Photo by Malcolm Lightbody on Unsplash

Our drive for speed and efficiency will end soon and humanity will expire. Only those outside the frenzy of modern work will remain.

Welcome to The Reflectionist, a daily dose of reflection on the nature of the self, personal reality, creativity, life and work, submitted to the public record for posterity. Read personal essays and articles on the psychology of creativity to help you nurture and broaden your creative prowess.

What’s common now in commercial affairs, in the business of business, is that most don’t care for quality. It has been a long time, perhaps one hundred and fifty years or more since the makers of things cared about making something people would love.

Today it’s all about volume.

More subscribers, more users, more margin, bigger roads, more speed and efficiency.

That’s not to say that nobody makes whatever it is they make without care and attention. Some do. But it does mean that the majority of things we consumers consume are made cheap and don’t last.

Paradoxically, most of the things contemporary culture consumes is worthless, yet it is in these industries that most people work.

Clothes don’t last, tools don’t last, cars and machines of all kinds don’t last. The only thing that lasts is food on the shelf, processed to the limits of its threshold of still being called food.

We live in a throwaway culture where time and efficiency is of the essence, and we afford little credit to the person who takes a slow and measured approach to their work.

How can you make a living doing that!

So whatever you do, you’d better make it fast and make it scaleable because anything else is not worthwhile.

Commercial viability depends on it.

It is a race to the bottom, and our humanity is the cost. However, in this dominant scenario, there is an opportunity.

People still love handmade things.

I watched an artist on Facebook last night, Helen Hancock glassworker, make beautiful things. She might never be a wealthy person from her work, maybe she will. The point is she’s making things people love. She’s making them with her hands and in that there is ultimate value.

There are thousands and thousands of artists and writers everywhere, and they fight the good fight, and that gives me heart. Because without these ordinary people making things for the love of it, humanity is doomed.

In fact, in a way, I hope this current version of humanity is disappeared from the planet soon, and only the artists remain. Then we can make a better place.

Too many of us have been fooled by TV programs and Instagram models playing a fools version of life.

We’ve been sucked in and sold.

I think a significant shift is imminent, and when it comes, I think the only ones who will be sparedvthe pain will be the ones who take their time.

Thanks for taking the time to read my stuff. Every morning you’ll find me sharing a new thought on life, art, work, creativity, the self and the nature of reality on The Reflectionist. I also write on The Creative Mind. If you like what I’m creating, join my email list to receive the weekly Sunday Letters

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