4.10.2013

Woe to the Inefficient

I'm not a prejudiced man. I don't care who you fuck, pray to, or vote for. In a world where Fugazi put out six records and never charged more than $6 for a show, I find it hard to complain. We live in a world with 88 episodes of West Wing penned by Aaron Sorkin. Next month they are opening one of the largest pinball lounges in the country at the end of my block.

So it's tough to hate the world.

And while we live in an amazing time of LTE and new Arrested Development episodes, I write this open letter to inefficient people everywhere: Stop. I implore you. Please, be a part of this world with me so that we may exist in elegant harmony. You are part of a civilization and part of the admission price is basic awareness and responsible coexistence.

If you want to start your day by washing your body from the bottom up, fine. I don't have to see it.  If you like to start your coffee after you've finished your shower rather than having it automatically brew while you're blow drying your hair, I can't stop you. But if you don't know by now that you have to take your watch off when you go through the metal detector at the airport, you lose your civilization license.

Though it would be an overstatement to call it an obsession, I test the limits of good taste with my disposition toward efficiency. Maybe it's because I believe when you die, you fucking die. You don't get any more time. You don't get to reunite with your loved ones. You don't get to play with all the dogs you've ever had, which, if you think about it, would be amazing. Would your childhood dog like the one you got with your first girlfriend? Can you imagine rolling in the grass with every dog you ever had at the same time while your parents and friends watched and laughed beside you? No, you just die. Quietly and unceremoniously. Like the eons that came before you, the future will press on without your knowledge, input, or say. It will simply pass by like a train you were too slow to catch because some fuckface didn't spend the extra two seconds it takes to figure out the correct way to insert a CTA card into a turnstile before getting in line.

We only get so much time. We all walk into the middle of a game of bowling, never knowing when the pin setter will go dark, and we have to turn our shoes in to the woman with the tobacco stained teeth who calls everyone sweetheart. So I make a point to do things in an order that makes sense, in a way that maximizes future possibilities. And while I often go awry spending hours hacking my phone so I can launch an internet brower in two taps instead of four, my heart is pacified by the idea that I made something a little faster, a little more effecient, and I carved out a little more space for what's left of my tiny existence. Please, don't take it away. 

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