As most readers of this blog know, I write a daily senryu (a haiku-like verse) and post it on social media. My purpose is to capture what\u2019s on my mind each morning.<\/p>\n
Back in March I wrote this one:<\/p>\n
Productivity
\nis not the purpose of life.
\nNot civilized yet.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nI am not a professional philosopher nor a religious leader, so my pronouncements on the purpose of life are strictly those of a lay person. But I do have opinions.<\/p>\n
I have read excellent fiction of late from people who, in addition to writing complex and thought-provoking novels, do fascinating and important work in their day jobs. I\u2019m extremely impressed by the ability of people like Malka Older, Arkady Martine, and Andrea Hairston, just to name three, to do great work in more than one direction.<\/p>\n
The New York Times<\/em> did a piece on Stacey Abrams this week that left me exhausted just reading it. She\u2019s leading the important fight for fair voting, might run for governor of Georgia again, and is turning out novels while finding time to read work by others.<\/p>\n
Clearly some people are able to be usefully productive in a lot of different ways at the same time. In the case of the people I mentioned, I hope they continue to do all the things.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
But I\u2019m not going to try to emulate them. When I was younger, I tried to practice law, train seriously in martial arts, and write fiction, but my writing didn\u2019t really take off until I stopped practicing law and became a legal journalist. Writing about law is a great deal less stressful for me than trying to solve people\u2019s legal problems.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not capable of doing a stressful job and doing the kind of writing I want to do. If I\u2019m going to write anything that\u2019s important to me, I need to think about it. A lot.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve always bought into the idea that writers are working when we\u2019re daydreaming or just sitting around or following some interesting thought down an internet rabbit hole. Lately, I need to think even more than I used to.<\/p>\n
Also, I don\u2019t think the popular definition of \u201cproductive\u201d is doing a complex and useful day job while also creating great fiction or other art. I suspect it\u2019s doing whatever leads to an \u201cexcellent\u201d rating on an annual review at work (even if the job isn\u2019t interesting or important) while maintaining a spotless house and dealing appropriately with taxes, retirement planning, and the like.<\/p>\n
You know, the stuff we call \u201cadulting\u201d these days. We\u2019re all supposed to be productive in that way.<\/p>\n
I have always been reasonably good at doing what it takes to get by with those things, but these days I\u2019m really starting to resent the drag they put not just on my time, but on my daydreaming and speculating. Because I worry about not being sufficiently productive at those tasks, worry that at some point they\u2019re going to come back and bite me in the butt.<\/p>\n
And yeah, actually getting them done helps, but the truth is that the tasks of the modern adult are the paperwork versions of doing the dishes. No matter how many dishes you do, there will be more tomorrow. The same is true of paperwork.<\/p>\n
In the 20th century, some thought that technological advances would mean we\u2019d all need to do much less work. Instead, we not only have demanding jobs but are also constantly dealing with business-like matters in our personal lives.<\/p>\n
I\u2019d like to think that at some point we\u2019ll get rid of a lot of the pointless work and give ourselves a lot more time to sit around and think.<\/p>\n
The purpose of life is doing the work you find important. That can be saving the world or writing great stories or teaching kids or baking bread \u2013 the possibilities are endless and vary enormously by person.<\/p>\n
Some of us can do several things we find important; others of us have to narrow it down to do our work the way we want to do it. Some people will do a lot; some might just polish one stone for the rest of us to admire. All those things are right.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s real adulting. That\u2019s being productive in a way that gives meaning to our lives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As most readers of this blog know, I write a daily senryu (a haiku-like verse) and post it on social media. My purpose is to capture what\u2019s on my mind each morning. Back in March I wrote this one: Productivity is not the purpose of life. Not civilized yet. I am not a professional philosopher […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56,17],"tags":[265,264],"class_list":["post-1202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-experiences","category-rants","tag-adulting","tag-productivity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1202"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1202\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1203,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1202\/revisions\/1203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/treehousewriters.com\/wp53\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}