Tuesdays with Ian - Productivity

"What the deuce am I doing?"

Finding myself awake at 8AM on Friday morning, eyes adjusting to rays of early sunlight streaming through the window, fingers throbbing and still clutching to the xbox controller that had kept me alive during the sleepless night of frantic zombie apocalypse survival, I had little choice but to ask the above question.

Although I realize many likely take offense at the coarse diction of the above sentence ("deuce"), there come times when we all have to ask it of ourselves.  Although it could, of course, refer to any number of ridiculous behaviors/unwise decisions, I'm going to talk a little about how it relates to the concept of "productivity."

I don't know about you, but I find myself having to regularly assess the "productivity" of my behavior.  And although I often do so, I seldom consider what productivity really is and whether it's even a good idea at all.

Some of my first experiences with the term "productive" stem from my interactions with my parents, who are among the most "productive" people I know and consistently urge me in a similar direction.  But let's take a moment and consider the meaning of the word.

Dictionary.com says "having the power of producing" which is entirely unhelpful.  Producing, then, is defined as "being productive"... which causes me to wonder if the editors of dictionary.com might have spent a little too much time playing xbox and not enough doing their job... ok just kidding.  It's actually "to bring into existence by intellectual or creative activity."  Okay.

Adolf Hitler.  Now there was a productive guy.  He actually managed to bring unemployment in Germany down to 0% for a time.  How's that for productivity?  And how about all that forced slave labor?  You can bet that sure cut down big time on unproductive activities like laughing or eating. Or sleeping.

Based on this example, we can conclude productivity to be an evil practice resulting in the pain and misery of millions.

Many of you might argue that a sample size of one is hardly sufficient to draw conclusions from.  Fine.  Let me double the sample size: Joseph Stalin.  Booyah.

Frankly speaking, from some perspectives, life can be pretty pointless.  Consider, for example, making your bed.  My clever counter-argument to my parents'' admonitions to make my bed was that I would be sleeping in it again in probably less than 16 hours thereby rendering such an activity a complete waste of my time.  I guess we could consider the bed manufacturer at least as a productive agent in the equation.  But who's to say I wouldn't be better off just sleeping on the ground?  It could, after all, be better for my back.

In any case, it could be argued that everything we do is a pointless waste of time.  In which case, it may be appropriate to question why I am even engaging in an activity that so dangerously resembles bringing something into existence by intellectual or creative means...  I could be killing zombies right now.