Against Pure Utility: Are We Sure We Want What We Want?
If all that matters is utility and convenience, then it appears we have won.
But if not, then what have we done?
I took this shot in London in 2016.
It is not convenient to carve miniature petals dozens of times on 300+ pews.
But it is beautiful.
We have made a huge assumption, upon which we've built (and are building) an entire world.
Convenience is king.
But we need to ask: why? Why is convenience king?
Is the only thing that matters is that things are as easy as possible?
Of course modern developments are exciting, and appreciated. They are valuable.
I will never deny this!
But we can't make it the only value as we are tending toward increasingly more.
We lose too much if it's the only determiner of what we do.
We lose detail and beauty.
We often lose a sense of meaningful work.
We start to devalue the things that aren't convenient--such as relationships and art, and especially the hard work of building meaningful relationships and creating meaningful art.
In theory convenience frees us to explore the deeper things, but in practice it simply seems to train us--to be easily bored, easily impatient, easily distracted, lacking investment, missing real moments.
My head is foggy today (thyroid brain), and there is much more nuance to be made, but this is a start.
Life isn't primarily about usefulness and convenience.
Life is about being.
xx,
Kay
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
I often ponder similarly. Having been in building most of my life, seen the modern convenient architecture replace the ornate, the streamline obscure the detailed. I wondered often at the mindset of those in that so called 'darker age.' The beauty of the ponderously slow processes that gave birth to such wonderment.
Yes I agree completely, convenience is a dish with considerably less discernment.
You are so right. I think people connect convenience with almost everything and that makes them think everything has to be fast . No time to enjoy anything around us or even those who are around us.