262. What Are You Doing This For? Breaking Free From Joyless Urgency [encore]
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[00:00:05] Henry: Hello, I'm Henry Emmons and welcome back to Joy Lab.
[00:00:09] Aimee Prasek: And I am Aimee Prasek. we are talking about fun talking about our Element of fun.
I wanted to anchor our conversation today around a phrase that just completely caught my attention recently. It comes in this bit of writing from author Marilynne Robinson in her book of essays called The Givenness of Things. She writes, "The spirit of the times is one of joyless urgency. Preparing ourselves and our children to be means to
inscrutable inscrutable ends that are utterly not our own."
[00:00:50] Henry: Wow.
[00:00:51] Aimee Prasek: Oh, joyless urgency. That, that's the first phrase hits me. I think it just nails the energy I feel so much, with all this hustling we do kind of hustle culture and also her note that this joyless urgency feeds "inscrutable ends that are utterly not our own." So we move around doing and doing and doing and doing, trying to accomplish so much future goal of what? And so she's she's saying that we don't even know really, but guaranteed it's not for us. Maybe it's to make a quick buck for someone else. Or gain some sense of social power, so we urgently put on masks like we talked about during our Element of Curiosity. I'll link to that episode. So all this hustling and sometimes we take a breath and we think if we can pause for just a tiny bit of time, our wisdom rises up, and this question, "what am I doing this for? Is this worth it? Is all this stress worth it?" Who has had that rise up? I'm raising my hand. Yeah.
[00:02:11] Henry: Who hasn't?
[00:02:13] Aimee Prasek: Yeah. Better? Yeah. Who hasn't? Okay. Nobody has raised their hands. So... because, also, so that rises up, but usually this is my experience. Before I can answer that question, I urgently move to the next thing, which is very common. Sometimes that urgency is easier than the discomfort of realizing our efforts might be kind of meaningless at best.
[00:02:42] Henry: Yeah, don't wanna feel that.
[00:02:44] Aimee Prasek: No. Mm-hmm.
[00:02:46] Henry: Well, that really is an evocative term, isn't it? Joyless urgency. And uh, one of the things that jumped out at me in that quote was that she mentioned children, preparing our children. And you know, if the ends are inscrutable to the parents, how much harder would it be to understand for the child?
[00:03:07] Aimee Prasek: Great point.
[00:03:09] Henry: Yeah, so I'm gonna sound like an old person for a
minute
[00:03:13] Aimee Prasek: Like
[00:03:14] Henry: last
[00:03:14] Aimee Prasek: episode, we talked about our old wise rats, so
[00:03:17] Henry: There you go.
[00:03:19] Aimee Prasek: Give us your wisdom,
[00:03:20] Henry: Okay. So when I was a kid, I thought one of the worst possible things that could happen to me was to have nothing to do and to get bored.
[00:03:34] Aimee Prasek: Yeah.
[00:03:35] Henry: I might have liked having a little sense of urgency from at those times. But as I look back on it, boredom felt bad in contrast to all the fun that we had doing other things as a kid. 'Cause we were playing constantly. So if I wasn't playing, I was bored. And now I think that occasional boredom was necessary in order for the other times to be so much fun. It's kind of like, like the pause between the notes or the inactivity that made the activity possible.
[00:04:17] Aimee Prasek: Absolutely.
[00:04:19] Henry: So just last week I came across this article that said that kids are no longer engaging in this long lived childhood pastime of biking. And again, as a kid , biking was such a source of freedom, 'cause we could go from point A to point B all by ourselves, even as young kids. And it just opened up all kinds of other opportunities for play, 'cause you could go get together with some kids from a different part of town. So, I had not realized that apparently far fewer kids are biking these days, but it kind of makes sense when I think about it. I think the reasons they gave are much of what you'd expect. You know, infrastructure has changed, so a lot of people live in the suburbs and aren't super easy to get around.
There's a lot more time spent on screens. And then what you were referring to, Aimee, I think kids are overly structured with activities by parents who are grasping perhaps for some inscrutable ends through their own children.
[00:05:34] Aimee Prasek: Hmm, Hmm. Yeah, I'm just thinking about biking now.
[00:05:41] Henry: Isn't that weird? I think it's weird.
[00:05:44] Aimee Prasek: yeah, it, it's really, it makes a lot of sense I think about getting on my bike and how empowering that was. Like we would, we would bike to, there was a grocery store two and a half blocks away or so, and we'd get ice cream, dollar ice cream cones, and it was just amazing.
You know, we'd park our bikes and go in with our dollar and it just felt like I was, I was an adult, like I was a real big human.
[00:06:17] Henry: Geez, Aimee. I think we, our ice cream cones were only about a quarter when I was a kid.
[00:06:22] Aimee Prasek: God, now they're like $4. No like $8. Anyway. Yeah, there was something, and that's, that's kind of when we're talking about play, that's like the training ground too, right? Like I was playing adult, I was, I was riding my bike to the place, interacting with folks, giving a dollar, receiving my cone like it was...
[00:06:43] Henry: Yeah.
[00:06:44] Aimee Prasek: You know, those, it is kind of one of the other benefits of fun and play is there is a bit of practice in these social relationships, engagements, growing some confidence and exploring your environment, that openness, that approach behavior we sometimes talk about here.
Also you noted screen time as something that might, might be taking away from bike time and, and play. And I that's really important to hit on here with joyless urgency for kids and adults. So let's be clear, on most social media platforms, the goal is a constant state of joyless urgency. Truly. It's, it's, the point is to, activate and send a stimuli to keep us clicking and scrolling.
[00:07:38] Henry: Mm-hmm.
[00:07:38] Aimee Prasek: And what's interesting about that is that it is priming this kind of action taking, we talked about this with worry several episodes ago. I'll link to that episode. It gives us a false sense of productivity. I think it's the same thing. So we're searching, we're scrolling, we're finding something that meets our question, or interest, or uncertainty, or insecurity, or fear. We click. We get a, a quick answer, perhaps. All of that can feel successful. We can momentarily ease uncertainty or anxiety or confirm something we're fearful of or want a solution for. So we feel supported. We feel a sense of control, but so often it's not successful. There's a growing amount of research here on what essentially boils down to something called problematic engagement. Which is a synonym for joyless urgency. And this is used a lot in social media addiction and addiction in general, uh, gambling as well. It's where we engage and it might momentarily satisfy a feeling of anxiousness or dis-ease in us, but it's not helping us. That's this kind of problematic engagement or the hook of Problematic engagement, and researchers have found that social anxiety is often a driver here for problematic use of social media
And who doesn't have social anxiety. I mean, we all have it in a bit, in some context, and I don't think that's a bad thing as long as we can navigate it, but those algorithms are built That social anxiety as a driver. So they work, yeah, they work in a really sophisticated way actually, to identify that social anxiety, to amplify it and then to ease it for a moment, then amplify it, then ease it, then amplify it, then ease it.
[00:09:33] Henry: Hm.
[00:09:34] Aimee Prasek: You feeling the joyless urgency?
[00:09:36] Henry: You get the picture
[00:09:37] Aimee Prasek: And it creates that cycle that keeps us engaged with the content or the action taking, the scrolling, the clicking, the scrolling, the clicking, but disengaged from the real impact. The fact that it is not helping us, it is often harming us, when we're, you know, kind of going overboard with it. It's able to do that because we are distracted by the sense of momentary ease or resolution every now and again. And I think probably one of the most interesting findings from research around problematic engagement is that folks who believe they have complete control over their use and you know, who believe that they could stop at any time actually show the most signs of problematic engagement. So they're getting the brunt of the negative effects.
So you can see what kind of problems this creates. Dr. Samira Farivar, an author of a study I'll pop in the show notes, said that, "People who are getting constant excitement from social media tend to ignore the potential harm. Understanding this perception of threat is important. You can't action a problem you don't even know exists."
So that's what we're up against. We have these platforms that we're on for hours a day and that are taking us away from actual fun, oftentimes purposefully creating joyful urgency in us, and we don't even know it's happening. And that is a problem. I'm not saying that that's the case for everyone who's so, who uses social media or YouTube or whatever, but that's actually the business model.
It's the point. So we're not weak for falling into this. It is the strategy, it is the purpose of it.
[00:11:22] Henry: Wow. I love that phrase. You can't action a problem you don't even know exists. Hmm. It, it kind of reminds me of that earlier idea from, from the first quote you said, Aimee the about this being inscrutable. You just, you can't see it. It's kind of hidden. And if we don't see it, if we don't even know we're doing it, of course, how can we, how can we change? You know, kinda back to the relationship with fun, to me, it seems like adding more fun to our lives theoretically is really quite simple, because honestly, I think if we just create space for it, if we slow down just enough to let our awareness catch up to us, the chances are we're gonna fill that space with something we enjoy.
It's just second nature, and for kids especially, it's second nature. I think if you give kids some time without distractions, give them something to play with besides a screen and someone to play with. I mean, fun is just going to happen. There may be other things that happen too, but fun is gonna happen and almost no matter what.
[00:12:44] Aimee Prasek: Good trouble and fun exists together.
[00:12:48] Henry: For, for us adults it might take a little bit longer.
[00:12:51] Aimee Prasek: Yeah.
[00:12:52] Henry: You know, I think especially those of us who have maybe traveled quite a way down this road of joyless urgency. But you know, it might take some time to unwind. But once we do realize what we are doing and we stop with this urgent busyness, we can, we can free up that space. That's really just the point. We have to realize what we're doing. And it's like you said earlier, Aimee, if we pause for just a short time and ask ourselves, what am I doing? We can step out of it.
But we do have to wait long enough to get an answer to that question. What am I doing? Be still for a moment. Let an answer bubble up. The voice of our inner wisdom needs to be heard, and it does need to be heated. If we don't honor it, that voice will either go quiet or it'll get louder and louder, kind of hitting us over the head with something until we cannot help but hear it.
And, you know, we don't really want either of those things. So, I'm advocating that we pause, we let our inner wisdom and the inner child who wants to play have a little more input into how we live our lives.
[00:14:17] Aimee Prasek: That is such, I think, a perfect call to some of the episodes we did with our series and authenticity awe So I'll link to those episodes in the show notes. And those of you in the Program are like, "Hey, we do this. Everything that Henry was just saying above." Yes. particularly listening to that deep wisdom, we do that in the Joy Lab Program.
So that's like the step-by-step process as we continue to let that voice, rise up and listening to it. So join us in the Program if you haven't yet. It really brings what we talk about here into meaningful actions, not joyless urgency. And all of you in the Program, I just wanna say as well, you help keep this Podcast alive.
We are a nonprofit fueled by a community. All of you who want to tap into your joy and bring more joy into the daily workings of our world. And I think that's just the most powerful way forward. Play is an offensive strategy. Ooh, I'm bringing back more from from authenticity. It is way more effective than all the cynicism and fighting that I think is more ripe right now. So yeah, thank you to all of you in the Program. Join us there if you haven't already.
And to close our time today, I wanna end us with some more wisdom from Marilynne Robinson. Here it is, "Sometimes I have loved the peacefulness of an ordinary Sunday. It is like like standing in a newly planted garden after a warm rain. You can feel a silent and invisible life."
[00:16:06] Henry: Hmm.
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