Speed reading bedtime stories to your kids: Some things don’t benefit from making more efficient
We thoughtlessly value efficiency and chase it places it doesn’t make sense. I call it
Speed reading bedtime stories to your kids.
It makes sense: if you read your kids bedtime stories faster, you can move on to other things. Or rather, it obviously doesn’t. Yet we do it with takeout food, doof, packaging, social media instead of spending time with people in person, flying around the world when there’s infinite wonder, beauty, and diversity under our noses.
Speed reading bedtime stories to your kids achieves the opposite goal we want. So do all the other things.
The Opposite: Spending the Time the Relationship Takes With Those We Love
If you think it’s privileged to spend time with people you love, you don’t understand how we got this way and you’re contributing to the problem of increasing poverty and hierarchy. Stop perpetuating myths. See the system, not just your corner of it.
McDonald’s and all the other places saying they’re helping save time and money are extracting both. Their chase for efficiency exacerbates the problem.
Spend time with those you value—people, hobbies, nature.
The Opposite: Home Cooked Tastes Better, Even When It Tastes Worse
Enjoy the process. Enjoy inefficiencies where efficiency doesn’t help. Sustainable cultures that last tens to hundreds of thousands of years don’t chase efficiency. They live healthier, safer, more secure lives. We can learn more from them than from Silicon Valley, Washington DC, or academia.
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