The Secret of Time Management

I won't keep you in suspense: it's saying No. Working smarter not harder is going to get you only so far, and if we're honest, a lot of smart working is saying no to certain things anyway. 

But how does one say No?

The curse of the era we live in is that we believe there is so much that we should say Yes to. The promise of the World Wide Web is just that: an interconnected world. But the world we are given easy access to is just so much garbage most of the time. It's a slightly more heightened version of the one available on television, which is itself a dumbed down version of the one available in books. A richer world is out there, but it's hidden in plain sight beneath the shiny glow of the baubles displayed by the internet.

I bring this up because, for the umpteenth time, I've listened in on a conversation in which people are concerned with Time Management (as well as the latest in gaming and television), and the intensity of these conversations might convince someone that distraction -- or Attention Deficit Disorder -- had been invented in the last two decades. But that is not true. What might be true is that the level of distraction has ratcheted up past what anyone could imagine.

Or couldn't they? Actually, haven't people been warning us about what mass media could do for decades? Neil Postman warned us in Amusing Ourselves to Death that Orwell's nightmare of Big Brother was irrelevant in a civilization that had chosen to make a god out of Entertainment; Carl Sagan saw that as our technology became more complex, many of us would backslide into superstition and revel in our ignorance; and Kurt Vonnegut described a society that was going to disguise the fact that it wasn't allowed to talk about substance by screaming about whatever was still left to us.

As far-seeing -- let's even call them visionary -- as these authors were, I don't think even they saw the sleight of hand that was going to be pulled on us in the twenty-first century. The usage of our modern technology -- small enough to fit into your pocket, more powerful than the Manhattan Project scientists could dream of -- gives us the illusion that we are participating in this movement called Technological Progress while we are, in fact, being commodified. We think we are using our technology to be more connected, but really we are connecting ourselves to a marketplace that listens into what we are already interested in and, like the best marketers in retail and politics, uses that information to convince us to buy what's already out there. We think we are choosing to watch and play the most cutting edge entertainment offered by Hollywood and Silicon Valley, but really many of us can't say no because we are addicted to the prospect of being entertained. 

Raj Patel, who has written more recently, had the great insight that the opposite of choice isn't coercion but instinct: if we have been participating in a marketplace from before the time we could consent -- before we were even born, in many instances -- our very "gut feelings" have been shaped to accommodate market values. Every other kind of value -- moral, political, intellectual -- will be indulged only to the point where it doesn't inconvenience said market. 

If you don't feel in control of your time -- and the life that it is filled with -- congratulations for realizing something that many are not yet able to see. You are not in control of your time because you are not in control of your attention. You cannot say No when you hear a demand, not a question.

This is a question

When you are being given thirty-nine different versions of chips in the snack aisle, you don't have thirty-nine options, but two: buy the chips, or walk away. (If one option has thirty-nine different varieties and the other has only one, what is the math weighted toward once you're in that aisle?) When you have available over fifty services for streaming in the United States, again, you really have two options: watch a program on one of the services, or walk away. (When each option has hundreds of programs per service, and there isn't a lot of drama inherent in walking away, what is the math weighted toward once you open up your device?)

Even those of us in a Community Supported Agriculture program will have to walk into a supermarket at some point, and once there it's difficult to avoid the snack aisle. By the same token, even those of us who are committed to spending as little time as possible on screens have to open them at some points, and once there it's difficult to avoid being plagued by ads and other "reminders" pointing you to entertainment. What is the solution? I don't know. But what I do know is that the more we remind ourselves that we are being asked, not told, we can start to say No more frequently.

Deb in the City

What's Making Me Better

A couple of health setbacks in the last month were exhausting enough that I decided to, you know, listen to my body and take it easy. (I hate taking it easy.) So I didn't tax myself with anything more strenuous than walking for about thirty minutes or forty-ish minutes of qigong. Shockingly, I feel better, and I think I got the message from my body that, just maybe, heavy weights aren't my thing, and if I want my epic walks back, I'm going to have to earn them. So now I can walk about forty minutes per day, and we'll go from there.

Along the same lines, but not nearly as serious, I think herbs are not my friend. Please, not those herbs, which have never been my thing for numerous reasons that make me a complete outlier in our civilization. No, I mean medicinal herbs that grow in my garden. I mean echinacea, which people I know have been going on about for most of my adult life. We grow some in my community garden plot, and my plot-mate dried a slew and gave me some to take home. After two tries with the tea in the morning that I thought might be bothering my stomach, I decided to incorporate it into a ginger-bug based soda. I lasted three or four days before I realized that the increasingly painful cramping of my digestive organs was not being helped by the echinacea. And then, oh yeah, my kidneys were sore, which isn't something that happens to me a lot. 

I hate when people talk about "detoxing", but I decided that I was going to confine myself to fruits, vegetables, and nuts until I felt better (basically, a vegan "high raw" diet). And you know what? I do feel better -- better than I have in a few years. So I'm going to stick with this until/unless it feels like it's not enough, and then we'll reassess from there. But I feel...good.

Just say no

The cure, apparently, for what ails me

I'm finding it more and more that I just can't listen to the news. No, I do not mean because it's traumatizing -- did I mention that I'm a member of Gen X and thus I grew up being threatened by nuclear war every other month? -- but because it just seems so dumbed down. I think, and I'm horrified by this thought, that the news is being dumbed down in order to appeal to younger audiences, who apparently aren't being given enough credit to be able to keep up and learn something. (FYI, I'm talking about NPR and Boston's NPR affiliates.) It's one thing for social media to be a younger person's game -- and it is -- it's another thing for the news to be so. So far, the Economist is still doing a pretty good job of being a site that caters to "adult audiences", but we'll see how that progresses in the next few years. Oh right -- I was also watching a lot of NHK Newsline until one of the anchors smugly reported on the failure of South Korea's rocket -- sorry, you want to bring down the tension, or not? -- and Arirang News has some interesting perspectives on foreign affairs.

What's helping me now is my reading, and as I get older I find that to be increasingly the case. I finished Jade Legacy, the final book in Fonda Lee's Green Bone Saga, and I'm kind of ruined now for a lot of other fiction. I'm utterly in awe of someone who can write action scenes that make me feel like I'm watching a movie, organizational and political dynamics, AND intimate portraits of the members of an imperfect family. Needless to say, that's not everyone. Fortunately, there's The Veiled Throne, the third book in Ken Liu's quartet (?), The Dandelion Dynasty. It's 982 pages, because of course it is, but I'm a sixth of the way through and I haven't felt the passage of time. If Fonda Lee can immerse you in an organization with a kaleidoscopic perspective, Liu can show you how the world is built, including everything from the harnessing of silk's static electricity and the building of airships to the dueling philosophical underpinnings of a civilization. If it's not as intimate, it's because the canvas he has to work with is so vast -- and amazing. 

As far as non-fiction, the last month or so was kind of rough. Most difficult title was Not "A Nation of Immigrants" by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz. Dunbar-Ortiz makes the work of Ibram X. Kendi and Erika Lee feel like a party (and boy, am I never going to look at the Hamilton fans the same way again). Not perfect -- don't get me started on Syria -- but mostly very good. African Europeans: An Untold History by Olivette Otele was a little less wrenching, but not significantly so. I learned a number of things -- one of the de Medici's whose descendants still have some power was in, fact, an African European, as were Septimus Severus and Alexander Pushkin -- but I couldn't help but walk away feeling like, gee, maybe the United States isn't so much worse than Europe. Jesus, Finland, keep your educational system if you're so awfully, extra-special racist, okay? With all that behind me, Stalin's War: A New History of World War II by Sean McMeekin is a relative breeze. I might not be completely convinced of his thesis yet, but it is worthwhile to read about World War II through the Soviet lens (and let's admit that Stalin- and Mao-apologists have persisted much longer than they should have).

No, really -- just say no

My writing continues -- I swear to all the deities of humanity that I will not only finish drafting this, I will also edit it! Getting installment eleven done was a huge confidence booster, and it made getting through installment twelve easier. I am currently in the middle of installment thirteen, and this is where blood touches metal, literally and figuratively. I'm excited because it's here that everything starts escalating and really can't be stopped anymore. And like all writers, I love being on a runaway train!

What's really keeping me sane? Playing with differential equations and studying chemistry in the early morning hours. There, I said it. Now you all know what a nerd I am. (It's not all crazy fantasy fandoms, right?)

Okay -- off to another smoothie and then I catch up on Taxi Driver, the Korean (of course) series -- more on the other k-dramas and k-movies later.

Deb in the City

Dreams, Daylight, and Rooms (Poem)

I used to have a golden dream

I retreated to for relief,

For belief

Once -- maybe twice --

I saw stars in a darkened sky

I used to believe in things like dreams, and stars,

And skies

Perhaps I've traded 

Promises of the night

For the fragile realities of daytime?

The green of leaves

The explosion of flowers

The sturdiness of living wood,

The harbingers of the living world

There is glory in these,

No doubt

And having been in greying rooms

That were just here, just now

Which required dreams to live through

I am grateful for fragility,

No doubt

But shouldn't a life

-- Real and full --

Have day and night,

Dreams, stars, and sunlight?

Perhaps -- perhaps

I need a different dream

Before I can open my eyes

In this other darkened room

A two-dimensional river (Poem)

On the dock by the river

A pattern of criss cross

As good as two dimensions

Are going to get

The current pushed aside

By another force

Is this not

What real life looks like?

Bordered by rocks and lily pads

Stagnant batches in the middle

Lost in the details

Of the side show --

Wishing for "smooth" 

-- Whatever that means --

Then wondering why it seems

To push by 

Too fast

On occasion, a wonder --

A funnel, a swirl, a vortex --

Captivating to contemplate,

A window into the third dimension

-- But ultimately,

Only one direction,

And that is down

A reminder to master the flow of the two

Before we try to plumb

The mysteries of the third

Wishing at sea (Poem)

Sitting by the breezy sea

Unlike most wishes,

This one comes true

Is that, perhaps,

Why we love the sea?

We know what it can give us

And what it can do

And we know that,

In its own way,

It makes everything else

A little better

Is it the taste and smell of salt?

On the most humid of days

Does it feel a little less heavy

Because instead of moisture

We feel salt giving us a hug?

Is it the sounds?

Waves against rocks or stones

Birds protesting

The escape of food?

We know we are not alone

Or at least

We can believe it

Is it the sight of everything mundane

Suddenly become majestic?

The grey of water

Is now sunlit silver

The blue of sky

Reflecting back a little bit

Of its own glory

The whiteness of clouds

A little fuller

Now that they

Are closer to their home

Skyline meets sea-line on the horizon

Perhaps everything is coming home to itself

This wish,

Unlike most,

Comes true at sea

Awakening (Poem)

Awakening with time

In time

Trying on for size

The responsibilities of the day,

The days that make up

Lives

Holding onto sleep, the comfort

Of simply existing

Without the need to prove

Value or meaning

Enjoying contentment

There is nothing to wake up for

Enthusiasm for the day,

The future

Is replaced by satisfaction

With the present

But sunlight can be treachery

Just as are the memories and torments

Of the dark

And contentment

Is always fleeting

We do not rise for enthusiasm

We rise for hope

That we can construct our lives

Day by day

Not with what we must do

But what we have chosen to do

Contentment is fleeting

As is sunlight

As are memories, good and bad

Good and sad

And as is the day

But the things we do

The things we choose

The days -- 

The life -- 

We construct

Are the things that endure

...but I'm not a minimalist

I've discussed my love of Marie Kondo's philosophy of tidying before, and I will do so again. Perhaps it is because I loved her books so much and read them so closely that I'm always dismayed when she's characterized as a minimalist. No, no, no. She specifically says that when you tidy, your focus should be on what you keep, not what you cast off. Kondo writes about people experiencing a "click", wherein they will feel that they now have the right amount of possessions, and that's when they should stop tidying. (She also does not say that everyone should limit themselves to the thirty books that she feels comfortable with, but the internet loves repeating its bs, so don't let facts stop you.)

Before Kondo arrived at her method, she was obsessed with throwing things away, and wasn't sure why she was still miserable even after discarding bags and bags of things. It was only when she had the insight to focus on what she was keeping that her method was truly born. I bring this up to explain not only why her work resonates with me, but also why I am not a minimalist.

If Kondo wanted to know why she was unhappy no matter how much she got rid of, others want to know why they were miserable no matter how much they had. For them, minimalism, or getting down to the brass tacks of what they needed to survive, was what they needed to break free of consumerism.

Believe me, I sympathize, and maybe other Gen-Xers do as well. Many of us were born when things were tight in the 1970s, and were alternately dazzled and overwhelmed by the sheer amount of stuff in the 1980s. (And for those of us who could not afford all of the trappings, many of us felt and sometimes were bullied.) I appreciate the luxury of being able to say "No" to stuff you don't want and don't need. If I'm going to take on a label, then the one I want is Anti-Consumerist.

Perhaps it is because I am reflexively atheist, but there is just too much of a vow of poverty and the promise of salvation to the current cult of minimalism to appeal to me. It is the opposite side of the coin of consumerism: if one fetishizes things, the other venerates not having them. Neither appears at all to be helpful or healthy.

I am reminded of the Law & Order: Criminal Intent episode, "The Saint"/"A Person of Interest". You may know this as the one that starred Stephen Colbert as the villain, James Bennett (I am not making this up), but what I think about is his character's mother, Betty. The detectives figure out that she was suffering from a form of depression which made her vulnerable to wanting salvation, and the church she was a part of took advantage of that by encouraging her to donate beyond her means even when she had a child to raise. This is what so many minimalists look like to me when they focus on how little they have.

Focusing on having almost nothing as a way to salvation seems, to me, to be indulging in as much magical thinking as those who buy into marketing and advertising. The underlying premise of just about all of it is that you will be happier merely because you possess said thing, whether that's a piece of software, an item of clothing, or a hard-to-find ingredient. The promise of minimalism is that you will be happier merely by not having it. As I said, two sides of the same coin.

I find both minimalism and consumerism to be automatic and unexamined. Both are, in their own ways, belief systems. One says have as little as you can (and you're helping the environment), the other says have as much as you can (and you're helping the economy). I like belief systems -- they're very simplifying -- but neither reflect the messiness of reality. In every day life, we need to make choices that reflect the nuance of our options.

I need to eat, therefore I need food (the ultimate disposable consumption category). That's a primal need, so much so that most people don't argue that is a need...but you will get people who will tell you that you should eat so much, or only so much, of this ingredient or that ingredient. You should eat at home, of course, because cooking for yourself is cheaper and more customizable, but that's not always helpful advice for someone with a busy work schedule. (Well, why are you working so much in the first place?) You should be willing to make an investment purchase and get only the most pristine, organic, locally produced option available, but that's not always possible for someone who has a limited budget.

Then there's shelter, clothing, healthcare, and transportation. Those are essentials, and the decisions about them always come with trade offs; sometimes it makes sense to consume, and sometimes it makes sense to think about consuming as little as possible. But for the majority of people, no one philosophy makes sense all the time.

I am right now reading The Day The World Stops Shopping by J.B. Mackinnon and re-reading The Complete Tightwad Gazette by Amy Daczyzn. The exploration of these topics and the proposed solutions feel like the middle of the road between minimalism and consumerism, because they require thought and reflection. Those things are exhausting, and sometimes we don't have that luxury. All I can say is that with practice, it become more of a habit of mind than a conscious exercise. Maybe?

But there's no easy answer.

Deb in the City