The Art of Manliness - #400： The Tyranny of Convenience

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast modern life

00:00:18.900 has given us a lot of convenience with the tap of our smartphone screen and without ever leaving

00:00:23.340 our house we can order a car to our door or a hot dinner or even replenish our toilet paper

00:00:27.900 supply and right now you're listening to this podcast how and when you want to yes life is good

00:00:33.260 in the 21st century but what if there's such a thing as too much convenience what if it's actually

00:00:38.100 enslaving us in some strange way well that's what my guest today argues his name is tim woo he's

00:00:42.900 professor of law at columbia law school and the author of several books including the attention

00:00:46.900 merchants and today on the show tim and i discuss the tyranny of convenience we begin with a brief

00:00:51.300 history of convenience discussing how it became a driving force in the economy and in our culture

00:00:55.380 in the late 19th century and how tim believes we're at the beginning of a second convenience

00:00:59.140 revolution he then discusses how convenience can make us feel more free and unique but actually

00:01:03.380 limits our freedom and makes us like everyone else tim then shares some ideas on how to inject

00:01:07.340 some healthy inconvenience in your life for more happiness freedom and fulfillment after the show's

00:01:11.920 over check out our show notes at aom.is convenience and find links to resources where you delve deeper

00:01:16.980 into this topic and tim joins me now via clearcast.io tim woo welcome to the show it's a pleasure

00:01:33.740 so back in february you wrote an op-ed piece for the new york times called the tyranny of convenience

00:01:41.120 i'm curious what got you thinking about the implications of a culture and an economy like

00:01:48.800 ours that puts a premium on making things as convenient and as easy as possible you know i i'm

00:01:55.160 really interested in things that affect your life very strongly but in a way are hidden or or less

00:02:00.960 obvious and one of them is for some years now has struck me as this kind of obsession with convenience

00:02:08.400 that in its own way seems to rule our lives and you know i kind of started to notice that

00:02:15.680 what i like to call my preferences you know i like to cook charcoal we're being trumped by

00:02:21.060 you know the idea that well yeah but it's not really convenient and so you know someone who's kind of

00:02:27.540 interested in freedom and autonomy and things like that i was like you know who's really in charge here

00:02:33.240 is it me or is this like thing called the convenience i'll add to it i think also i've

00:02:41.380 had the experience and maybe other people have had too where you have a lot of technologies in your life

00:02:45.940 that are supposed to make everything really convenient but somehow it doesn't quite seem to

00:02:50.900 work out the way you think you know you have a microwave and you have email and you have text

00:02:56.240 messages and you have this computer extremely powerful almost like miraculous technologies

00:03:00.220 but it's not like i walk through life like i'm on a cloud um and i was like where did we go wrong

00:03:07.340 somewhere here so it was kind of uh that sort of thing like you know where where is this utopia i was

00:03:14.280 promised well isn't it i mean isn't it a drive for humans since like ancient times to you know use

00:03:20.900 tools to make life easier i mean that's what made makes us human right like the you know the little

00:03:25.480 hand tools you see about from prehistoric man made that was that made things easier yeah i i agree with

00:03:31.280 that and so i i don't in any way uh think that i am against tools i think that like all good things

00:03:39.820 it's kind of a question of you know doing it right and so so i i i deeply believe that you know

00:03:47.120 our tools are identity and i guess that's why i think we need to be more careful about it i think

00:03:53.140 that tools can expand who you are how you live in different dimensions and if you just reduce it to

00:03:59.820 one dimension i.e making things more convenient then you miss out on a lot of what life offers you

00:04:05.940 know just to give a classic example if you're learning to play an instrument you know that's not

00:04:11.840 exactly a very convenient choice it's an important tool you know guitar violin or or drums but it's not

00:04:19.500 going to make it easier to listen to music actually if you want that you can buy uh yourself a stereo

00:04:25.460 that kind of takes care of it so you know there's other dimensions of our lives that are revealed by

00:04:31.680 our choices and tools and what i think sometimes is is that we have kind of reduced ourselves narrowed

00:04:38.420 ourselves to this one axis you know does it make life easier does it kind of get me

00:04:49.340 to my goal with less i guess time or or thinking or effort and you know if you start to make that

00:04:57.980 your life it becomes all destination no journey and frankly i think you become a very are in danger

00:05:04.900 of of missing out on a lot of life and becoming a narrow person yeah that's an interesting point you

00:05:09.800 made earlier just now about how the tools you know they not only we know they not only allow us to

00:05:16.200 shape the world but when we use a tool it shapes us as well i think there's a phrase like the tool

00:05:20.800 works at both ends is one that i heard so as you're using a tool it's also changing you in a weird way

00:05:27.780 as well yeah i mean another way of thinking about it is that the tool is you and you know that we are

00:05:34.540 kind of defined by it but i also like your idea or the idea that it that it changes you i'm one of

00:05:40.200 these people who thinks the the goal of life is uh self-development you know finding out uh kind of

00:05:48.400 what you could be building building character uh so to speak and there's no question that that that

00:05:54.280 the tool choice and tool usage is is a big part of that and you know most of us realize that i think

00:06:00.860 another reason i wrote this is i was thinking about the things that the tools i like best and you know

00:06:06.520 they tend to be related to my hobbies i have a lot probably too many hobbies you know so like my

00:06:13.220 hockey stick i like play hockey i like to surf you know all these things that the tool becomes so so

00:06:20.360 important and frankly so treasured yet we also spend an awful lot of time at work and a lot of time a lot

00:06:27.540 of time you know with other tasks in life and and there we're kind of reducing ourselves now you know

00:06:34.520 obviously there's certain things you can't always do you know the old school way and maybe there's

00:06:41.260 something about hobbies where we take more time for them but i i started to think there was something

00:06:44.980 important about you know living life the best you could in this whole question of tools and frankly

00:06:51.520 the decision not to make convenience the overriding value in the choice of tools so we said you know

00:06:59.800 humans have always been trying to make things easier life easier with tools but in the piece

00:07:05.060 you wrote you argued that this like quest for convenience became like an obsession in the late

00:07:10.360 19th and early 20th centuries with sort of that second industrial revolution that occurred during that

00:07:15.860 period what are some of the examples of convenience technologies that popped up in this during this

00:07:21.140 time yeah you're exactly right i think the convenience revolution uh as we as we know it was born

00:07:27.920 and i think in a worthy way with the promise of liberation i think frankly that the earliest

00:07:35.920 convenience liberation even though this is the art of manliness was directed mainly at women

00:07:41.640 there was an observation that that women you know spent most of their lives in drudgery whether it was

00:07:48.980 spending all day washing clothing cooking foods in incredibly laborious ways or keeping a house clean

00:07:56.260 and one of the ideas is that women could only really become emancipated or have some life of their

00:08:02.240 own if they had tools that saved them labor and so i the convenience revolution frankly is born there

00:08:10.400 and i think these are its noble origins i mean there is something to be said for life that is something

00:08:16.180 other than total drudgery and that that's it so so some of the conveniences and the that are

00:08:21.980 the early the first generation are like the washing machine the vacuum cleaner even things like basic

00:08:30.440 cleaning solutions like old dutch you know these were big revolutions rolled oats so-called instant

00:08:36.780 foods which are not really instant by our standards but i guess just reduce the amount of time for

00:08:42.860 cooking like pork and beans these these were the big the big revolutions of the late 19th century

00:08:49.460 and it continued though even through like the 1950s i mean you look at these those mid-century

00:08:55.420 depictions of what life would be like in the future and it was just like this wonderful utopia

00:09:01.660 where robots did everything you know you have the jetsons where they have sidewalks that just move you

00:09:08.140 don't have to walk i mean they really thought this would be in this like utopia and like we'd be living

00:09:13.480 in it right now but it didn't turn out that way i think there was a period and i think it reached its apex

00:09:20.980 in the 1950s where the future and the utopic version of it was defined by total convenience in all possible

00:09:35.120 aspects of life and you describe some of them but some people may remember it you know you push a

00:09:42.800 button your food arrives you push another button you you arrive at work through a teleportation machine

00:09:48.760 push another button all your work gets done so you know life becomes about pushing buttons in some ways

00:09:56.120 we kind of live in that era i mean you can push a button and something will be delivered you can push

00:10:01.500 another button and a message gets sent to somebody in japan you know we we do push buttons but one

00:10:08.180 thing we're starting to noticing is that sitting around pushing buttons all day does not make

00:10:12.280 necessarily for the most satisfying life and i'll add to it that there is a skill in pushing buttons

00:10:19.000 repeatedly and multiply it's called multitasking and we are sort of in danger of becoming society where

00:10:24.900 the only skill that matters is multitasking and the only way you live is you sort of decide that

00:10:32.940 which will be done as opposed to doing yourself and you know that's to me sort of a diminished way of

00:10:38.580 living but it's certainly true that in the 1950s that that was that was kind of the the dream yeah so i

00:10:44.780 mean not only did people i mean even you even saw that in the jetsons where sort of the shtick was

00:10:49.920 here they are in this utopia but the technology like messes up their lives you know george you know

00:10:56.420 gets caught in some bathing machine and it mangles them up or something and it also just kind of feel

00:11:01.600 unsatisfied with life so not only is this you know convenience like it's unsatisfying but you also argue

00:11:08.360 i think this is really interesting is that convenience can actually end up enslaving us or limiting our

00:11:15.000 choices how so yeah i when in a sense it ends up taking over your preferences i want to discuss an

00:11:21.020 example from the 50s i think it's kind of a turning point yeah it wasn't in the article it was an earlier

00:11:25.660 draft which was the development of something called the baby box or i guess the baby tender

00:11:31.040 there was a scientist named bf skinner who is famous for his experiments on pigeons

00:11:36.380 and he was very caught up in the idea of the convenience revolution

00:11:40.680 and so he invented this technology which

00:11:44.940 was supposed to greatly reduce the burdens of child care

00:11:49.100 especially for babies and toddlers and so basically it was a box

00:11:53.340 and you put your baby in there and i guess it was warm

00:11:57.100 so the baby didn't need clothes and you know baby couldn't get that far

00:12:01.160 so it just sat in the box all day and you know you kind of put in

00:12:05.140 food from a little little door or something like that

00:12:07.320 uh and uh it was sort of supposed to take care of all

00:12:11.500 of child care i think it had a little thing where the baby could drink if it wanted

00:12:15.520 you know obviously breast milk but uh it sounds like a hamster

00:12:19.900 yeah a little like a hamster cage i guess you know and

00:12:23.240 so you know he expected this was going to be his great greatest invention and

00:12:27.600 expected to become a millionaire but you know lo and behold it wasn't popular

00:12:31.160 actually he put his own daughter in it by the way

00:12:33.360 oh jeez she was the experimental test subject

00:12:37.280 which you know is a dedication to science which is rare in our times

00:12:41.980 but yeah so so people weren't into it it didn't sell well

00:12:45.700 i actually sold 300 or so which is actually a little more than i

00:12:49.740 would expect but no it didn't it didn't become a blockbuster hit

00:12:52.720 and i guess that there was something in there some lesson

00:12:55.800 there was other you know problems at the time instant cake mix

00:12:58.840 mix it wasn't as popular as people thought you know just add water have a

00:13:03.300 cake and you know i i think that a little

00:13:07.240 bit of this enslavement problem was sort of showing up people

00:13:10.220 were thinking well you know there's some some parts of life that

00:13:13.980 that seem to be going missing here when it's only about convenience and in

00:13:19.480 some ways parts of the counterculture were sort of about well you know

00:13:23.700 rediscovering this idea of having a human role in things you know it wasn't

00:13:30.040 always articulated as anti-convenience but you know when you

00:13:33.160 think of sort of some hippie dude living you know in the woods you know

00:13:37.960 without a without a safety razor that that is sort of a rejection of

00:13:42.140 conveniences and so yeah i think i think there was a sense that it

00:13:47.360 contributed it was a sense of being bound

00:13:49.240 right because those convenience tools in order for them to be convenient you

00:13:53.140 have to use them in a certain way right so it strips you of agency right

00:13:57.620 that that's right it's sort of like it is sort of the trump card

00:14:01.040 you know if you only uh go places where the parking is convenient well then like

00:14:07.500 suddenly your freedom of movement has become constrained there's there's an

00:14:12.620 example and speaking of these uh you know reactions to these you know this

00:14:16.880 first convenience revolution you talked about you know there you'd mentioned

00:14:20.000 one there was one in the counterculture revolution of the 60s and 70s where you

00:14:23.940 had hippies going off to communes and growing their own food and making their

00:14:27.900 own music with whatever but i mean you also saw this even in the early 20th late

00:14:32.940 19th century i mean this is during that time that's when the whole arts and crafts

00:14:36.740 movement started where people decided i'm going to make my own chair and my own

00:14:41.200 table and build it with my own hands i'm not going to use this mechanized

00:14:44.780 mass-produced stuff and we still see that today that sort of ethos like i'm

00:14:49.740 going to build a table by myself why well because it's not convenient

00:14:53.520 yeah i think there's a constant kind of counter-revolution and i think it's noble

00:14:59.420 you know i think that uh the human spirit rebels against

00:15:04.920 kind of a loss of meaning and you know i might say this later but i think that

00:15:11.240 uh we are actually constantly fighting convenience uh but we kind of disguise it

00:15:15.840 from ourselves by calling it our hobbies you know and so people do something

00:15:22.120 utterly ridiculous like building a uh a battleship out of plastic which is like

00:15:27.960 not convenient you can order one from china at half the price or not even half the 0.94

00:15:31.860 price at a fraction but you know you call it your hobby or you know you ride a

00:15:35.820 bicycle to work or something or or frankly most of the things that people

00:15:39.440 think of as um deep and meaning are often

00:15:43.100 kind of inconvenient although we're funny because we introduce conveniences in

00:15:47.580 in our inconveniences so you know we'll play golf

00:15:49.840 but you know i'm gonna play golf i need to

00:15:52.480 you know i want i want it to be convenient to play golf i want

00:15:56.560 you know the driving range near my house the little balls just kind of

00:16:00.740 come up by themselves you know pick down and put them up but you know

00:16:03.920 playing golf inherently is not like what is playing golf you're doing

00:16:07.220 something inherently slightly ridiculous although

00:16:09.640 it's fun so yeah so we that that that's the paradox

00:16:13.380 so you the first convenience revolution kick-started in the 19th early 20th

00:16:18.260 century went through the 1950s you argue in the piece that we're

00:16:22.140 in a midst of a second convenience revolution

00:16:25.500 how is this one different from that first one yeah that's a great question so you

00:16:30.440 know uh there was this movement in the 60s and 70s uh 50s too conformist

00:16:36.360 you know we we're not free to be us and i think there was an important

00:16:41.700 commercial reaction to those changes frankly you saw it first in

00:16:46.480 advertising when advertisers for example companies like pepsi started

00:16:51.320 associating their brands with freedom and and the era of you know long hair do

00:16:58.660 what you want to live a different way you know pepsi the choice of the pepsi

00:17:02.540 generation so that started in advertising but then technologists kind of glommed

00:17:06.480 onto this and said hey we know you want we want you want to be you but what we're

00:17:12.160 going to do is make it more convenient to be you

00:17:14.780 and you know i would think one of the first great examples of this

00:17:21.280 is the is the sony walkman so you know now you have this man walking

00:17:28.100 down the street and he is kind of in his own perfect little

00:17:33.320 bubble of self-expression you know he's listening to his jazz or

00:17:37.020 maybe he's listening to black sabbath or maybe he's into 70s funk i'm not sure but

00:17:42.800 you know he he is himself and he's experiencing kind of pleasures that were

00:17:48.640 previously only possible in his den but he's got his whole you know system with

00:17:54.260 him and so sony has now made it more convenient to be you

00:17:59.520 sony has made your exercise of choice more convenient and when you look at

00:18:05.580 most if not all of our convenience technologies today

00:18:09.560 they're not actually trying to jam you at least obviously into some kind of mold

00:18:16.240 they're at least promising from the outset that

00:18:20.220 hey i'm going to help you be you so you know on amazon you can buy whatever you

00:18:25.700 want you know the original idea of amazon when

00:18:28.180 it was just books was oh you know you don't need to just buy

00:18:31.460 these bestsellers that are for the masses you know you can buy whatever

00:18:34.560 strange book that really is all about you and you know google you know it's not

00:18:40.000 like you're being pre-fed this feed of news from the media or

00:18:44.540 whatever it's like whatever you are that that's that's who you'll be and

00:18:47.800 facebook i guess was like here's your friends and your network

00:18:51.800 friendster before that so so but you can keep in touch with them know what they're

00:18:57.500 up to you know without having to to go hang out

00:19:00.880 with them

00:19:01.320 so so that that's freeing and um and convenient

00:19:07.000 individuality let's put it that way

00:19:09.820 but you argue that this convenience to be ourselves

00:19:13.760 you know we think it's going to make us more

00:19:16.960 unique and more individual but you argue that it ends up

00:19:19.960 actually homogenizing society uh how so

00:19:23.700 yeah i think it's like many things at the core i actually do believe that there is

00:19:29.920 some promise there i i think you know it has in some ways become

00:19:34.940 easier to be you i mean yeah let's face it you can buy obscure strange books and

00:19:40.360 on amazon i don't want to discount that um you know recently i got into

00:19:44.660 sort of neo-plutonian philosophy for whatever reason

00:19:48.520 known only to myself and you know those books are kind of hard to find

00:19:51.460 but you know there they all are on on amazon

00:19:54.200 um and so there's something to it but there is a strange counter effect where

00:20:00.020 you know we're even on supposedly on facebook everybody is like their own

00:20:05.720 thing we has a weird way of making this all kind of seem the same

00:20:09.440 and you know everyone's on gmail and on google and

00:20:13.360 for some reason it has this kind of um counterintuitive homogenizing power

00:20:21.540 and that's kind of one of it's almost like a mystery i think

00:20:25.260 that sometimes the the promise of individuality can kind of

00:20:32.000 be a little bit of a mirage because at other

00:20:35.280 levels you are also submitting to a kind of conformity

00:20:40.120 and you know you have all the choices i mean just consider

00:20:45.380 let's pick on walmart for a second so you know walmart

00:20:48.480 offers a lot more choices than uh the general store in a small town

00:20:53.740 right so in a way they enable individuality but if every town seems

00:20:58.020 the same you know and has all the same things then

00:21:00.820 there's sort of a a grander homogenization that happens

00:21:04.240 and yeah i think that's one of the real challenges in our era

00:21:08.460 is sort of seeing through the idea that choice is the same thing

00:21:13.440 as individuality and that you know self-development is nothing more than

00:21:18.760 than exercising choice in the easiest way possible i mean we talk about

00:21:23.700 this a bit later but there is something more there there's a struggle

00:21:28.240 i think that really defines character maybe you know relevant this podcast has

00:21:34.060 something to do with the development of manliness

00:21:35.920 and that is missing yeah i mean let's talk about that i mean

00:21:40.120 so this idea i mean kind of what you're arguing is that

00:21:42.620 in the piece is that struggle like you need to bump up against things that are

00:21:48.260 frustrating and inconvenient and annoying in order to really truly develop yourself

00:21:56.160 as a unique individual right you know sometimes i don't know if there are really

00:22:02.860 any shortcuts in life i mean maybe there are some

00:22:05.160 but there's such a thing as sort of a cheap individuality

00:22:09.340 a superficial individuality uh and i think it's different than the real

00:22:14.260 thing and i think the i think what makes the difference

00:22:18.240 is the is the struggle you know because it's relatively easy to

00:22:23.200 go out and buy clothes and look look different

00:22:26.240 than other people but to to really sort of develop yourself

00:22:30.880 into someone requires i think confronting challenges

00:22:36.440 and facing them in your own way and and seeing where it takes you

00:22:40.400 uh win and lose it means having like lost

00:22:43.820 in serious ways sometimes but also having won

00:22:48.060 and kind of follow the path that is a real path

00:22:52.480 and i think the problem with convenience choices is they take

00:22:56.740 that out of it you know i mean i oversimplify that but there's something that

00:23:02.420 happens to you in climbing a mountain that doesn't quite happen

00:23:05.740 when you get on the trolley but you end up in the same place there's no

00:23:09.520 question but you know something about you has

00:23:12.780 has become transformed when you when you undertake a serious

00:23:16.440 and challenging mountain climb and yeah that's maybe the best way i can

00:23:21.340 i can capture it and the difference you can call it the struggle you can

00:23:25.240 call it the confrontation of nature itself if

00:23:30.300 you're religion religious you might say you're

00:23:32.460 encountering god or god's limits those are i think the most

00:23:36.900 worthwhile of activities the ones where you

00:23:39.480 are actually facing nature directly uh seeing the face of it

00:23:45.580 either seeing your own body's limits maybe like in long distance running

00:23:50.160 long distance runners you know understand and are intimately familiar

00:23:55.180 with the ways in which their body starts to fail and starts to hurt

00:23:59.180 or it can mean facing strongly and directly uh just that

00:24:06.260 straight the kind of arbitrary and infinitely complex

00:24:12.740 yet somewhat predictable nature of our environment itself

00:24:17.920 and you know and that is you know revealed any rock climber who has sort of

00:24:23.580 struggled with gravity and the strange ways in which friction can can pull you up or

00:24:29.000 not or anyone who surfs and and starts to develop a intuitive sense of

00:24:35.960 of how waves work and and understand why one wave throws you on

00:24:40.760 your face another one pulls you out um yeah those aren't

00:24:45.040 things that you click on m on a on a button to get

00:24:47.860 those have to be earned the hard way yeah i mean it sounds like

00:24:52.480 this sort of i mean we'll call it cult of convenience

00:24:55.240 it thinks what we really want is the end result but in reality oftentimes what

00:25:00.860 we really the thing that really gives us meaning

00:25:03.240 and satisfaction is working towards that result i mean i've had this happen

00:25:07.420 in my own life when i've accomplished a big long-term goal

00:25:11.860 i accomplish it and then i feel kind of good and then right away i'm like

00:25:16.680 okay that was kind of disappointing it wasn't

00:25:19.080 it wasn't as i didn't feel as good as i thought i would feel yeah

00:25:22.760 you know sometimes it can feel feel pretty good but i agree if you sort of

00:25:27.540 are fixated on that moment where you you get what you want

00:25:30.500 it doesn't last very long you know if you think i keep going back to these

00:25:35.820 hobbies but like surfing you know you got to have some

00:25:38.560 appreciation for the parts other than the moment you're on the

00:25:42.540 wave because that only lasts a second or two or

00:25:45.100 you know another example is fishing i like to fish and you know how often are

00:25:49.100 you actually catching the fish the most time you're kind of sitting

00:25:52.120 there but people love fishing love it and you know uh so it it does

00:25:58.300 something and i think you're you know exactly right that somewhere in

00:26:01.500 there is is uh is uh it might overstate it to say the

00:26:06.340 meaning of life but certainly some of deepest life satisfactions

00:26:09.400 you wrote a book a few years ago called the attention merchants i'm curious

00:26:14.340 how do your thoughts about this tyranny of convenience tie in with what you

00:26:20.000 wrote about in that book that's a great question i've never

00:26:22.620 answered before no i think they're they're related

00:26:25.820 so that the attention merchants is about this resource called human time and

00:26:34.240 attention and basically the premise of the book is that our time

00:26:40.340 attention in particular are are very valuable they're they're sort of the fuel

00:26:46.120 by which we do anything or accomplish anything we really want to accomplish in

00:26:51.000 life which i think many people might think

00:26:53.660 is obvious but maybe less obvious is the fact that we've somehow allowed the

00:26:58.220 development of industries whose primary job is to take as much attention as

00:27:02.860 they can from us sometimes giving stuff in return but

00:27:06.120 sometimes it's not particularly a great deal

00:27:08.480 you know i guess that book was inspired by that experience which

00:27:12.020 i've had i don't know if your listeners have had where you you know sort of

00:27:15.520 start to write an email you have the idea of using

00:27:18.680 picking up your computer and you you want to write one email and then

00:27:21.780 suddenly like two hours go by and try to figure out what happened

00:27:24.600 and i just feel there's an industry trying to suck out all of our time and

00:27:28.620 attention from us without giving us enough money or anything else in

00:27:32.740 return and taking something from us so the question is how is that related

00:27:36.800 to the the culture of convenience i think they're related in several ways

00:27:42.620 so one is the sense that in some ways it is convenience itself that is

00:27:51.620 the the weapon that leads us to allow our attention to be to be sucked away you

00:27:58.040 know sort of lose willpower it becomes just

00:28:02.500 how much easier to sit around uh kind of do nothing and so it's kind of a

00:28:07.160 combination and i think that kind of um stagnation

00:28:11.200 happens to a lot of people and uh i think i think they act uh together

00:28:15.460 and i guess more broadly they're related i don't know philosophically or in

00:28:19.780 terms of what i believe in in in the sense that both books are all about

00:28:25.240 trying to recognize you know some of the forces that are in your life

00:28:29.160 and trying to recognize you have to resist sometimes or make some pretty

00:28:34.240 hard choices if you want to be somebody you know unfortunately united states if you

00:28:39.980 kind of go with the tide you'll end up in debt

00:28:42.740 overweight you know addicted to social media

00:28:46.400 sitting in front of tv for for 40 hours a week

00:28:49.500 and probably you know won't have a meaningful family life if you even have a

00:28:54.200 family or any friends so you know you actually have to sort

00:28:57.400 of resist and i think we've kind of created maybe it's always been like this

00:29:01.320 i'm not going to pretend that there's been like some environment

00:29:03.680 you know maybe ancient greece where everybody

00:29:06.020 like lived in in this kind of meaningful way all the time but

00:29:09.420 you know if you want to have a life of meaning you want to be somebody

00:29:12.780 you got to take uh take charge and both books are really about

00:29:17.640 that process both books are designed to create citizens worthy of that

00:29:22.240 title and in some ways restore us i think from the older traditions of

00:29:26.780 of both the american republic but also

00:29:29.520 you know ancient ideas of of what the meaning of life is

00:29:32.720 so let's talk about you know practical things we can do i'm giving some pretty big

00:29:36.340 speeches here yeah no it's fantastic you you are you've inspired me for some

00:29:40.340 pretty big speeches no i love it thank you i am enjoying it yeah let's talk

00:29:45.060 about some some brass tacks thing we can do

00:29:47.820 to resist this culture of convenience so you

00:29:50.660 throughout the podcast you've been mentioning

00:29:52.320 your hobbies you take part in and yeah you argue that hobbies are something

00:29:56.840 they're basically inconveniences we do for fun

00:29:59.800 so you mentioned you fish you surf you play hockey what are some other

00:30:05.320 hobbies that you've taken up that are super inconvenient but give you a lot

00:30:10.040 of satisfaction in life yeah i i um i guess that's a great question i'm a

00:30:15.180 uh i have too many actually i guess i i live by my words so

00:30:19.640 i don't know it's quite a hobby but i do cook

00:30:21.700 most of the food in our house and i have two two small daughters and it gives me

00:30:26.940 satisfaction obviously it's not the most convenient thing

00:30:29.980 although i've gotten pretty quick at cooking i uh as i said earlier i like to

00:30:35.480 surf which is certainly not convenient i don't know if there's any substitute

00:30:40.280 for surfing it's sort of more of a of a pure

00:30:42.440 hobby i like sports like hockey i like to sail

00:30:47.420 and which is certainly not the easiest way of getting from

00:30:51.620 from a to b and i like to i have a we have a

00:30:55.540 cottage and i like to the fish which is

00:30:59.000 obviously not the easiest way to get food for your household in fact the fish

00:31:03.080 don't always taste that good it's certainly not better than the ones you

00:31:06.180 can buy so so yeah i kind of i'm always doing this on the other hand i

00:31:09.520 haven't uh you know i wrote that new york times

00:31:11.580 piece people reached out to me some people like rural idaho they're like

00:31:14.780 you know you should live like we do we make all our own food

00:31:17.360 you know chop all our own wood i do chop my own wood i enjoy that

00:31:21.240 but in fact i think from your website i got some good tips from for

00:31:24.760 for uh using a mall but i i i'm not at the extreme uh you know

00:31:31.520 i'm connected to society here i am using a computer

00:31:34.440 you know i have a smartphone that you know somewhat

00:31:38.040 try not to let it take over my life so i i haven't really

00:31:41.580 i don't completely live by by this i'm not

00:31:44.740 totally uh rejecting of all forms of of convenience

00:31:48.120 i just think returning to what we were talking about earlier

00:31:51.300 i really do believe that you know the choice of tools in our life

00:31:58.720 and the way you spend your attention are like two of the most fundamental

00:32:04.540 decisions you can make as to who you are

00:32:06.520 and you know ideally they come together it's another way the ideas are

00:32:09.960 connected is you know you want to use tools

00:32:13.120 uh devote your attention you have to tools which you feel uh you know are

00:32:19.820 character building or or do something for you and you you know when you're done

00:32:23.660 with it you you just can tell i i don't know if

00:32:26.900 if you're like me but i think you can tell

00:32:29.280 after an experience what effect you feel it's had on it some make you feel sick and

00:32:34.500 sort of degraded and you know like what was i doing

00:32:37.820 sometimes feel like that after after too much time on the web

00:32:40.920 but and other things you know sort of seem to bring you forward i mean a big

00:32:45.620 one i obviously spend a lot of time writing

00:32:47.080 and so the computer i don't want to sort of just completely

00:32:51.220 castigate the computer computer can actually bring you in in some important

00:32:56.120 directions you know a lot of the writing

00:32:58.860 i've done most meaningful writing was on it's not like it was on some 1920s

00:33:02.400 typewriter did on a computer and you know that has has brought me

00:33:06.000 a lot of places so but that that's kind of my my prescription i guess if you

00:33:10.320 want to put it to put it together right i think

00:33:13.680 this could not only can you do this with

00:33:16.220 your hobbies but also with your relationships as well maybe choose in more

00:33:20.540 inconvenient way to interact with those around us might

00:33:25.620 actually bring more meaning or satisfaction

00:33:28.480 yeah you know it's funny you say that because usually when i

00:33:31.280 you know i wrote that piece in new york times or some of the

00:33:34.020 sometimes talk some things and then i'll usually get an email saying that's a

00:33:36.980 very male-centric way to think about like tools is the only thing that matter

00:33:40.220 in life what about your you know what about human

00:33:43.520 relationships and i'm glad you brought that up

00:33:45.940 yeah it's a it's a little it's a little different but i i do think

00:33:49.200 um some of what i said earlier about convenience and the sort of

00:33:55.280 superficial superficiality versus depth can can apply to your

00:34:00.800 relationships so you know when your relationships with other

00:34:04.280 people it's it's easier to keep people in arms lent it's kind of more convenient

00:34:07.940 and uh some people it's necessary even but you know there is something to be

00:34:14.200 learned from being in the same physical space as

00:34:18.760 other people and just sort of being fully exposed to

00:34:21.560 all of what they are i can't i you know would be lying to say that that is a

00:34:26.980 painless process in fact it can at times be compared to that mountain

00:34:31.220 climb i was talking about and anyone who's been in a long marriage

00:34:34.640 know this that there are periods of serious suffering uh for most of us

00:34:38.600 involved i don't uh my wife is a lovely person we're

00:34:43.240 deeply in love and have a happy marriage but i i would be

00:34:46.880 lying to say that it's you know uh been like you know the world

00:34:51.360 world blender all the time you just push a button everything works great um

00:34:54.660 no it's challenging but but i think it's basically the same principles

00:34:59.100 and in fact you're being closely involved with another

00:35:03.280 human person is a lot like what i was talking about it

00:35:07.760 is uh very coming very close to to a direct encounter with nature itself

00:35:14.160 you know it's not like you're hacking through

00:35:16.560 the jungle with a machete but in some ways

00:35:19.800 it's sort of the human version of it you're kind of navigating

00:35:23.320 the challenging project of coexisting with

00:35:27.080 other people who actually have their own consciousness their own preferences

00:35:30.620 their own lives and don't necessarily know everything you do

00:35:34.120 and i can't say uh i'm the most successful at that but it's certainly

00:35:39.800 uh something that makes life worth it

00:35:42.360 yeah it takes skill and whenever you i've had those experiences where

00:35:46.820 you've had a deft social encounter and it feels fantastic

00:35:51.480 yeah compared to you know just sort of sending a text message

00:35:54.840 it's there's something yeah something more grittier about it that

00:35:58.480 makes makes it more fun i don't know if that's the right word i mean i'll add

00:36:01.720 something i don't it doesn't have to all be sort of dark i i take a lot

00:36:04.580 times i you know i like going out for drinks with my friends that's like

00:36:08.980 one of my hobbies maybe i should have said that earlier

00:36:11.380 we have a couple bars we like to go and we go there

00:36:14.620 and we drink i don't know to excess but we like to you know drink and just talk

00:36:20.160 about whatever and you know that kind of human

00:36:23.600 experience there's no replica for it you know sitting in a kind

00:36:28.620 of quiet bar bartender friendly bartender not too

00:36:32.760 crowded not screaming and just like chatting about whatever with with your

00:36:36.140 drinking buddies i think like that is that is to me close to a religious

00:36:40.220 experience is uh as blasphemous as that may sound

00:36:44.720 you know and the hours you know it's it's going well you know hours kind of

00:36:48.440 drift by but that not in a way like on tv or facebook like what am i doing it's

00:36:52.400 more like this is just just just the core of of living so

00:36:56.880 yeah i think i think uh i seek out those kind of experiences

00:37:00.500 and uh you know they're available to us and but here's the thing you have to be

00:37:05.360 intentional about it because the the the tide wants to make things

00:37:10.260 convenient for you so you have to actively resist it

00:37:13.000 yes that's right you know i think we have

00:37:16.820 an environment which kind of through the force of convenience

00:37:19.600 it's an invisible thing it's so alluring that that's what's so interesting but it's

00:37:23.840 not like you know the old idea totalitarian

00:37:27.940 government putting you in prison it's more just

00:37:30.540 like you coast along easy street you make all the the easy decisions

00:37:35.000 you know you you kind of eliminate difficulty in your life

00:37:39.360 and next thing you know it's like well have you really lived

00:37:42.200 and it's so interesting you look back at your life and what

00:37:46.020 kind of parts of it that mattered or or and you know they often involve certain as

00:37:52.260 i've said before certain levels of of pain now they can also involve

00:37:56.220 deep elation as well but you know our tendency to try to avoid

00:38:00.700 the highs and the lows or avoid the highs because you're

00:38:03.920 afraid of the lows yeah it's not worthy of a of a society

00:38:07.780 of a country that's supposed to be the home of the free and the land of the brave

00:38:10.780 or maybe i got that backwards but yeah i think courage has really

00:38:15.460 gets some into the the greek virtues that we sort of lost our

00:38:18.800 our our courage along the way and yeah i think that's a big part of this

00:38:24.000 yeah well also another virtue we've lost is phronesis that sort of practical

00:38:28.280 wisdom like you know what to do in

00:38:30.960 whatever situation because you've developed your

00:38:33.820 judgment through direct experience right well tim this has been a great

00:38:38.080 conversation is there anywhere else people can go to learn more about your

00:38:40.900 work well i have the the book that

00:38:43.940 you describe the attention merchants which is

00:38:46.580 available at all fine bookstores and i i am not offended if you wish to click

00:38:50.720 one button to buy it on amazon and i guess you go back and read that article

00:38:54.560 tyranny of convenience which is on the new york times and i don't know

00:38:58.460 just you know do a couple searches and i'm always writing stuff for the times and

00:39:02.540 i always write new books so uh there you have it there you go well

00:39:06.220 tim woo thank you so much for your time it's been a pleasure yeah likewise

00:39:09.100 my guest here is tim woo he's the author of the book the attention merchants it's

00:39:24.520 available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere you can also find out more

00:39:27.500 information about his work at timwoo.org also check out our show notes at aom.is

00:39:32.000 slash convenience where you can find links to resources where you can delve deeper

00:39:34.920 into this topic and if you're looking for a way or a systematic way or a program to

00:39:38.920 help you inject some healthy inconvenience into your life check out

00:39:42.160 our membership program the strenuous life at strenuouslife.co that's what the

00:39:46.020 whole premise is designed to do it's designed to inject some inconvenience or

00:39:50.180 as we call friction into your life a little bit more difficult so you can find

00:39:53.500 that fulfillment that you get that tim was talking about check it out

00:39:56.400 strenuouslife.co we've had over 3,000 people sign up and hope to see you there

00:40:00.220 as always thank you for your continued support and until next time this is brett mckay

00:40:04.060 telling you to stay manly

00:40:08.920 ptm

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00:40:11.680 ptm

00:40:12.020 ptm

00:40:13.080 fruit

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00:40:14.280 ctm

00:40:16.000 eye

The Art of Manliness - April 27, 2018

#400： The Tyranny of Convenience

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