Frenetic Standstill

Plus: Seven Things on movie art, the societal impact of AI, the state of nuclear energy, and more

Hello friends!

Favourite podcasts go on hiatus, inboxes fill with out-of-office replies, friends abroad are fried crispy on their beach vacations, and there’s not a fresh baguette to be had in all of France: Summer is in full swing. I hope all the Northern-hemispherians among you are enjoying the lull. I’ve not mentioned this here yet, but I often think about where and how these mails reach you. Like right now - what are you up to? Are these words distracting you from being boiled alive on London’s Central Line? Are you sipping an iced coffee on an ocean-facing balcony? If you have a minute to satisfy my curiosity, leave a comment. I’d love to know. Now, on with this weeks things I thought were worth sharing:

• One — A story about spending too much time on the wrong things

• Two — Seven Things on the societal impact of AI, the state of nuclear energy, movie art, and more.

1. Frenetic Standstill

In Consulting, there is a practice we use before sending off any PowerPoint presentation: scrutinising each slide and asking, “So what?” We examine every hypothesis and idea and check if they have a genuine impact on our goal or whether an insight truly impacts decision-making. If they don’t, we reframe or remove them.

I’ve come to find that this simple question works beyond the confines of business. Whether it’s news articles vying for my attention, a government debate, or some other piece of information people seem to be getting all riled up about - before getting too engaged I try to take pause and put them all through the ‘So what?’ test.

Another probing question I often ask is, “And then what?” Suppose I decide to move to a new country, work late hours for a promotion, or buy that shiny new gadget I’ve been eyeing. What happens next? Will it have been really worth it? Will it bring me happiness, satisfaction, or fulfilment? Will my life get better in any way? If the answer isn’t an emphatic yes, that’s a sign that the goal is not likely worth my time, energy, or money.

Alan Jacobs puts it vividly:

You rush through the writing, the researching, the watching, the listening, you’re done with it, you get it behind you — and what is in front of you? Well, death, for one thing. For the main thing.

But in the more immediate future: you’re zipping through all these experiences in order to do what, exactly? Listen to another song at double-speed? Produce a bullet-point outline of another post that AI can finish for you?

The whole attitude seems to be: Let me get through this thing I don’t especially enjoy so I can do another thing just like it, which I won’t enjoy either. This is precisely what Paul Virilio means when he talks about living at a “frenetic standstill”.

I’ve noticed that many tasks we think are vital often turn out to be trivial once we finish them—or even put them off. The same applies to what we think others expect from us, like replying to that ‘urgent’ email. Often, these matters are less pressing than we think.

One senior colleague once told me:

I’ve just come back from holiday and for the first time ever I didn’t reply to any emails while I was away. Do you know what happened? Nothing happened. The company is still here. My teams are still doing good work. And the people who thought they needed my help found ways to help themselves.

More worryingly, the busywork can distract us from the deeper thinking we should be engaging in.

There was a time, many years ago, when I felt a gnawing dissatisfaction with my job and I didn’t know what the next step in my career should be. The hustle and bustle of daily tasks and routines prevented me from delving into the heart of the issue. Until one day, I chose to make a radical change: I resigned from my role without having the next step mapped out. It might seem drastic, but it was necessary to free up mental space. I decided that figuring out my career would be my full-time job for the coming weeks.

On other occasions, I found myself creating busywork to avoid facing more significant life issues - procrastinating on life, if you will.

Now, I’m not saying you should quit your job at the first inkling of dissatisfaction, and I understand not everyone has the luxury or financial stability to make such a choice. But, it’s important to be aware of the trap of ‘frenetic standstill’. It’s crucial to carve out time, clear the mental clutter, and focus on what genuinely matters.

With all the external pressures we face, it’s worth asking ourselves if we’re chasing something meaningful or just keeping busy. Maybe we would be better off focusing more on where we are right now and what drove us to set these vanity goals to begin with, and, instead, practice gratitude for what we already have.

//Note: The term “frenetic standstill” was first coined by Italian writer and philosopher Umberto Eco in his 1962 essay “La cultura di massa” [Mass Culture].

//Title image: Dall·E2 responding to “The Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dali with PowerPoint pages raining from the sky”

2. Seven Things I thought were worth sharing

1. Personal Growth: How to balance confidence with humility

2. Creator Showcase: Jason Shulman’s Photographs of Films capture entire strips in a single image

3. Design: Why Airbnb's New Head of Design Believes 'Design-Led' Companies Don't Work - an article from 2015 that still holds a lot of power for Design in Tech

4. Art: Vox video on What AI Art Means To Artists

5. Technology: An Early Look at the Labour Market Impact Potential of Large Language Models

6. Sustainability: Video - Why Germany Hates Nuclear, why France has so much of it, and why both are in trouble when it comes to green energy

7. Procrastination: In these dividing times, it’s good to know where you stand and have the right vocabulary for your views. The Political Compass is a science-based kind of Buzzfeed quiz to help you do that.