Tag: Arts

I am proud to say that i see this in a few of my friends, where other people might ask why? they just do!
Why is this? Based on my all too biased personal experience I find that the majority of people I know are like this, consumption maximisers and probably all that I can blame is probably environment. TV is the national obssession.
I remember a local rock legend ranting about how the kids nowadays just buy off the rack punks wear, etc. Things like this are akin to exercise , you need to get to form a habit of doing, creating and when you are you probably just can’t stop.
But how?
-Find what you enjoy by doing a multitude of things and try to do it till you feel at least two levels of pay-offs, so you can evaluate if something is “your thing!” Why two levels? Well most experiences either have different pay-offs and different level of pay-off per skill level, you may not get to evaluate how much you would value something if you quit to quickly!
-Just like the previous post try to incorporate it to your life/habit. Remember how Randy Paush, when he is thinking always had a football in his hands, you could do this with guitar playing whilst watching tv play the guitar, or while walking think of poems if you’re into poetry, think of blogposts while waiting for your train, you have the time, you are just not using it wisely.
-Find a friend to help you with your hobbies. Remember its always fun to do something with someone.
-When something is beginning to define you step back and think if this is really something you want to be defined by.
-Evaluate the effort you put in to your thing. You must always strive to improve because you might end up just with another reflex action.
-Evaluate you thing. Sometimes doing your thing would hold you back on some important parts of life, Like how my Internet addiction is slowly making me more socially inept than I already am.
Read the whole post its packed with information.

I suspect something else is going on. That something is the spread of purely instrumental rationality – the idea that utility maximization consists solely in maximizing consumption for minimal expenditure of time and money. Many of us take it for granted that it’s rational to spend as little time cooking as possible, and that music should only be a consumption good.
What this ignores is that many things are worth doing for their own sake. I’ll never play the guitar as well as Martin Simpson, or cook as well as Gordon Ramsey, or grow enough vegetables to be self-sufficient. But I play the guitar, cook and grow my own because these things are worth doing for their own sake.
Labour is not just a cost, to minimized. It is – or can be – a form of satisfaction in itself – a way of asserting who we are.
Stumbling and Mumbling: Consumption deskilling & utility.