Why We Should Stop Saving Time
Or the meaninglessness found in ease
“Read not the Times. Read the Eternities.”—Henry David Thoreau
It is significant that time-saving technologies destroy our communities by doing exactly what they were designed to do—save time. I want to understand this doom and offer an alternative solution to it.
Let us look at one modern and one ancient example.
I had a taste of an ancient mode of life in the military. We shot thousands of rounds a day. Each bullet blasting through a rifle barrel leaves a hard layer of black carbon matter that must be removed after training. The cleaning room smelled like oil and sweat. Because hands are covered in oil, no one is on their phones. Because rifles are life-saving equipment, cleaning is non-negotiable. So, rifle cleaning becomes something significant: it is not merely scraping carbon off metal, but a flowing stream of insults and curses happily batted back and forth. Suddenly, defenses crumble and a physical togetherness solidifies the bond gained under duress in the field.
This slow time spent together on a task—whether epic or mundane—is the foundation of all ancient cultures. For ancient Malay fishing villages, nets are to fishermen what rifles are to fighters.
These fishing villages were communities centered around “boat crew membership.” Crews would show up before launch to ready cotton nets for the nights fishing. Sails, oars, and hulls were carefully inspected. The fishers would riff endlessly with one another while lowering their nets into the lapis lazuli water and drawing them in full of shimmering fish, and as they rowed home, their muscles and lungs working in rhythm. Back on shore, the crew unloaded the nets, spread them to dry, and mended them for the next day. I imagine their conversation was as disparaging (in the best way) as our cleaning room.
Sweat, swearing, and slow time do not make bad blood, but bonds of blood.
In 1960, this all changed with a few radical technologies: nylon rope and outboard motors. Fishing became fast. It became easy. Crews merely showed up at launch and slept on the ride. No sweat, wind, skill, or conversation required. The nylon nets needed half the amount of men to catch fish, and little work when back on shore. “Not only do the crew members feel less a part of a group than they did in the past, but their physical togetherness once on shore (the spreading and mending of nets) is no longer required.”1
We see this over and over when the ancient world meets the modern: with the addition one new technology—whether a bit of nylon rope or a battered metal pot—thousands of years of communal bonds built on shared suffering begin to collapse. A gaping wound is left open. A void. And in this void we find meaninglessness and a crisis of identity. This is when leisure becomes a curse.
I am not referring to technology designed to save time but which has, alas, ended up stealing more of it: emails and spreadsheets, for example. I am not referring to technology specifically designed to capture and waste our time: smart phones and social media. My focus here is on technologies that actually do save our time: nylon and motors were only the beginning.
We no longer sit on our heels with a stick and kindling to make fire, forearms blazing, friends and family gathered around and eagerly waiting for heat, meat, and stories—we can now dial up the thermostat. We no longer walk five plus miles a day for buffalo and berries, children at our side mimicking our behavior as a form of play as opposed to work, a thing of joy, a thing of shared existence—we can now drive thirty yards to pick up the mail. We no longer master the art of blade making, spear thrusting, arrow shooting, and coordinated maneuvers (“shoot, move, and communicate” in military parlance) to earn calories—we can now open a refrigerator and eat unearned calories alone instead of earned as a team. We no longer roll ten deep to the nearest creek to wash clothes and bathe, an occasion that inevitably turns into a party—we can now toss our clothes in a metal box and turn a nozzle for a shower.
The irony is this: the tasks that once built community and made of life a festival—all the more savored because it was constantly countered by threat of pain and death—are vanishing one by one in the name of saving time.
A war on toil is a war on what sets meaning in motion.
Well, then, was it a worthy trade? Technology itself is not the problem since technology can make us do nothing. The problem is what we do with the free time that matters, or how we fill the void. The original idea was to free time for writing novels, composing symphonies, and pursuing passion projects. But what do people do when freed from necessity? From knowledge of the stars for sailing and pleasantly brutalized muscles for rowing?
To be sure, many optimize their lives for the better. But many do not.
Chins glue to chests and gaze down at smart phones and not up at eyes and into souls. Look-at-me selfies are snapped for Instagram at the expense of flesh and blood bonds. Ideological crusades cause more harm to those they rise up to support. Living room furniture is set up at angles facing a television and not in a circle facing humans. Egos are so fragile from isolation that the first hint of good-humored banter is equivalent to a bare knuckle fist. It is significant that elderly women are committing crimes in the hope of finding a sense of community… in prison. Is this what the future holds?
And yet the recking ball of time-saving gains momentum. Already there is much talk of what will happen when AI takes all of this further and no one ever needs to work again. What, then, might a time-saving utopia look like? Let us lean into this utopia. We do not have to do anything. No muscular labor. No tasks that will keep kith and kin alive till sunrise. No walking since we have hoverboards. No silent contemplation since we merged AI with our synapses. No cooking since we have robots with aprons. No leaving homes since we have delivery. What then? I prophesize a 2020 on steroids. A civilization in flames. Will there be suicides and massacres north, south, east, and west, each crime committed with a time-saving technology? A bit of plumbing pipe, a strand of nylon rope, a blade from an outboard motor? Will isolated and bored minds make enemies of themselves through an unbearable sense of uselessness and loneliness?
It seems in the ancient world people wanted to save time; in the modern world people want to evade it; and in the future people may seek to burn it.
Today, the mighty struggle is no longer for survival but for meaning.
My sense is we can neither go back in time to mending cotton nets nor maintain the status quo. Neither nature nor tradition govern us any longer. I believe in my marrow we must take responsibility for the human condition, learn what sort of animal we are, and become stewards of humanity. What was once mandatory—slow time with each other on a muscular task of consequence—we are now responsible for replicating.
The opposite of time-saving technology is time-taking anti-technology. I do not think we would be wrong to implement a few of them.
What is more human than planting a small garden and growing sweet potatoes, figs, and spinach, or picking apples and strawberries at farms with kith and kin? Than leaving the phone behind while walking trails in forests and fields? Than building a fire and allowing the red embers and white stars to slowly draw the words out?
What then? is a passion project.
To support my mission, please share this essay with a friend, share your thoughts below, or simply add a like.
See you for the next essay on Tuesday.
Fraser, Thomas M., Jr. Fishermen of South Thailand: The Malay Villagers. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1966.
Sam: Another thoughtful tidbit to get us thinking on this subject. For myself, I call it the creep of complacency and convenience. As it gains momentum, the insidious nature of this change is glorified through marketing, peer pressure, and profit. I’ll just take profit and say- who profits? Certainly a corporation selling said time -saver, but at the expense of community, shared experience, and bonds woven through slowed time and common effort. I resist this force daily, and my choice is to cheerfully recruit others to reclaim the joy of these shared experiences rather than simply give in to what others say is inevitable. I agree with the commenter Barry’s first two sentences; adapting to some of the modern tools isn’t giving in. We need more voices saying: “Let’s go!”
Weapons cleaning! Wether in the field or in garrison it does seem to bring a unique sense of purpose to a unit, time, as you note Sam seems to slow or in some cases the effort is urgent. Just back from the field weapons inspection on a Friday before the old man sounds the liberty bell (and they better be clean cuz he will send us back in to clean ‘em again if they aren’t.) in either case that sense of the last patch coming clean leaves one with a sense of accomplishment and it just may save your life someday. Never know.
it seems so that all the gizmos designed to give us more time and ease only make life more frenetic. More complicated. When’s the last time someone talked about the timing for the firing sequence on the engine that runs their automobile? Last year this old timer having grown up around TV’s first little black and white deals then color and then the magic of big screen thousand pixels tv’s. Put his away. Haven’t watched it in over a year. Don’t miss it a damn bit. I read and search for my own news online. A brain is a terrible thing to waste! Great post again!