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Vonnegut said it best: “I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don’t let anybody tell you different.”
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Internalise these perspectives, and the pressure release is like night and day. Dift backs will happen, that’s being human, but you’ll feel it and pay attention to those feelings to see behind the curtain again.
Boomer here, from a generation of strivers, but maybe unable to relate to the idea of “hustle” as a core factor in modern life. We got busy, even sought out busyness and took it as a measure of our worth, but still saw it as stealing from what was actually good about life (though as a whole we were pretty wrong about what was good). Even though we didn’t use the opportunities wisely, I think we still had a vague notion that what @joanwestenberg here calls “making space” was desirable and would contribute to a good life.
But now hustle actually constitutes the good life? When you aren’t hustling you aren’t really living?
In Sherry Turkle’s Reclaiming Conversation I read the following quotes from younger millennials/older gen-Zs, and was surprised (emphasis added):
“One college junior tells me that she doesn’t daydream but does something she calls “chilling.” It involves “aimlessly searching the web.” Think of it as daydreaming 2.0. But it doesn’t do the work of daydreaming. In fact, she calls the web her “safety mechanism” against daydreaming. Time wandering the web protects her from the “danger” of having her mind wander.”
“I ask Carmen, twenty, if she ever has time to just sit and think. Her answer: “I would never do that.” If she has a quiet moment she goes to Facebook. She says she doesn’t want to think about the past without it. “To think about your past experiences instead of looking at pictures or messages, it takes more effort to do that.””
“As long as I have my phone, I would never just sit alone and think. . . . When I have a quiet moment, I never just think. My phone is my safety mechanism from having to talk to new people or letting my mind wander. I know that this is very bad . . . but texting to pass the time is my way of life.
My cohort sought out plenty of distraction, but I think mostly as a way of staving off boredom — a night of prime time TV, the late news, and then to bed. Boredom was an undesirable state, but not something to be feared, not something that required a safety mechanism to avoid. This seems different.
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Yeah my partner and I still bond over a love for TV and movies, a shared context, a night on the couch watching Fallout or old noir. We find joy and togetherness in that, more than just passing the time…
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Individual screens seemingly did for us what central heating did for our ancestors, eroding community by making it optional. On the other hand there is something sweeter about it when we elect to spend time together.
My 23yo daughter lives at home for now, but in an apartment over our detached garage so I don’t see her constantly. Which makes it especially nice when an occasional encounter turns into an hour-long conversation, about her day at work or some TV series we both like. Sometimes I’ll drag her to a movie in a nearby city, giving us 30 minutes each way to talk. And due to circumstances we were watching Pluribus separately but arranged to watch the final episode together, a special treat for me.
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