I previously wrote about the present perfect tense and how it can make you waste time pursuing things you don’t really want—when you want to have done them instead of wanting to do them. Now I notice the continuous tense characterizes another pitfall, kind of the opposite: sometimes you want to be doing work more than you want to do it. And that difference is actually the difference between humans and gods.
Addiction to the continuous tense
Sometimes you want to be doing work more than you want to do it. Notice the difference. To do work makes the work done; it eliminates. To be doing work is continuous; it prolongs. What this looks like practically is getting lost in labor that doesn’t pay off.
I notice this in myself sometimes, and I notice it in others, especially some older people, who grew up with less automation technology in their daily lives. Sorry to stereotype, but I think Baby Boomers love “working” more than they love work. Look down a long list, check if it contains some item, and when you find it, do something with it, and repeat. All lookups done with eyes, all work done with typing fingers or a pen. This characterizes untold person-hours of labor that people happily spend.
Why do they do this? They get into a flow state with it, and I would too—the action is perfectly flow-state-compatible—except for a voice in my head that lovingly screams, “This is not worth your time!” But if searching down long lists was not already solved by computer technology, it would be worth my time, and I would enjoy it.
The joy of the continuous tense
But wait, many things still do require (really require) repetitive work! And I let myself enjoy them. When I run into a task that is 1) worth doing, but 2) best done manually, and 3) not very puzzling or complicated, I grab my headphones and put on music and get to work. I could do it nonstop for at least an hour straight and be perfectly content. Some examples:
I love 3D modeling in Blender for hours, even though I could make a good-enough model in the first 30 minutes.
Every year my family gets together and makes tomato sauce from scratch, in bulk. So I sit and feed tomatoes into the grinder for an hour or so, or spend time preparing all the jars, or whatever else.
The other day my wife was cooking a big seafood dish, but the squids she ordered came whole. So I consulted a quick YouTube video and then got to work pulling apart about 40 little squids, taking out the cartilage and beak parts, etc., watching myself get better and faster with each one.
Is this kind of work “fun?” I wouldn’t say that, but it reliably brings on a flow state, and there’s always a unique appeal to that experience. It seems silly, but under certain conditions people love labor.
I say this as a very task-driven/execution-driven person myself. Really I think a lot about the near future, about what work I would like done. But still, I get it. I may live in the future, but I can get lost in the present, in the mindless flow of necessary but non-challenging work.
Is this a problem? No: even from a productivity perspective, if there’s just no other way to clean those squids, then it’s great that there’s something appealing about the work. And then we can zoom out: productivity isn’t everything—if you’re enjoying the experience, then good. Maybe it’s worth doing some things less efficiently, if the efficient way deprives you of that flow state opportunity. But that brings us to—
The loss of the continuous tense
The set of tasks that are 1) worth doing, but 2) best done manually, and 3) not very puzzling or complicated, is shrinking fast! AI assistants are claiming competence in more and more domains by the day. A software developer used to get all their planning and architecting hammered out and then sit down, put the headphones on, and write code. No so anymore: take the headphones off, the code is already written, go immediately to the next step.
I’m not a full-time software engineer, but I know the joy of making an app or game, enjoying and soaking up that state of making. Most of the questions I’d face were small, incremental: “How do I store that array?” “How do I move this button over there?” Nowadays I find myself asking only the big questions: What do I want to bring into existence? What will it cost to run? I’m thrilled at how fast I can build out old projects that I never would’ve had time for, but still I know something was lost.
Professional engineers I talk to have the same feeling: they can do so much more now, but they don’t exactly enjoy the work anymore. All the non-decision-making parts of the job have been automated away, so there’s no room for a flow state.
That’s software engineering, but so many other fields are affected. I mentioned 3D modeling above, but AI can do that too, and soon it’ll do it better than I can. Manual labor activities are safe for now, but consumer robotic tech is coming, too.
Something was lost; I don’t think there’s any way around it. The pleasure of doing new things is not the same as the pleasure of doing necessary work in a flow state. Both are normal human pleasures, but the latter is going away.
Responses
The joy of the continuous tense is a natural human pleasure. Will you let it go and try to fully replace it with the joy of finished work? Or will you hang onto it, no matter how inconvenient, out of principle? I don’t see an easy answer, but let’s explore:
Let go and become gods
Did the God of Genesis enjoy the act of creation? We enjoy our own creative work, but it’s partly because we enjoy the process: it asks something of us, and we invest and get to see our labor pay off. But the God of Genesis just spoke. Are we ready for a future where we “creatives” just speak things into existence?
God doesn’t labor, and therefore doesn’t find pleasure or meaning in labor. The God of Genesis finds gratification when Adam and Eve enjoy what he made. Likewise, as a god-creator your gratification is when others (including your future self, perhaps) come in and say, “Ah this is great, this is exactly what I needed.” Is that enough? Can it be? Are you ready to play God?
This is a form of transhumanism. Before the brain-enhancing chips and cybernetic appendages and designer CRISPR babies, even now, AI technology offers us the option to transcend a little part of ourselves.
Be stubbornly human
Or should we resist automating away our own labor? Should we insist that it’s just as important to be creating X as it is to create X? Should we insist that any moment that feels purposeful is a “success,” even if it’s actually wasteful in economic terms?
There’s plenty of precedent for this. There are still photorealist painters, even after the invention of photography. There are still artisan potters, even though you can buy pottery from a factory in China. In fact, we humans have this quirk where the consumer resonates the meaning that the creator experiences: that’s our concept of artisanship. The handmade thing is just more special, so some people are willing to pay more for it. And thus it becomes economical again! There is a market for realist paintings today; there is a market for handmade pottery, and so on. Will there be a market for handmade software? For artisanal therapy, or financial advice?
But I must pump the brakes: something is still lost. Painting doesn’t have the popularity or status it once had: the market is proportionally smaller; a chunk of it went to photography and didn’t come back. And even if you’re great at your craft and you land the coveted artisan position, will it be the same as before? Part of what allows me to enjoy a flow state is knowing the work is necessary.
Imagine what it felt like to be an 18th Century portrait painter, doing what you love and knowing that this skillful movement of your hand is the only way to ever produce a visual representation of the subject. That’s a rush. I don’t think “I’m an artisan” can fully measure up to it. Alas, something was lost.
If you liked this post, consider subscribing to my personal blog at patrickdfarley.com.
I previously wrote about the present perfect tense and how it can make you waste time pursuing things you don’t really want—when you want to have done them instead of wanting to do them. Now I notice the continuous tense characterizes another pitfall, kind of the opposite: sometimes you want to be doing work more than you want to do it. And that difference is actually the difference between humans and gods.
Addiction to the continuous tense
Sometimes you want to be doing work more than you want to do it. Notice the difference. To do work makes the work done; it eliminates. To be doing work is continuous; it prolongs. What this looks like practically is getting lost in labor that doesn’t pay off.
I notice this in myself sometimes, and I notice it in others, especially some older people, who grew up with less automation technology in their daily lives. Sorry to stereotype, but I think Baby Boomers love “working” more than they love work. Look down a long list, check if it contains some item, and when you find it, do something with it, and repeat. All lookups done with eyes, all work done with typing fingers or a pen. This characterizes untold person-hours of labor that people happily spend.
Why do they do this? They get into a flow state with it, and I would too—the action is perfectly flow-state-compatible—except for a voice in my head that lovingly screams, “This is not worth your time!” But if searching down long lists was not already solved by computer technology, it would be worth my time, and I would enjoy it.
The joy of the continuous tense
But wait, many things still do require (really require) repetitive work! And I let myself enjoy them. When I run into a task that is 1) worth doing, but 2) best done manually, and 3) not very puzzling or complicated, I grab my headphones and put on music and get to work. I could do it nonstop for at least an hour straight and be perfectly content. Some examples:
Is this kind of work “fun?” I wouldn’t say that, but it reliably brings on a flow state, and there’s always a unique appeal to that experience. It seems silly, but under certain conditions people love labor.
I say this as a very task-driven/execution-driven person myself. Really I think a lot about the near future, about what work I would like done. But still, I get it. I may live in the future, but I can get lost in the present, in the mindless flow of necessary but non-challenging work.
Is this a problem? No: even from a productivity perspective, if there’s just no other way to clean those squids, then it’s great that there’s something appealing about the work. And then we can zoom out: productivity isn’t everything—if you’re enjoying the experience, then good. Maybe it’s worth doing some things less efficiently, if the efficient way deprives you of that flow state opportunity. But that brings us to—
The loss of the continuous tense
The set of tasks that are 1) worth doing, but 2) best done manually, and 3) not very puzzling or complicated, is shrinking fast! AI assistants are claiming competence in more and more domains by the day. A software developer used to get all their planning and architecting hammered out and then sit down, put the headphones on, and write code. No so anymore: take the headphones off, the code is already written, go immediately to the next step.
I’m not a full-time software engineer, but I know the joy of making an app or game, enjoying and soaking up that state of making. Most of the questions I’d face were small, incremental: “How do I store that array?” “How do I move this button over there?” Nowadays I find myself asking only the big questions: What do I want to bring into existence? What will it cost to run? I’m thrilled at how fast I can build out old projects that I never would’ve had time for, but still I know something was lost.
Professional engineers I talk to have the same feeling: they can do so much more now, but they don’t exactly enjoy the work anymore. All the non-decision-making parts of the job have been automated away, so there’s no room for a flow state.
That’s software engineering, but so many other fields are affected. I mentioned 3D modeling above, but AI can do that too, and soon it’ll do it better than I can. Manual labor activities are safe for now, but consumer robotic tech is coming, too.
Something was lost; I don’t think there’s any way around it. The pleasure of doing new things is not the same as the pleasure of doing necessary work in a flow state. Both are normal human pleasures, but the latter is going away.
Responses
The joy of the continuous tense is a natural human pleasure. Will you let it go and try to fully replace it with the joy of finished work? Or will you hang onto it, no matter how inconvenient, out of principle? I don’t see an easy answer, but let’s explore:
Let go and become gods
Did the God of Genesis enjoy the act of creation? We enjoy our own creative work, but it’s partly because we enjoy the process: it asks something of us, and we invest and get to see our labor pay off. But the God of Genesis just spoke. Are we ready for a future where we “creatives” just speak things into existence?
God doesn’t labor, and therefore doesn’t find pleasure or meaning in labor. The God of Genesis finds gratification when Adam and Eve enjoy what he made. Likewise, as a god-creator your gratification is when others (including your future self, perhaps) come in and say, “Ah this is great, this is exactly what I needed.” Is that enough? Can it be? Are you ready to play God?
This is a form of transhumanism. Before the brain-enhancing chips and cybernetic appendages and designer CRISPR babies, even now, AI technology offers us the option to transcend a little part of ourselves.
Be stubbornly human
Or should we resist automating away our own labor? Should we insist that it’s just as important to be creating X as it is to create X? Should we insist that any moment that feels purposeful is a “success,” even if it’s actually wasteful in economic terms?
There’s plenty of precedent for this. There are still photorealist painters, even after the invention of photography. There are still artisan potters, even though you can buy pottery from a factory in China. In fact, we humans have this quirk where the consumer resonates the meaning that the creator experiences: that’s our concept of artisanship. The handmade thing is just more special, so some people are willing to pay more for it. And thus it becomes economical again! There is a market for realist paintings today; there is a market for handmade pottery, and so on. Will there be a market for handmade software? For artisanal therapy, or financial advice?
But I must pump the brakes: something is still lost. Painting doesn’t have the popularity or status it once had: the market is proportionally smaller; a chunk of it went to photography and didn’t come back. And even if you’re great at your craft and you land the coveted artisan position, will it be the same as before? Part of what allows me to enjoy a flow state is knowing the work is necessary.
Imagine what it felt like to be an 18th Century portrait painter, doing what you love and knowing that this skillful movement of your hand is the only way to ever produce a visual representation of the subject. That’s a rush. I don’t think “I’m an artisan” can fully measure up to it. Alas, something was lost.
If you liked this post, consider subscribing to my personal blog at patrickdfarley.com.