I don't understand more
For a long time I’ve been baffled by the need some people, or some parts of society, have for more.
It’s not that I don’t understand if people want different things, or want what they have had again (eg, I went on a holiday last year, I’d like to go on a holiday again), but rather it seems some folks operate under the principle of not just wanting comparable experiences or things, but an ever increasing rate of acquisition, production, efficiency, growth. I know I’ll buy another pair of jeans again (duh) but I don’t really feel any need to increase the rate of jeans purchases. I know I’ll buy another book, but I don’t really want to ramp up how quickly or often I buy books, I’ll probably get better at some work tasks, but it’s not a priority to type faster, run faster, or speed up my InDesign workflow.
When I talk with friends about this, I think my bafflement surprises them: this is a very common attitude in our world. I don’t think many of my friends act in ways that are rampantly more more more but certainly I think they are trying to point out that maximalism is a far cry from a niche attitude.
But the thing is: common things can be confusing too. Just because something happens frequently doesn’t make it more understandable, to me at least. Lots of people think seasonal changes mean there’s no climate change, and that’s the stupidest thing I’ve heard of that I can recall right now.
To me, in my little head, I don’t really want more and in a lot of ways I want less. A smaller life - in many ways - just feels much calmer and more grounded. Working on interesting things, gradually pushing myself in small ways, stuff like that. Quiet ambition, not a loud and all consuming drive for more. The folks I see pushing themselves to own some mega expensive car, art work, holiday, home, etc don’t seem very calm to me - they seem grasping, aggressive and consumed. I don’t want to be grasping, aggressive or consumed - do you? Does anyone?
Outside of the stuff we buy or ways we spend our free time, I often am sort of exasperated by how work can often be a place where more is always better no matter what. In so many workplaces any metric used to evaluate the success would be pushed towards a near infinite place of growth. 90% satisfaction wasn’t good enough, 95% wasn’t good enough. I’d wonder ‘what is enough with these people?’. I’d often suggest we benchmark was ‘average’, ‘good’ and ‘great’ are and then use that as a measure of how well we did, rather than presuming each quarter or year there should be a linear increase in quality or quantity.
Anyone working in an office can guess how ineffective that suggestion was.
Truth be told I’m looking forward to not having a day job for a bit partially because I want to just excuse myself from the never-ending expectation that more is good, possible and a priority. It’s not, for me, I don’t think it’s good for us either.
More doesn’t seem to make people feel better, happier, more fulfilled, calmer, more grounded, prouder or more satisfied. More seems like a void that can’t be filled, a hungry ghost that’s never full, a mouth without a stomach. More drive stress, burn out, over-consumption, waste, listlessness and anxiety. More, to me, is cycle that can only grind you, me and us down.
Thinking less abstractly, even for most of the people I know, we’re in our mid 30s or late 30s and things are ok - pretty good for most of us - but my friends (and me too of course) often fall into this trap of looking for the next thing, the next project, the next purchase, etc. That voice that asks for more gets in the way of actually being pretty grateful that we’re in a peaceful place, living incredibly lavishly by any global or historical standard, and have enviable freedom. I don’t want to admonish anyone at all, but don’t you ever look around and think ‘man I have got it really good?’ - isn’t that enough? Sometimes it’s not, of course, but often it is, or could be.
The few times a year people ask me what I want Tall Poppy to do, as a business and I might say ‘I want it to generate enough sales to keep going’ - and that’s broadly the goal. Generate enough profit/sales to pay me enough to keep going. But that number isn’t that high and I definitely wouldn’t want more for the sake of more, for me a gaping maw of continuous acceleration is my idea of a deeply exhausting misery machine.
A little less can be quite freeing, I think.