Episode 140 – In Praise of Inefficiency

This period of history has been marked by incredible leaps in efficiency: things that used to take a great deal of time and effort can get done more quickly and easily than ever  •  but there are whole areas of reality that can’t be accessed by efficiency, no matter how quick or clever or speedy we are  •  in fact, the harder we try and the speedier we get, the further away we are  •  there’s a value, at least once in a while, of taking a break from trying to be efficient, from trying to get somewhere faster  •  I’m not talking about rejecting the idea of efficiency, replacing it with some other approach; it’s more about recognizing the limits of that attitude and that approach, and our tendency to apply it where it doesn’t really fit  •  I have an old dog who I take on “walks,” although they’re very, very slow, and he’s very, very stubborn  •  if I think of these walks as walks, as exercise, or as trying to get somewhere, accomplish something, I just get more and more frustrated and impatient  •  but when I just drop that whole concept and just relate to the dog sniff by sniff, it’s actually quite enjoyable.