To Be or Not To Be

A little kingdom I possess,
Where thoughts and feelings dwell;
And very hard the task I find
Of governing it well.
~ Louisa May Alcott

...that more or less describes my situation!

~A Wise Man Said~

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
~ Aristotle
Saturday, April 11, 2020
 
There are two approaches advocated these days for how one should spend one’s time while in lockdown. One asks you to be productive, pick up a hobby, learn a skill, reflect what you want to do in life, evaluate your goals, and so on. Another asks you to forget about productivity, forget about goals, forget about using your time sensibly, and simply focus on living or surviving, because, hey, we are in the middle of a global pandemic!

The second approach seems to come from a place of concern, after all we’re all grappling with anxiety, grappling with the precarious health of loved ones, grappling with uncertainty about the future, grappling with how to even buy groceries without literally dying. It is quite understandable and even natural if in the middle of all this grappling the last thing on our minds is productive activity or a practical goal. This approach gives one the space for self-care, it makes space for empathy with one’s state of being, it eases off the pressure we might feel in balancing the practical and the emotional, it allows us to just be…

While I won’t deny the wholesomeness of the second approach at all, I do not believe that the former approach deserves to be maligned. It seems to me that there are strengths to be drawn from both approaches, depending on what gives you strength at any given point of time. To reject outright the first approach saying that it puts unnecessary pressure on people to be productive, that it makes for even more anxiety when people are dealing with enough of it, that it is an approach embedded within a capitalist philosophy which makes productivity a moral virtue in itself… all these accusations seem unwarranted to me. In fact, instead of the former approach increasing pressure and anxiety for those who just want to let go of practical concerns, I feel that pushing the latter approach has now become a veiled means of attacking those who want to create some semblance of sanity or normality or even structure for themselves using the first approach.

I would agree that if one can do something to ease the burden of those who are most affected by the pandemic, be it volunteering for the elderly or mobilising some other help or any other such activity, it must take priority before a self-interested goal. That would be noble indeed. I would also agree that if one is directly affected in some way such as losing a loved one or caring for or being around someone who is suffering, it would too much for such a person to think about anything but coming out of this in one piece. I would also grant that one could be overwhelmed by what is happening to be able to function normally so all they might be able to do is get by as best they can from one day to another.

However, I do not think the vast majority of people who are now isolated at home, such as people like you or me, belong to these rare or extreme categories. And these messages of productivity vs. letting go seem to be largely aimed at people like you and me. What I don’t get is why suggesting that this particular population make use of their time by doing things they might have always wanted to do but did not have time for is a bad thing. The reason I don’t get this is because no alternative is suggested. Of course one could wallow in anxiety and grief if one would but why is that preferable? And what if one isn’t wallowing—what should one then do?

Being productive doesn’t mean one has to do “official work” but it could be something that one enjoys or finds meaning in…that one usually doesn’t get time for. Why would trying to occupy oneself meaningfully or productively, be it that book one always wanted to read or write or the skill that one always wanted to learn, why would it be something to be sneered at if taken up voluntarily? Even reflecting about life could be a productive activity because it produces a better person who is more self-aware. On the other hand, letting go means that one might end up watching Netflix ad nauseam or playing video games or browsing social media or being bored or gorging on food to fill the void—how would all this be better? What else would most people not engaged in something that they deem offensively “productive” be doing? Obviously, no activity be it learning to cook or watching Netflix must be imposed on anyone because it is important that it is something one finds happiness or meaning in whatever it is but my argument here was simply to show that vilifying those who might find joy in productive activity makes no sense…and nor does one need to feel the pressure to engage in such activity if one doesn’t find joy in it.

As for the idea of productivity being falsely held as a moral virtue because we live in a capitalist society—one doesn’t deny this in theory—but in this particular case one could argue that occupying one’s mind with mindless entertainment when one is free from the “official” shackles of work smacks more of capitalist conditioning; instead of reconnecting with one’s own creative or thinking potential by doing what living in a capitalist regime one is not able to usually do would be a means to temporarily break from it or at least a means of trying to find one’s own inner consciousness deeply buried in the familiarity and regularity of work life at other times. However, it is perhaps too difficult for most people to make this connection or reconnection with themselves because their selves are too used to being on lease at work...it doesn’t come naturally…on the other hand, letting go is easy…freely falling into the flow of mind-numbing media offers relief… from uncertainty as well as responsibility.

posted by Sylvia D'souza at 6:13 am 0 comments
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