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January 7, 2013

Frivolous Complexity

2 Comments

Aaaargh. Don’t get me star­ted on com­ple­xity; don’t get me star­ted on “Stuff”.

Every­body wants to be suc­cess­ful. The bad news is, we are trai­ned by society to asso­ciate suc­cess with “Stuff”.

Not just in the mate­rial sense (fancy cars, big hou­ses, trophy wives, expen­sive mis­tres­ses, hot tubs, desig­ner fur­ni­ture, desig­ner clothing, desig­ner kitchens with Ita­lian mar­ble floors, fine wines, art collec­tions etc), but also “Stuff to do”:

Din­ner par­ties, ladies’ luncheons, social clim­bing, net­wor­king, cock­tail par­ties, second homes, com­mu­nity invol­ve­ment, poli­ti­cal acti­vi­sim, PTA, Soc­cer Mom’ing, com­pli­ca­ted love affairs that go nowhere, unsui­ta­ble dai­llan­ces, social intri­gues, obses­sive gos­si­ping, coo­king clas­ses, yoga clas­ses, pot­tery clas­ses, crea­tive wri­ting clas­ses, ten­nis les­sons, tango les­sons, poker games, thea­tre, sympho­nies, art ope­nings, maga­zine launch par­ties, opera, epi­cu­rian delights, horse bree­ding, eth­nic res­tau­rants, wife swap­ping, cult joi­ning, cele­brity worship­ping, name-dropping, online forums, online rants, online dating, Ins­ta­gram­ming, Twit­te­ring, Face­boo­king, blog­ging, cool hun­ting, culture-vulturing, Sum­mers in Tus­cany, Autumns in New York, Win­ters in Colo­rado, wee­kends in San Fran­cisco… a totally full sche­dule, jam-packed with “Stuff”, all day long.

And we don’t just stop there! Because we now need our total, never-ending “Stuff” fix, it’s no lon­ger enough to have our per­so­nal lives cram­med with “Stuff”, we need to cram it into our pro­fes­sio­nal lives, as well:

More pro­duct fea­tu­res, more pro­duct upgra­des, more mar­ke­ting cam­paigns, more adver­ti­sing cam­paigns, more junk mail, more focus groups, more end­less mee­tings that start at 7am for no rea­son, more memos, more mis­sion sta­te­ments, more white papers, more wor­king wee­kends, more brains­tor­ming ses­sions, more blue-sky thin­king, more team-building exer­ci­ses, more Power­Point sli­des, more sharp-dressing emplo­yees with fancy job tit­les, more visually-pleasing per­so­nal assis­tants, more pres­ti­gious office addres­ses, more buzz­words, more catchph­ra­ses, more info­graphics, more inter­na­tio­nal con­fe­rence calls, more office poli­tics, more hys­te­ri­cal emails sent at 2.am.

Stuff, stuff, stuff…

Which is kinda strange, con­si­de­ring the most suc­cess­ful and happy peo­ple I know gene­rally don’t live that way. The most suc­cess­ful and happy peo­ple I know are very good at ruth­lessly edi­ting out “Stuff” from their lives. They tend to live calmly and quietly, like a New England pond on an early mor­ning in August.

Lea­ving only time for the impor­tant “Stuff”…

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2 Responses to “Frivolous Complexity”

1. Brett says:

   January 7, 2013 at 11:25 PM

   What I meant to say was,

   I think you will like this story, what I refer to as “Living life for a living.”

   Reply
2. Hans Christian Morell Leleur says:

   January 8, 2013 at 3:10 AM

   “to be an artist is to fail, as no other dare fail, that fai­lure is his world and the shrink from it deser­tion” (Samuel Beckett’s roust and Three Dia­lo­gues with Geor­ges Duthuit)

   Don’t trust anyone who doesn’t eat dessert

   Thanks a lot for being there

   Reply