I multitask like Scrooge McDuck in a bowl of gold coins. Gimme gimme. It’s not my fault. It’s the fault of excessive stimuli and my various interests colliding. I can’t even rake leaves peacefully in the sunshine without an audiobook going. To actually sit with a book and read in a cozy armchair or propped up by pillows in bed is something I haven’t enjoyed in a long time. I haven’t really read a book in ages! (despite being in three book clubs) I couldn't have fathomed this twenty years ago. There weren’t podcasts. There wasn’t a library app on my phone for free audiobooks. I listen to audiobooks while I’m doing tasks. I listen to podcasts while I’m doing all the other tasks. I digest at least six hours a day via newsletters, editorials, politics, and non-fiction. My evenings are specifically for fiction, as it feels more relaxed. I know something in my brain is rewiring to accommodate this current processing state. It already has been rewired. I also chose this in an attempt to keep up; habit-stacking -as it's known.
It dawned on me a few years ago, I do this because my social circle is fairly small, and I'm not in a network of movers and shakers shaping the future. I'm not sitting with a group of hive minds generating new or creative enterprises when I go out to dinner. Keeping up with evolving information and technology is my way of staying in an incubator mindset, basically. I have genius-level friends, no doubt; people who build satellites in their backyard for fun or work on converting one element on the periodic table into another element in the name of climate change.
All of this is to say, it's the setting. It's the context. We make do with what we have. We adapt to where we are. Just as we behave like those we socialize with.
And now, a new host has taken over our body and we somehow went along with it. We’re too busy living through the days, we don’t recognize the drastic shift until years later; it’s like seeing yourself in the mirror every single day and not noticing the minute changes until one birthday too many, you suddenly see yourself as old.
There is a classification of herbs, roots, and supplements known as adaptogens. They are known as such because you must consume them for up to two months before you see the benefits, as they need to be circulating in your system. As it gets incorporated, the body begins incorporating the changes too. Taking these is a choice.
More often than not, unless you're involved in grassroots politics or get a case to the Supreme Court, you don't get to choose the big sweeping changes occurring in the world around you. We are too engrossed in our own micro within the macro. But like growing old, after one decade too many, the whole world has changed.
I’m standing in a checkout line when I notice a very old man seated at the pharmacy, also waiting. He is fully engrossed in his iPhone. Reading and typing, reading and typing. I wonder if someone younger had to show him how to use it. It seems to come intuitively to toddlers, push this app to open a game or this app for pictures. Had the newest generation already had a DNA shift? When the current toddlers are adults, they will be living and working around robots. This will be entirely normal to them.
A note on work for Labor Day:
We’re still habituated to ask someone what they do for a living upon first meeting them. We spend the majority of our waking hours in work mode, so this is fair. But this does not fully define someone; it rarely tells you about values or character. What would provide better insight is to ask them what they do for fun. What do they do in their downtime? What are they passionate about? A lucky bunch are passionate about their work. Generally, a job isn’t insight into one’s character. It could just be a means to an end.
A collective shift has been occurring for the last two decades towards mission-driven work, something purposeful. Oprah’s ‘finding your joy’ crusade and a lot of TED Talks really galvanized this before anyone had the current ability to post every inspirational quote onto social media. A couple of Covid years amplified this desire to have a balanced quality of life. The empty offices still reflect this choice. People want to be happy to clock in. They want the hours to line up with their passions. What they don’t understand is how impactful their skills could be to five people, versus the five million they are determined to have download their new app. One doesn’t have to Go Big to make a big difference.
The problem is that the cost of living isn’t going down, and the cost of college isn’t going down. It’s difficult to perfectly line up the desires one has with the type of work they’re willing to do. This is looking pretty devastating for anyone with unrealistic expectations; and devastating for the degradation of society as a whole. It might just be a job, but it can get you closer. As we see, the changes are happening and the new opportunities are still rolling in. We simply cannot fathom all the skills and services required in the future and on the horizon. Adapt, or get left behind.
Or as the mentally broken down Britney Spears would sing, ‘Work, Bitch.’
*Image, Black Square by Kazimir Malevich