#400： The Tyranny of Convenience
Episode Stats
Summary
Tim Wojtowicz is a professor of law at Columbia Law School and the author of several books, including The Attention Merchants. In this episode, he argues that we re at the beginning of a second convenience revolution, and that the tyranny of convenience is actually limiting our freedom and making us like everyone else.
Transcript
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brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast modern life
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has given us a lot of convenience with the tap of our smartphone screen and without ever leaving
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our house we can order a car to our door or a hot dinner or even replenish our toilet paper
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supply and right now you're listening to this podcast how and when you want to yes life is good
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in the 21st century but what if there's such a thing as too much convenience what if it's actually
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enslaving us in some strange way well that's what my guest today argues his name is tim woo he's
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professor of law at columbia law school and the author of several books including the attention
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merchants and today on the show tim and i discuss the tyranny of convenience we begin with a brief
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history of convenience discussing how it became a driving force in the economy and in our culture
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in the late 19th century and how tim believes we're at the beginning of a second convenience
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revolution he then discusses how convenience can make us feel more free and unique but actually
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limits our freedom and makes us like everyone else tim then shares some ideas on how to inject
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some healthy inconvenience in your life for more happiness freedom and fulfillment after the show's
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over check out our show notes at aom.is convenience and find links to resources where you delve deeper
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into this topic and tim joins me now via clearcast.io tim woo welcome to the show it's a pleasure
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so back in february you wrote an op-ed piece for the new york times called the tyranny of convenience
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i'm curious what got you thinking about the implications of a culture and an economy like
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ours that puts a premium on making things as convenient and as easy as possible you know i i'm
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really interested in things that affect your life very strongly but in a way are hidden or or less
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obvious and one of them is for some years now has struck me as this kind of obsession with convenience
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that in its own way seems to rule our lives and you know i kind of started to notice that
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what i like to call my preferences you know i like to cook charcoal we're being trumped by
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you know the idea that well yeah but it's not really convenient and so you know someone who's kind of
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interested in freedom and autonomy and things like that i was like you know who's really in charge here
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is it me or is this like thing called the convenience i'll add to it i think also i've
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had the experience and maybe other people have had too where you have a lot of technologies in your life
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that are supposed to make everything really convenient but somehow it doesn't quite seem to
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work out the way you think you know you have a microwave and you have email and you have text
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messages and you have this computer extremely powerful almost like miraculous technologies
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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
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somewhere here so it was kind of uh that sort of thing like you know where where is this utopia i was
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promised well isn't it i mean isn't it a drive for humans since like ancient times to you know use
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tools to make life easier i mean that's what made makes us human right like the you know the little
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hand tools you see about from prehistoric man made that was that made things easier yeah i i agree with
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that and so i i don't in any way uh think that i am against tools i think that like all good things
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it's kind of a question of you know doing it right and so so i i i deeply believe that you know
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our tools are identity and i guess that's why i think we need to be more careful about it i think
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that tools can expand who you are how you live in different dimensions and if you just reduce it to
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one dimension i.e making things more convenient then you miss out on a lot of what life offers you
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know just to give a classic example if you're learning to play an instrument you know that's not
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exactly a very convenient choice it's an important tool you know guitar violin or or drums but it's not
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going to make it easier to listen to music actually if you want that you can buy uh yourself a stereo
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that kind of takes care of it so you know there's other dimensions of our lives that are revealed by
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our choices and tools and what i think sometimes is is that we have kind of reduced ourselves narrowed
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ourselves to this one axis you know does it make life easier does it kind of get me
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to my goal with less i guess time or or thinking or effort and you know if you start to make that
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your life it becomes all destination no journey and frankly i think you become a very are in danger
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of of missing out on a lot of life and becoming a narrow person yeah that's an interesting point you
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made earlier just now about how the tools you know they not only we know they not only allow us to
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shape the world but when we use a tool it shapes us as well i think there's a phrase like the tool
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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
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as well yeah i mean another way of thinking about it is that the tool is you and you know that we are
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kind of defined by it but i also like your idea or the idea that it that it changes you i'm one of
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these people who thinks the the goal of life is uh self-development you know finding out uh kind of
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what you could be building building character uh so to speak and there's no question that that that
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the tool choice and tool usage is is a big part of that and you know most of us realize that i think
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another reason i wrote this is i was thinking about the things that the tools i like best and you know
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they tend to be related to my hobbies i have a lot probably too many hobbies you know so like my
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hockey stick i like play hockey i like to surf you know all these things that the tool becomes so so
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important and frankly so treasured yet we also spend an awful lot of time at work and a lot of time a lot
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of time you know with other tasks in life and and there we're kind of reducing ourselves now you know
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obviously there's certain things you can't always do you know the old school way and maybe there's
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something about hobbies where we take more time for them but i i started to think there was something
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important about you know living life the best you could in this whole question of tools and frankly
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the decision not to make convenience the overriding value in the choice of tools so we said you know
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humans have always been trying to make things easier life easier with tools but in the piece
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you wrote you argued that this like quest for convenience became like an obsession in the late
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19th and early 20th centuries with sort of that second industrial revolution that occurred during that
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period what are some of the examples of convenience technologies that popped up in this during this
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time yeah you're exactly right i think the convenience revolution uh as we as we know it was born
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and i think in a worthy way with the promise of liberation i think frankly that the earliest
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convenience liberation even though this is the art of manliness was directed mainly at women
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there was an observation that that women you know spent most of their lives in drudgery whether it was
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spending all day washing clothing cooking foods in incredibly laborious ways or keeping a house clean
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and one of the ideas is that women could only really become emancipated or have some life of their
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own if they had tools that saved them labor and so i the convenience revolution frankly is born there
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and i think these are its noble origins i mean there is something to be said for life that is something
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other than total drudgery and that that's it so so some of the conveniences and the that are
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the early the first generation are like the washing machine the vacuum cleaner even things like basic
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cleaning solutions like old dutch you know these were big revolutions rolled oats so-called instant
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foods which are not really instant by our standards but i guess just reduce the amount of time for
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cooking like pork and beans these these were the big the big revolutions of the late 19th century
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and it continued though even through like the 1950s i mean you look at these those mid-century
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depictions of what life would be like in the future and it was just like this wonderful utopia
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where robots did everything you know you have the jetsons where they have sidewalks that just move you
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don't have to walk i mean they really thought this would be in this like utopia and like we'd be living
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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
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in the 1950s where the future and the utopic version of it was defined by total convenience in all possible
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aspects of life and you describe some of them but some people may remember it you know you push a
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button your food arrives you push another button you you arrive at work through a teleportation machine
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push another button all your work gets done so you know life becomes about pushing buttons in some ways
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we kind of live in that era i mean you can push a button and something will be delivered you can push
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another button and a message gets sent to somebody in japan you know we we do push buttons but one
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thing we're starting to noticing is that sitting around pushing buttons all day does not make
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necessarily for the most satisfying life and i'll add to it that there is a skill in pushing buttons
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repeatedly and multiply it's called multitasking and we are sort of in danger of becoming society where
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the only skill that matters is multitasking and the only way you live is you sort of decide that
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which will be done as opposed to doing yourself and you know that's to me sort of a diminished way of
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living but it's certainly true that in the 1950s that that was that was kind of the the dream yeah so i
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mean not only did people i mean even you even saw that in the jetsons where sort of the shtick was
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here they are in this utopia but the technology like messes up their lives you know george you know
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gets caught in some bathing machine and it mangles them up or something and it also just kind of feel
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unsatisfied with life so not only is this you know convenience like it's unsatisfying but you also argue
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i think this is really interesting is that convenience can actually end up enslaving us or limiting our
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choices how so yeah i when in a sense it ends up taking over your preferences i want to discuss an
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example from the 50s i think it's kind of a turning point yeah it wasn't in the article it was an earlier
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draft which was the development of something called the baby box or i guess the baby tender
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there was a scientist named bf skinner who is famous for his experiments on pigeons
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and he was very caught up in the idea of the convenience revolution
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was supposed to greatly reduce the burdens of child care
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especially for babies and toddlers and so basically it was a box
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and you put your baby in there and i guess it was warm
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so the baby didn't need clothes and you know baby couldn't get that far
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so it just sat in the box all day and you know you kind of put in
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food from a little little door or something like that
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uh and uh it was sort of supposed to take care of all
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of child care i think it had a little thing where the baby could drink if it wanted
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you know obviously breast milk but uh it sounds like a hamster
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yeah a little like a hamster cage i guess you know and
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so you know he expected this was going to be his great greatest invention and
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expected to become a millionaire but you know lo and behold it wasn't popular
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actually he put his own daughter in it by the way
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which you know is a dedication to science which is rare in our times
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but yeah so so people weren't into it it didn't sell well
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i actually sold 300 or so which is actually a little more than i
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would expect but no it didn't it didn't become a blockbuster hit
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and i guess that there was something in there some lesson
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there was other you know problems at the time instant cake mix
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mix it wasn't as popular as people thought you know just add water have a
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bit of this enslavement problem was sort of showing up people
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were thinking well you know there's some some parts of life that
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that seem to be going missing here when it's only about convenience and in
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some ways parts of the counterculture were sort of about well you know
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rediscovering this idea of having a human role in things you know it wasn't
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always articulated as anti-convenience but you know when you
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think of sort of some hippie dude living you know in the woods you know
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without a without a safety razor that that is sort of a rejection of
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conveniences and so yeah i think i think there was a sense that it
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right because those convenience tools in order for them to be convenient you
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have to use them in a certain way right so it strips you of agency right
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that that's right it's sort of like it is sort of the trump card
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you know if you only uh go places where the parking is convenient well then like
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suddenly your freedom of movement has become constrained there's there's an
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example and speaking of these uh you know reactions to these you know this
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first convenience revolution you talked about you know there you'd mentioned
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one there was one in the counterculture revolution of the 60s and 70s where you
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had hippies going off to communes and growing their own food and making their
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own music with whatever but i mean you also saw this even in the early 20th late
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19th century i mean this is during that time that's when the whole arts and crafts
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movement started where people decided i'm going to make my own chair and my own
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table and build it with my own hands i'm not going to use this mechanized
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mass-produced stuff and we still see that today that sort of ethos like i'm
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going to build a table by myself why well because it's not convenient
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yeah i think there's a constant kind of counter-revolution and i think it's noble
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you know i think that uh the human spirit rebels against
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kind of a loss of meaning and you know i might say this later but i think that
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uh we are actually constantly fighting convenience uh but we kind of disguise it
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from ourselves by calling it our hobbies you know and so people do something
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utterly ridiculous like building a uh a battleship out of plastic which is like
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not convenient you can order one from china at half the price or not even half the
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price at a fraction but you know you call it your hobby or you know you ride a
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bicycle to work or something or or frankly most of the things that people
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kind of inconvenient although we're funny because we introduce conveniences in
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in our inconveniences so you know we'll play golf
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you know i want i want it to be convenient to play golf i want
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you know the driving range near my house the little balls just kind of
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come up by themselves you know pick down and put them up but you know
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playing golf inherently is not like what is playing golf you're doing
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something inherently slightly ridiculous although
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it's fun so yeah so we that that that's the paradox
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so you the first convenience revolution kick-started in the 19th early 20th
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century went through the 1950s you argue in the piece that we're
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how is this one different from that first one yeah that's a great question so you
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know uh there was this movement in the 60s and 70s uh 50s too conformist
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you know we we're not free to be us and i think there was an important
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commercial reaction to those changes frankly you saw it first in
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advertising when advertisers for example companies like pepsi started
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associating their brands with freedom and and the era of you know long hair do
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what you want to live a different way you know pepsi the choice of the pepsi
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generation so that started in advertising but then technologists kind of glommed
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onto this and said hey we know you want we want you want to be you but what we're
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going to do is make it more convenient to be you
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and you know i would think one of the first great examples of this
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is the is the sony walkman so you know now you have this man walking
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down the street and he is kind of in his own perfect little
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bubble of self-expression you know he's listening to his jazz or
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maybe he's listening to black sabbath or maybe he's into 70s funk i'm not sure but
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you know he he is himself and he's experiencing kind of pleasures that were
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previously only possible in his den but he's got his whole you know system with
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him and so sony has now made it more convenient to be you
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sony has made your exercise of choice more convenient and when you look at
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most if not all of our convenience technologies today
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they're not actually trying to jam you at least obviously into some kind of mold
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they're at least promising from the outset that
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hey i'm going to help you be you so you know on amazon you can buy whatever you
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it was just books was oh you know you don't need to just buy
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these bestsellers that are for the masses you know you can buy whatever
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strange book that really is all about you and you know google you know it's not
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like you're being pre-fed this feed of news from the media or
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whatever it's like whatever you are that that's that's who you'll be and
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facebook i guess was like here's your friends and your network
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friendster before that so so but you can keep in touch with them know what they're
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up to you know without having to to go hang out
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so so that that's freeing and um and convenient
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but you argue that this convenience to be ourselves
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unique and more individual but you argue that it ends up
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yeah i think it's like many things at the core i actually do believe that there is
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some promise there i i think you know it has in some ways become
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easier to be you i mean yeah let's face it you can buy obscure strange books and
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on amazon i don't want to discount that um you know recently i got into
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sort of neo-plutonian philosophy for whatever reason
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known only to myself and you know those books are kind of hard to find
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um and so there's something to it but there is a strange counter effect where
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you know we're even on supposedly on facebook everybody is like their own
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thing we has a weird way of making this all kind of seem the same
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and you know everyone's on gmail and on google and
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for some reason it has this kind of um counterintuitive homogenizing power
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and that's kind of one of it's almost like a mystery i think
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that sometimes the the promise of individuality can kind of
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levels you are also submitting to a kind of conformity
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and you know you have all the choices i mean just consider
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let's pick on walmart for a second so you know walmart
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offers a lot more choices than uh the general store in a small town
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right so in a way they enable individuality but if every town seems
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the same you know and has all the same things then
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there's sort of a a grander homogenization that happens
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and yeah i think that's one of the real challenges in our era
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is sort of seeing through the idea that choice is the same thing
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as individuality and that you know self-development is nothing more than
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than exercising choice in the easiest way possible i mean we talk about
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this a bit later but there is something more there there's a struggle
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i think that really defines character maybe you know relevant this podcast has
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something to do with the development of manliness
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and that is missing yeah i mean let's talk about that i mean
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so this idea i mean kind of what you're arguing is that
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in the piece is that struggle like you need to bump up against things that are
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frustrating and inconvenient and annoying in order to really truly develop yourself
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as a unique individual right you know sometimes i don't know if there are really
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any shortcuts in life i mean maybe there are some
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but there's such a thing as sort of a cheap individuality
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a superficial individuality uh and i think it's different than the real
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thing and i think the i think what makes the difference
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is the is the struggle you know because it's relatively easy to
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than other people but to to really sort of develop yourself
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into someone requires i think confronting challenges
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and facing them in your own way and and seeing where it takes you
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and kind of follow the path that is a real path
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and i think the problem with convenience choices is they take
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that out of it you know i mean i oversimplify that but there's something that
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happens to you in climbing a mountain that doesn't quite happen
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when you get on the trolley but you end up in the same place there's no
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has become transformed when you when you undertake a serious
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and challenging mountain climb and yeah that's maybe the best way i can
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i can capture it and the difference you can call it the struggle you can
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encountering god or god's limits those are i think the most
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are actually facing nature directly uh seeing the face of it
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either seeing your own body's limits maybe like in long distance running
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long distance runners you know understand and are intimately familiar
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with the ways in which their body starts to fail and starts to hurt
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or it can mean facing strongly and directly uh just that
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straight the kind of arbitrary and infinitely complex
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yet somewhat predictable nature of our environment itself
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and you know and that is you know revealed any rock climber who has sort of
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struggled with gravity and the strange ways in which friction can can pull you up or
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not or anyone who surfs and and starts to develop a intuitive sense of
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of how waves work and and understand why one wave throws you on
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your face another one pulls you out um yeah those aren't
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things that you click on m on a on a button to get
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those have to be earned the hard way yeah i mean it sounds like
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this sort of i mean we'll call it cult of convenience
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it thinks what we really want is the end result but in reality oftentimes what
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we really the thing that really gives us meaning
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and satisfaction is working towards that result i mean i've had this happen
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in my own life when i've accomplished a big long-term goal
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i accomplish it and then i feel kind of good and then right away i'm like
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it wasn't as i didn't feel as good as i thought i would feel yeah
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you know sometimes it can feel feel pretty good but i agree if you sort of
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are fixated on that moment where you you get what you want
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it doesn't last very long you know if you think i keep going back to these
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hobbies but like surfing you know you got to have some
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appreciation for the parts other than the moment you're on the
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wave because that only lasts a second or two or
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you know another example is fishing i like to fish and you know how often are
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you actually catching the fish the most time you're kind of sitting
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there but people love fishing love it and you know uh so it it does
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something and i think you're you know exactly right that somewhere in
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there is is uh is uh it might overstate it to say the
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meaning of life but certainly some of deepest life satisfactions
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you wrote a book a few years ago called the attention merchants i'm curious
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how do your thoughts about this tyranny of convenience tie in with what you
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wrote about in that book that's a great question i've never
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answered before no i think they're they're related
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so that the attention merchants is about this resource called human time and
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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
00:26:53.660
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
00:27:08.480
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
00:28:02.500
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
00:28:49.500
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
00:29:06.020
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
00:29:29.520
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
00:29:52.320
your hobbies you take part in and yeah you argue that hobbies are something
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
00:30:21.700
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
00:30:47.420
and which is certainly not the easiest way of getting from
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
00:31:44.740
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
00:32:06.520
and you know ideally they come together it's another way the ideas are
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
00:32:29.280
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
00:32:47.080
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
00:32:58.860
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
00:33:16.220
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
00:33:28.480
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
00:33:45.940
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
00:35:19.800
it's sort of the human version of it you're kind of navigating
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
00:35:42.360
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
00:36:23.600
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
00:37:16.820
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
00:37:27.940
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
00:38:30.960
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
00:38:46.580
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