Unproductive

The term “unproductive” has garnered a significant negative connotation in recent history. It is often an ideological bludgeon used to denigrate and shame anyone who doesn’t feel obligated to become a cog in an industrial system, anyone who doesn’t wish to sacrifice their lives for a cause they don’t believe in, to deteriorate their mental or physical health in doing so, to waste away their one chance at life. 

In a capitalist society, we’ve been wired to believe that producing, that more is inherently good. More resources, more products, more productivity, more money, more opportunity. 

But at a certain point, we have to decide when something is enough. Nothing good in our lives keeps growing and growing. It is almost a universal rule that everything in our lives, whether a certain type of food, a certain type of work, a certain type of leisure activity, a certain type of relationship or friendship, requires balance. 

The greatest paradox of our first-world society is that the people in it simultaneously recognize that while humans operate better by enough, capitalism operates better by more.