
Or perhaps that was the beginning of the end of searches that surprised and delighted us. The beginning of the end of holding a question—Did Roberta Flack write “Killing Me Softly?” Why does cilantro taste like soap to some people? How often do you need to trim a dog’s toenails?—in your brain for days until you found the person or book with the answer. Remember microfiche and flea markets and calling someone to see if they were, at that very moment, home and bored, so they could answer the ringing phone and meet at the park on your bikes?
Without getting too nostalgic about it, these readings will make you revisit the forgotten, sometimes wonderful feelings that go with friction. We don’t have to throw away our cell phones to bring spontaneity back into our lives. We can be intentional and collective. In fact, we must be intentional and collective; it’s the only way to live expansive lives connected by slow and messy delight. And that is an aim far more worthy of our finite time than productivity, no matter what the false gods of Silicon Valley and late-stage capitalism say.
