The 'Productivity' Trap

Two apparently unrelated items in my "evergreen" blogging material hopper have caught my attention today.

One is a lament by a writer that "Turning my Passion/Hobby into a Business Made Me Hate It." The other is a colorfully-titled rejection of "being productive."

The writer briefly describes what he likes to write -- before explaining how he became paralyzed by what he actually wrote for payment:

If you want to make the big money, you at least have to try writing for the "market" or trying to write in a way that appeals to the mainstream, or at least a large number of people.

So that's what I did. Why not? Everyone else was doing it. They were pasting screenshots of how much money they were making online in Facebook groups.

And while all the above I tried worked in the short term (and yes, it DOES work), soon I began to hate what I was doing and one day, I just couldn't type anymore.

And one day, I couldn't take it anymore. Couldn't type one more word. Quit 2 years ago, after 7-8 years of writing. [bold added]

Yes. Money changed hands, but if a trade is for mutual benefit, it sounds like the writer cheated himself in some way.

To the point, he had not in fact turned his passion into a business.

The second person's rebellion against "productivity" resulted from a very similar error:

I've got only like 3 hours for myself after work...

I've been trying to be productive in that 3 hours like learning new stuff, studying coding, learning new languages etc but it just is not working because my brain is already kinda dead after hours and hours of translation work all day.

And.. You know... I also need some recreation like playing video games, having time with my wife or friends, reading a book I like or watching stuff. [bold added]

Image by Tania Melnyczuk, via Unsplash, license.

Notice the similarity between give the unwashed masses what they want earlier and productivity is what society seems to expect of me (be that "cranking widgets" 24/7 or otherwise doing anything but taking care of oneself and enjoying the only life one will ever have).

Why be productive? Seeking enjoyment and maintaining a happy marriage are certainly productive in the context of fulfilling the human needs of recreation and romantic love.

Evening is a good time for those things and learning Greek or Swahili then instead might sound cool, but is not truly productive.

Both of these souls are trying hard things, and I especially sympathize with the author. It's hard to love to do something that few people see as valuable and find a way to keep doing it: Our culture does not help with its unceasing pressure to conform to often-questionable standards, and its misunderstanding of selfishness, which it mischaracterizes and damns.

Not only that, we are almost all told -- wrongly -- from Day One that we are beings of dual, contradictory natures.

Both passages remind me a little of the part of Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead, when Howard Roark, desperate for a commission, finds that he has to turn down one that would have been his Big Break -- if only money and prestige were the only things that mattered.

His potential client wants a facade that would ruin the integrity of his building, as he spends some time explaining -- only to be told that the offer is non-negotiable.

"It's sheer insanity!" Weidler moaned. "I want you. We want your building. You need the commission. Do you have to be quite so fanatical and selfless about it?"

"What?" Roark asked incredulously.

"Fanatical and selfless."

Roark smiled. He looked down at his drawings. His elbow moved a little, pressing them to his body. He said: "That was the most selfish thing you've ever seen a man do." He walked back to his office. He gathered his drawing instruments and the few things he had there. It made one package and he carded it under his arm. He locked the door and gave the key to the rental agent. He told the agent that he was closing his office. He walked home and left the package there. Then he went to Mike's Donnigan's house. (p. 197)

They did not actually want his building; the offer amounted to some money and status among fools -- for the souls of your building and of yourself.

In the words of an unhappy man and a disgruntled one, we got a small glimpse of how destructive being unclear about or surrendering one's deepest values can be, of the debilitating spiritual poverty that can result from assuming that productivity is necessarily at odds with happiness.

-- CAV