Rewarductivity

The opposite of salty is . . . potato. I know the opposite of salty is supposed to be sweet, but opposite is such a slippery idea. Potatoes are the anti-salt, you put a potato in your soup if it's too salty and it'll soak it up. Sweet is the opposing sensation to salty, and actually I really like things that are both salty and sweet, so I think their opposition is nicely complementary. Hm, just like salt complements potatoes.

Well whatever, that's going nowhere - anyway, the point here is about time-wasting. I don't like to feel like I'm wasting my time - I would like to do the opposite of waste my time - and the first term that comes to mind is to be productive. Productivity is the first opposite of time-wasting.

Feeling productive makes me feel happy. It makes me feel like I am using my time on the planet responsibly. Lots of people have lots of little auxiliary responsibilities that they can always be plugging away at, like the garden, or their house, or pets, or whatever. I think it's about having some kind of forum for directed effort in the down time so that the days don't go to waste. Lately I am enjoying practicing the guitar in my otherwise unoccupied time. My long term goal is to become Angus Young. This definitely makes me feel I am not wasting my life.

So what does productivity mean? When I think of something productive, I think of something with measurable gain attached to it. Like fewer weeds in the garden, a walked and fed pet, an at-last-finished kitchen sideboard. And on the other side would be things that are clearly not productive, like tv watching, pacing the house while avoiding doing the dishes, sitting in gridlock for two hours. Usually no measurable gain comes out of time spent this way.

But I can feel extremely productive without having anything to show for it, too, so I'm not sure measurable gain is what I mean by productivity. Yesterday I went for a big old hike up Ashokan High Point near Boiceville. The weather was great, and it was very pretty, and the views at the top of the hike were super duper. The hike was more than I bargained for physically, so at the top of the hike I rested in the sun, ate my snack, did my meditation for the day, and let my sweaty clothes dry out before heading back down the trail. Eventually a German tourist couple came along and we chit-chatted ("The area is very lonely with companies, yes? What is the economy here, where are you have a job? Do you use the Google for your travels?") and scouted out other views together, and it was all very nice. I have no feeling that this was wasted time, nor do I have anything really to show for it progress-wise (except maybe exerting myself helps get me into shape and is good for my health etc, oh, well maybe reaching the top of the hike could be the productivity, but whatever). So I think what I mean by "productive" is actually "rewarding," in that I want to spend my time doing things that are rewarding, and these things are inherently productive (ie the opposite of wasteful). It's just that what is usually rewarding to us is something with a measurable gain. But seeing the scenery was rewarding, and so was reaching the top of the hike, sitting in solitude in the sunshine, and meeting nice people.

I was thinking about this as I got back in the car and realized my hike had taken up over 7 and a half hours of the day. 50 minutes there, 50 minutes back, and I spent a total of 6 hours hiking and hanging out. I didn't even realize the time was gone by except that I was getting really hungry. And then I started to wonder if I would get enough "done" with the rest of the day and be sufficiently productive. The short answer is no, I didn't get what I usually consider to be "enough" done once I got back and had some dinner and assessed how tired I was. But I didn't feel terrible about losing or wasting time, or failing to make progress on other things. The day had been rewarding enough not to have to be productive in the usual sense.

Yes, rewarding is the new standard term for responsible time-spending, not productivity. Rewarding is the second, and I think better, opposite of wasteful.