Beyond Efficiency
There is nothing more efficient than an airport. The currency is in seconds-saved. Security. Baggage. Boarding. Order food. Get a “customer #” and you will get your food. Find your loading zone. Then shuffle through your next highly efficient set of processes.
Security. Baggage. Boarding. It is a wonder of modern nature. (most times ;-)
The utility makes it painfully clear our global language is pragmatism. We don’t have time for things that clunk up the system. Pragmatism shapes us into perfect consumers, shuffled about from one uncritical preference to anothert, as quickly as possible.
It is no wonder our ability to receive Beauty has been compromised.
We have become mere users, and churned beauty through our pragmatic system. We turn things like beauty and art into a form of aggressive consumption. Is that even possible? We forget to enjoy. An alcoholic may love wine, but he loves it only in as much as it gives him the innebriation he desires.
He “uses” wine pragmatically.
But a true lover of wine drinks to taste, to explore the flavors, to experience the sensual results. He does not reduce wine to its alcoholic content, as mere means to “get drunk.” We too have lost the ability to enjoy. We have lost the art of enjoyment.
So how do we get it back?
How do re-introduce wonder into the mass commercial landscape of “we will make it as easy as possible for you”? How do we clog the pragmatic system? How do we disrupt our compulsion to reduce things to their bare consumable nature?
Perhaps we fight fire with fire. As ironic as it is, to be part of the system in order to clog the system may be our best option. Like magnificent architectural or beautiful art in an airport, it will be lost on most. But not all!
For those few who are willing to stop, to look up, to get lost in beauty, to be overcome by someone else’s grief, to be contigent, to listen, to make something else more important than one’s own schedule…for those, it will all be worth it.
There will always be those for whom the efficient system is not enough. They will see the fractured ends, the short-cut value, the meaninglessness. They take the time to look up, to look out, to seek not to use but to be used. They will not be reduced to algorithmic outputs.
This is nothing new. Beauty has always hovered quietly in the background. She has always kept her distance from the crowds. She has always been quiet. But give her the chance to do her thing, and she will completely blow you away. Stay tuned.
