Response to GenY's Insatiability

Another friend of mine emailed me recently with a response to the 4 points brought up in this post. I’ve highlighted the parts that caught my attention. I’m glad to see that some of the things I write get people thinking! Here’s the email:

I just have some comments on this e-mail you got, really got me thinking.

Point 1

This entire premise is built on the supposition that when people say they just want to sit back and relax, they actually mean it. Sure, everyone wants to just take it easy, but have you ever tried just sitting back and relaxing? It’s mind numbing and then you sit there and wonder “the hell am I doing?”

Every generation wanted to be the one that took it easy and didn’t fall into the boring monotony of our parents’ lives. The entire counter culture movement in the 60′s and 70′s were founded on mellowing out. Soon after, real life asserted itself and the hippies realized that mellow is cool and all, but houses and cars are paid by dollars. To suggest our generation thrives on being entertained is simplistic and false. We don’t thrive on entertainment; we thrive on movement and the natural flow. If we thrived on entertainment, no one would work. We need to be doing something, anything, to get going. Nature itself is never idle, why is it assumed that humans should be?

Point 2

Now that’s not really a dichotomy, is it? Monotony is still motion. It’s still doing something. It may be mundane, and not exciting, but that’s how most work is. It’s work. If it was fun, it would be called fun. No one ever says “hey, let’s go to the office this weekend and analyze synergies!” And I’ll bet my last dollar no one in ancient China said “hey, let’s get to building that wall!” It was a task, and they went about it as best they could. If they have more efficient ways of doing it, they would have.

Secondly, there is nothing ritualistic or traditional about farming, hunting or fishing. Not one single element of those tasks are accomplished today in the same way they were done in the 70′s.

The true dichotomy isn’t that a true healthy life doesn’t accommodate monotony, but that it requires rest and decompression, something which the human body requires, but the human psyche does not allow. That’s the interesting bit. Almost like nature has programmed us to freak out and go nuts. Kind of like perverse natural selection.

Point 3

Where in modern philosophy have business and pleasure been united? At least, anymore than they used to be? Business trips are still business trips. There are still client dinners and drinks on the expense account. What has really changed? Other than our connection to a global network and the shortening of the relative distance between people, nothing has changed in the basic way business is approached. I think the real problem, or issue, is the romanticization of the past. As if life the way it was back then is some ideal we should aspire to, rather than embracing the amazing capabilities and possibilities the world offers us today.

The actual funny thing is that the romanticization of the past has prevented business from moving past a real sticking point. I can literally do my job from anywhere on the planet. The technology exists, and is cheap enough, that I can be at home and working for clients in the exact same way I do it from my office.

But resistance to the future and clinging to a past that can never be again is causing the problems we have right now. We’re in the middle of trying to embrace the future and preserve elements of the past that we liked. Unfortunately, we can’t do that. We have to take the good with the bad and try to work around it. We have the power to work from anywhere, and are expected to work from everywhere.

That’s the real cause of all this. Call it boreout, burnout or whatever, it isn’t the people, or the processes, it’s the timing. We’re in an age were people still have to commute to an office 45 minutes away, and then back again, and are still reachable and connected 24/7. There’s a dichotomy for you.

Point 4

I have nothing to add here; just that I don’t believe we are all made for greater things. Some of us are just here to move the machine along and nothing more. The problem comes when those of us who thought we were destined for greatness end up doing a perfectly respectable and decent job, but are miserable because we aren’t barons of industry or liking deities.

Life sucks like that.

Thoughts?