You said the youtube comments were procrastination. We generally associate activities that aren't conventionally productive to the self or society as ones that are pointless - thus indulging in them is procrastination.
But that requires us to set about understanding why productivity is important. It's important, I suppose, because we are genetically built to propagate and ensure the continuation of our genetic coding. When we're productive, we make our species more resilient. But what of it? So we live longer as a species? Towards what end?
We will one day die. We know this in our lifetime. So we keep ourselves busy till we die, and when we do, we smile thinking of how much more resilient we made our species.
We live in a world of probabilities and I can safely assume that the probability of the extinction of our species (and life on earth) is non zero. Perhaps infinitesimally small, but non zero. Given we're this resilient, I can again safely assume that we're going to persevere until we can't. In theory, life will exist for an infinitely long time. In this infinitely long time span, the probability of an event with an infinitesimally small chance of occurring is a certainty. Eventually, it stops. It could be the sun burning out, a meteor or just stupidity. It doesn't matter.
So given that there is this end (for us and our species), what is it that we do but procrastinate?
It sounds morose. I don't mean it to. It's only morose if you think of death morosely. I don't. It's inevitable. It's like a roller coaster ride that ends. Just because it ends, doesn't mean the ride isn't epic
But that requires us to set about understanding why productivity is important. It's important, I suppose, because we are genetically built to propagate and ensure the continuation of our genetic coding. When we're productive, we make our species more resilient. But what of it? So we live longer as a species? Towards what end?
We will one day die. We know this in our lifetime. So we keep ourselves busy till we die, and when we do, we smile thinking of how much more resilient we made our species.
We live in a world of probabilities and I can safely assume that the probability of the extinction of our species (and life on earth) is non zero. Perhaps infinitesimally small, but non zero. Given we're this resilient, I can again safely assume that we're going to persevere until we can't. In theory, life will exist for an infinitely long time. In this infinitely long time span, the probability of an event with an infinitesimally small chance of occurring is a certainty. Eventually, it stops. It could be the sun burning out, a meteor or just stupidity. It doesn't matter.
So given that there is this end (for us and our species), what is it that we do but procrastinate?
It sounds morose. I don't mean it to. It's only morose if you think of death morosely. I don't. It's inevitable. It's like a roller coaster ride that ends. Just because it ends, doesn't mean the ride isn't epic
2 comments:
Hmmm, the linchpin of your argument seems to be that productivity is solely centred around ensuring that human beings hang around for as long as possible. Biologically, sure. That's why we do everything we do - eat, sleep, have sex (on a side note, does this also imply all of the above are pointless?)
But productivity can and does contribute to making the world a more awesome place to live in i.e. making the rollercoaster better and more fun, as opposed to just making it last longer.
Just as inevitability doesn't mean we shouldn't enjoy the ride, it also doesn't mean we shouldn't try and make the ride more enjoyable for ourselves and possibly for those who are still waiting in the line because fuck knows it's a long fucking line.
(Additionally, life is more lazy river and less rollercoaster unless you find something to apply yourself to, in most cases)
I agree. I don't say productivity is bad. This was my defence of procrastination, really.
Making the rollercoaster more fun is fine, as long as you don't stop having fun while making it.
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