On Productiveness
this article was written by a human
Productiveness of a human being always has been an interesting topic for me to think about.
I’ve been a doer not a preacher of productivity since a long time and I’ve never given a
second thought but it is obviously a common mistake, as doing anything without a prior
thought makes me a blind follower and not an independent-thinker[1].
So, now that I think of productiveness and its intrinsic measurement, it really
makes me question what I count as “productive” and what as mere “waste of my time”.
Really, for the past few years, I’ve been obsessively involving my life into programming and
I’d loved it, but it wasn’t the craft I had interest in but the result of it.
But now after much exploration, I think I might’ve struck some interesting boundaries.
I’m in need of “productivity”. Last few months I’d worked on almost everything I could imagine of.
But after a much long break , I can’t seem to get into it whatsoever.
Is it a loss of purpose? Not particularly.
It is more likely my obsession with working and their results, and since I’ve lost momentum
and am not able to produce as much result initially as I would if I had worked at the same pace.
This makes me a slave to my “productivity”. I am looking for the same flow of work that I always
insisted I had. But what even is that flow?
I am boldly measuring my life’s achievement through “flow”, which seems to be an arbitrary measure of my fulfillment with my day, and it changes from one day to another, which feels like a good recipe for disaster waiting to unravel itself.
Now that I have realized what has been making me hold back, what am I supposed to do?
I’m not sure, it is only an experiment on myself and I think me being open to anything is the wisest decision.
How about I try to detach myself from the measure of productivity, that is, not think of my intentions and
actions as something that provides “value”. But that creates a vacuum for my motivation, which I think
opens ways of thinking in terms of “discipline”. It seems to be a big idea in Hindu philosophy, as Krishna
says in the Mahabharata, to detach oneself from the results of one’s actions.
Although the above idea sounds very powerful, it is quite draining and not beneficial for somebody like me
who’s enrolled in a university with a different purpose than that of a detached practitioner. So, I think I should attach myself
not to productivity but to my own fulfillment, which is definitely controllable by myself, rather than productivity,
which is merely an idea fed into me. I will have to be accountable for my actions and think about why I am doing what I am doing.
I am not a puppet with his strings attached to his peers, but a puppet with his strings attached to his mind.
I feel like I am who I really am when there’s no power, when there’s only me and what I have in my mind, all alone
with my computer or when I am writing this. This makes me think about myself and analyze what I am and what I should be,
and steer me into who I am. Meanwhile, what I do when there’s no structure shows me who I’ve become till now.
I really have fun when I am able to create a way of self-sustenance, and the way it creates value for myself makes me
wonder if there was a way I could provide value to people similar to me, though I find that to be rare.