norton productivity law
norton productivity law: it takes getting nothing done to make us human again – Quinn Norton
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Norton Auto-Updater (@quinnnorton) tweeted at 4:04 AM – 4 Oct 2017 :
Most importantly, for creative people, there’s just that one measuring stick for whether or not we’re legit and successful, and it’s fucked. (http://twitter.com/quinnnorton/status/915517944108666880?s=17)
measuring things.. us.. ness
huge to spaces of permission – with nothing to prove. huge to sustainability. huge to mindset of trust.
John Cage‘s silence
luxury – gaiman\degrasse whatever law
@quinnnorton
Not many people in my situation have stories that go as well as mine. I think all the time about all the lives we throw away in America.
a nother way. ie: hlb via 2 convos that io dance.. as the day..[aka: not part\ial.. for (blank)’s sake…]..
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from refusal of work
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kathi weeks: productivist ethics assume that productivity is what defines and refines us, so that when human capacities for speech, intellect, thought and fabrication are not directed to productive ends, they are reduced to mere idle talk/curiosity/thoughts/hands, their non instrumentality a shameful corruption of these human qualities. even pleasure are describe as less worthy when they are judged to be idle (weeks 2011)
how the wider moralisation of work might impact upon everyday attempts to resist employment
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in Hannah Arendt‘s on violence:
11
he (marx) regarded the state as an instrument of violence in the command of the ruling class; but the actual power of the ruling class did not consist of or rely on violence. it was defined by the role the ruling class played in society, or more exactly, by its role in the process of production
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ब्रानिस्लाभ इभानोभिच (@pkssajalstha) tweeted at 7:07 PM – 8 Mar 2019 :
“Our economies has become vast engine for producing nonsense” – David Graeber. #Fact (http://twitter.com/pkssajalstha/status/1104201954903904256?s=17)
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via Charles fb share:
What many people feel during empty moments or deliberate experiments at meditation is a churning unease that says “I should be doing something”. This cultural compulsion is so strong that even spiritual practices such as meditation and prayer are easily converted into just another thing to do, moments mortgaged to the campaign of improving life.
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from rutger bregman‘s utopia for realists:
122/169
as kevin kelly says – ‘productivity is for robots. humans excel at wasting time, experimenting playing, creating, and exploring.’ governing by numbers is the last resort of a country that no longer knows what it wants, a country w no vision of utopia..
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article – productivity isn’t maturity – https://forge.medium.com/productivity-isnt-maturity-e67521410998
So many of us use being busy, or what I call “anxious doing,” to calm ourselves down.. People move towards real maturity when they begin to turn their anxiety into curiosity.
ie: itch-in-the-soul, cure ios city, a nother way
When you lead with your best thinking, instead of your anxiety, you may find that a fulfilling life is full of unfinished tasks.
the it is me ness
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what a great article.. on norton productivity law
via jon fb share – oct 2021 article – Time millionaires: meet the people pursuing the pleasure of leisure – [https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/oct/12/time-millionaires-meet-the-people-pursuing-the-pleasure-of-leisure]
Nilanjana Roy: “But I wish we were taught to place as high a value on our time as we do on our bank accounts – because how you spend your hours and your days is how you spend your life.”.. t
revolution of everyday life ness.. as the day ness..
The people actively embracing a less work-focused life are, generally speaking, childless members of the professional classes, but Roy argues that this shouldn’t have to be the case. “If society was truly progressive,” she says, “it would not work people to the bone in the first place, or make the assumption that leisure, time to rest, time to be with your family, is only for the wealthy.”
The enforced downtime of the pandemic caused many of us to reassess our attitudes to work, and whether we might be able to lead less lucrative but more fulfilling lives.
to (virus) leap ness.. to a nother way to live.. org’d around legit needs
“I don’t think I realised how close I was to complete burnout,” he says. “I was using work to cope with work. Being there seemed to be my only option.” .. When the pandemic hit, the sensation of relief was overwhelming. “It completely changed my relationship with money,” he says. “Having the time at home was so much more valuable to me.” .. He has no career goals. “I just want to do what I’m doing for now,” he says. “Live a lot more presently.” He estimates that he is “100 times happier” than he was before.. t
cope\ing.. medicating ourselves
norton productivity law: it takes getting nothing done to make us human again – Quinn Norton
“There’s a movement here that feels pretty organic,” says Warzel. “The pandemic was this massive controlled experiment in forcing people to embrace a different way of working. And what we saw was the opposite of what executives had been telling employees for decades: productivity and profits [rose]. Now, people are wondering what else employers were wrong about. What other ways of working have gotten out of sync?
“Isn’t it time to question a system of productivity that pushes so many people into jobs and industries that are unsafe, that pay low wages for long hours of work?” asks Roy.. t
But decoupling our self-worth from the credits flowing into our bank accounts and the titles on our business cards is not always easy. Many people’s self-esteem is bound up in their work. “There is that niggling doubt,” Binstead admits. “Do people think I’m lazy?” Our society celebrates overwork as a symptom of great moral probity. “It creeps into every part of our society, this hustle culture,” Binstead says. “If you’re not busy or trying your hardest, you’re a lesser person somehow.”..t
“The default is to talk about how many hours you are working.. The fact that we carry our offices around in our pockets has made being always ‘on’ a moral imperative,” says Pang.. As a result, leisure has become a dirty word.. Doing nothing – simply savouring the miracle of our existence in this world – is a luxury afforded only to the respectably retired, or children..t
The calls to end the fetishisation of overwork, and its concomitant self-optimisation culture, are gaining traction: both the UK and US have prominent campaigns for a four-day week. Futurists such as Pang advocate a world in which technology is not a straitjacket but a force for liberation, enabling “us to be more productive in ways that allow us to reclaim more of our time. (quote jon shared)
Pang quotes approvingly from Bertrand Russell’s 1932 essay In Praise of Idleness. “Modern methods of production have given us the possibility of ease and security for all [but] we have continued to be as energetic as we were before there were machines,” Russell wrote. “In this we have been foolish, but there is no reason to go on being foolish for ever.” (quote jon shared).. t
Until that changes, a more radical approach to our fetid working culture might be to unstick time entirely from notions of capitalist value. “I like the underlying concept of being a time millionaire,” says Pang. “But I’m not sure I like the name. It sounds economical and transactional. What I do like is the idea of placing a greater value on time, and recognising its scarcity, and importance.” After all, we cannot accrue time, or invest it and watch it grow. It runs away from us; we slip and slide in its wake. Perhaps time isn’t a bank account, but a field. We can grow productive crops, or things of beauty; roses for the pruning and topiary hedges to be trimmed. Or we can simply do nothing, and let the wildflowers grow.Everything is of beauty, everything is of equal value..t
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be you. 