Optimization Is The Death Of Adventure

Summer's end's around the bend just flyin'

Last week we finished the first leg of our transcontinental road trip-slash-move, arriving in Ontario for a vacation with my family. It was the first time in five years that we’d all been able to get away like that together, and despite there being seven adults, two small children, and three dogs all sharing one lakehouse with toilets just this side of functional, there was still plenty of time for tranquility and relaxation.

The house came with a pair of kayaks and in the mornings I would slip out of the house and down to the water for a paddle before breakfast. On the first of these outings it occurred to me that if I took the kayak out a few times every day, by the end of the week I would be much faster and stronger. I should time myself, I thought. See how long it takes me to get to the far shore.

Almost immediately another voice in my head asked: Why the hell would you want to do that?

That second voice won out, and quickly. It didn’t take long to understand that timing my sessions out on the water would defeat the purpose of my being out on the water in the first place. The peace I was seeking would be sacrificed at the altar of speed, of metrics, of optimization, of all the stuff a vacation is supposed to take you away from.

To be honest it sort of surprises me that I even had the thought in the first place. I am not an Optimized individual by any stretch of the imagination. Really I am the exact opposite: scatterbrained, flighty, and unfocused to a degree that can frustrate other people. For example I think sometimes you really lose something by trying to pack as efficiently as possible. There’s real joy to be had in doing the physical labor of moving furniture or stuffing a car imperfectly, when you can slam around and swear like a sailor and just generally have a hell of a good time. For similar reasons I am a lousy salesman for my book and newsletter, despite the abundance of materials online that would purportedly make me bettter at it. Do I wish I had more readers? Sure. Am I willing to overhaul my mindset and practices to the degree required to make that happen? Absolutely not.

What I keep coming back to—although I still struggle to remember this sometimes—is that by and large the point of doing things¹ is doing them, not having done them. When things are hard, or boring, or tedious, like I find writing or running or even hiking to be, it is harder to keep this framework at the fore, but that makes it all the more important. It is not a novel idea but the practice of trying to stay present in whatever moment you’re in, instead of speeding through it or just enduring it or wishing it would hurry along, feels to me like some of the most important work you can do on yourself. I think that’s my only “hack” for not feeling like you’re wasting your life.

This is where optimization and I part ways. The logic of optimization is that the more efficiently and optimally you do things, the more things you can do. That’s never held much interest for me. Me, I’m good for like 1-2 things a day. If I have to go to work and pick up groceries, that might be a wrap for me for the whole day, mentally. I can certainly rise to the occasion when necessary, and most days I do end up doing more than I’d like to. But I am profoundly unambitious, and I currently find it more important to practice the act of savoring things than to practice doing things well.²

Damn, this is getting a little preachy. Better start wrapping up.

I’m writing this from Cape Cod, on vacation with my wife’s family. I have gotten around every day by biking, and in this same spirit of refusing to optimize I have only looked vaguely at maps and treated myself by trusting that I’ll get where I’m going eventually. This has paid dividends³: I have overheard other cyclists and pedestrians speaking in a delightful variety of accents and languages; I have been able to view in great detail the beachy stands of white oak and black locust and pokeberry and twisting abstract scrub pines that line the streets; I have gotten to feel like a kid again as I whiz along in the wind and sun on my bike, always going the right speed, which is any speed that makes me feel alive.

As I ride the air has the first hint of fall about it. Maybe it’s because I went straight from student to teacher, but to me August has always felt like the death of something: another summer’s long and lazy promise come and gone. But the sadness has always been tinged with excitement, too: new classmates, new students, new colleagues, new opportunities to learn things that might change the way I see the world (or just myself). These countervailing forces in the air set my nerves jangling for weeks each year until autumn has established itself completely; I’ve learned that I live for these transitory half-seasons more than the concrete seasons themselves.

A new school year and a new job for me, at a community college near Detroit, are almost here. But there is still plenty of time left for the serious business of goofing off and doing things at my own speed. I intend to make the most of it.

Thanks, as always, for reading. I’ll talk to you next week.

-Chuck

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1. And here I’m talking about things that are choices, like hobbies or working out or side projects or social time. Work is a whole other beast that cannot be defeated by acts of willfulness and mindfulness.

2. Earlier on this road trip, I met up with a friend in Missoula, a fellow PCT hiker and a freakishly strong, dedicated endurance athlete. She told me my way of doing things has made her want to learn how to slow down, relax, and forgive herself a little better. I’ve rarely felt so proud.

3. Even using this phrase makes me feel a little slimy. Like refusing to optimize is itself a way to reap greater profits somehow.