Unoptimize Yourself

Somewhere tucked within the deep recesses of my mind, resides something not quite defined enough to call a memory; yet just certain enough to call true. A place of rest, safety, belongonging, and a blissful ignorance against any other desire. Curled up on a carpet floor laid between my mother, father, and older sister lies this “memory”.

Our beds were undoubtedly more comfortable. Our home had working heat. Yet, we all bore with the kinks in our necks that were sure to come for this brief moment by the fireplace.

Fire has for millennia been a gathering place for humankind. It has provided light, warmth, nourishment, and a center for community. Yet fire is not efficient. It requires ventilation, constant fuel, tending, and disposal of its ashes; so like many things in our modern world, we have found things more optimal: LEDs, electric stoves, space heaters, and TVs. Treadmills, microwaves, dishwashers. Two day shipping, same day, now! Reposts, likes, dating apps, pornography.

All just faster ways to get that feeling; and who can blame us?

It’s too complicated and confusing to try and tell someone how you really feel, use a chat bot to give you that perfect message instead. And it’s too time consuming to call your grandmother and ask her for that fried fish recipe, she might want to speak with you and hear how you’ve been since you spoke with her last winter. Certainly a chat bot will give you a recipe faster and definitely as good…right? And it’s so much faster to comment “thoughts and prayers” than to go in your room, turn the lights off and pray for someone for five whole minutes. Matter fact why don’t you just bring all your problems to the chat bots? That’s gotta be more efficient than talking to God right? They always respond right away! No one’s got time to wait for an answer.

But why don’t we have the time? What endeavors consume such magnitudes of our existence? Managing spreadsheets and checking social media? What is so urgent that it begins to dictate our daily lives and robs us of the futures we would create had we more of that invaluable and finite asset - time?

If it’s true your life flashes before you when you pass, you’ll recap thousands of days; each with about 16 wakeful hours.

I once checked my screen time and saw a daily average of 8 hours. Daily. Eight hours. Of my 16 daily waking hours half were spent looking at my phone.

If I continued like this half of what I would see in my flash would be an endless stream of emails, posts, videos and other now inconsequential content.

It was a sobering thought.

What would I enjoy watching in the flash of my lifetime? I think I’d enjoy watching myself do many inefficient tasks.

Like rewatching the time I learned how to make fire by rubbing sticks together.

Or poorly tossing homemade pizza dough in my kitchen.

Or maybe driving around with the windows open and the AC blasting.

Our relentless pursuit of efficiency has eliminated that which is worth living for. The simple inefficiencies that make life marvelous.

No one's got the time to rub sticks together every time they need warmth. There's too much friction in that process (yes, pun intended) so we make things easier, smoother, faster, more efficient; optimal.

Yet I must ask to whose standards are we optimizing? To what end are we becoming more efficient? Are we happier? Healthier? Whole?-er?

My venture into stained glass has shown me the joy of inefficiency: the messy, painful, failure prone process has reminded me that beauty is what emerges from our stumbling in the darkness.

Beauty is the result of dedication towards an objective many will consider not worthwhile. Beauty is the feeble light of a dying flame just bright enough to illuminate a smile on the face of someone you love across the campfire.

the campfire, the fireplace, the hearth, beacons of beauty.

Through my art and invention, I intend to bring these beacons back; these glories of inefficiency.

Do something inefficient today. Stop and watch the clouds move. Light a candle. Take a long walk to nowhere in particular. Write someone a handwritten letter.

Whatever you do remember efficiency is not the end all be all. Sometimes it’s good to appreciate the beauty of the inefficient.

Love + Sincerity, Jakada

P.S What do you call a productive shark? . . . . A fish in sea.