Shaking the optimization trap

My feeble attempts to live a saner life

A  book I started reading this week is Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino. I’ve read a number of her New Yorker articles, and I’ve been inspired to read more essays in general by Brian Dillon’s wonderful Essayism, so when I saw it on the to-be-shelved cart at the local library, I scooped it right up. (It helps that it has a fabulous cover design.) 

The book’s essays all circle the theme of self-delusion in the internet age, and I’ve really been appreciating Tolentino’s voice and insights - funny but rigorous, pulling back the layer after layer of social and economic dynamics that we so easily take for granted (by design, of course). It was published in 2019, but so far most of what she wrote has only been further heightened and expanded during the pandemic years. 

I was really struck by the book’s third essay, “Always Be Optimizing.”

It takes a feminist pickaxe to the slick facade of optimization culture - the capitalism-driven belief that we should always be working to be thinner, stronger, prettier, faster, better, more. She specifically discusses this in terms of how society makes fitness and beautification a prerequisite - and a consequence - of success of any sort for women, and every sentence made me sweat with queasy panic - this is the best we can do for half the population? (Before this I was not familiar with the cult of “barre,” and I can’t say learning more has improved my mood.) 

But beyond that, I feel very keenly what she has to say about the larger drive to optimize across society. Back before COVID - during the year or two before this book came out - I started to burn out. My life, my job, my creative pursuits - living a “successful” life felt like it was out of reach and receding fast. I felt trapped, and I started a slow spiral into anxiety.

I can’t say that the spiral has completely stopped, but I certainly slowed it down. And one of the major epiphanies that allowed me to do that was around this idea of optimization. I used to think that “self-improvement” (whatever that was) could only be a good thing - what could be wrong with being more fit, making more money, using our time more wisely? But as I was scrambling inside the hamster wheel, I found myself wondering who all this potential enhancement was benefiting. It didn’t seem to be me - the harder I worked, the more I saw that the reward was simply harder work. The shareholders of my parent company were the beneficiaries there. This also applied to the creative pursuits I supposedly had a “passion” for. In order to try and get any sort of attention for my work, I had to hit the social networks and play their algorithm games - once again, I was supporting a corporation, with meager returns for myself. And through it all, whenever I took time to rest or do something completely offline, I only felt guilty that I wasn’t producing something.

It’s not quite right to say I started to “let myself go.” I’m phobic about disappointing people, and besides which, I have a family to support and expensive rent to pay (thanks, Brooklyn!). But I found myself questioning certain choices. The only way to “make it” or “advance” was to spend more time grinding - but I wanted to grind less, not more. So maybe it was time to question what “making it” or “advancement” is all about. 

Since then, I’ve been incredibly fortunate to find a job at a company that isn’t about all that. I’m essentially a consultant, and I have a certain amount of control over the work I do and the time I put into it. Landing here wasn’t an accident - I patiently pursued this opportunity for over a year, holding out to make it work rather than jumping to something more lucrative that would burn me out faster. Two years in, the gambit is still paying off - I still work quite a bit, but I don’t feel the fatigue of straining toward a hazy, unrealized goal. I can shut down when I’m done, and focus on nonsense like this newsletter. 

I’ve even brought this mindset into my creative work. I work diligently on my projects, but I don’t force it, because I’ve learned that it’s not worth shit if I don’t enjoy the process. I’m not striving to write a bestseller or become the next Art Spiegelman. For the first time in maybe ever, I’m letting things happen in their own time, and not beating myself (or, well, beating myself up less) if that isn’t as fast as I’d like. 

The truth is, anything can happen. I could get sick tomorrow, NYC could get bombed, an even worse pandemic can have us all puking out our organs. Capitalism seduces us with the illusion that our lives can be disaster-proof if we just work hard and spend enough. I don’t buy it anymore. So I’m trying to let myself live the life that feels good, rather than the life that looks good within the context of the system.

But to go back to Tolentino, we’ll see where the rest of her book takes me. It’s about self-delusion after all. It’s not like there’s anything inherently virtuous about simply declining to internalize the system. The system is still dangerous to people and the planet. So maybe I’m just fooling myself more cleverly before. I’ll keep you posted on how all that goes. 

In addition to Trick Mirror, this week I also started two other books:

• The Summer Book, by one of my very favorite authors, Tove Jansson: She was a Finnish author best known for her children’s series about the Moomins, and this is the first piece of her adult fiction I’ve ever picked up. It’s really, really great - more on that coming soon. 

• Acting Class, by Nick Drnaso: I read the first two books by this very acclaimed graphic novelist, but I didn’t love them - I felt like they reveled in a kind of workaday pessimism that left me cold. This one feels a little different - weirder, more playful. Interested to see where it goes.

I also read or finished a few items this week: 

• To Your Scattered Bodies Go, by Philip Jose Farmer: This is an enjoyable piece of late-’60s sci-fi, the first volume in Farmer’s Riverworld series. The premise is that all of humanity has been resurrected, with all of their memories intact, on the banks of a nearly endless river on some remote planet where they have the opportunity to rebuild civilization from scratch. The protagonist is the 19th-century British explorer Sir Richard Francis Burton, who’s determined to get to the bottom of what’s happening. It’s very high-functioning nonsense, and, despite some of the usual datedness around gender and race, a very interesting read. Apparently the star of the second volume is Mark Twain. 

• Shuna’s Journey, by Hayao Miyazaki: Yes, THAT Miyazaki! This is a beautifully watercolored graphic novel from the early ‘80s, which has just been translated into English for the first time. Miyazaki created it during a lull right before his animation career kicked into high gear, and it’s everything that you’d expect, with images and ideas that echo through all of his other films. A very pleasant way to get lost for a couple of hours. 

• Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader? By Neil Gaiman and Andy Kubert: I’m still not sure what I think of Gaiman. Sometimes I find his work charming, and sometimes I feel like it’s schtick. This brief collection of Batman stories leans closer to schtick (though I did like the reprint of an older story he did about the Riddler, which gives that elusive character some freshly goofy charisma). 

Oh and we watched two VERY DIFFERENT movies this week: 

• Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar: Imagine if Pee Wee Herman was a pair of middle-aged suburban white women. Now put them on the periphery of a schlocky James Bond ripoff. Add a bottle of tequila and a jug of blue food coloring, dump in a few goldfish, shake, stir, and serve it with raunchy bachelorette-party crazy straws. Enjoy. 

• The Saragossa Manuscript: This is a three-hour 1960s Polish epic set in 18th-century Spain that continuously eats its own tail and then, like a risque stage magician, somehow emerges from its own rear end. It devolves into a story within a story within a story, where getting the point gradually ceases to be the point. It’s weirdly very funny. I actually read the book that this is based on (The Manuscript Found in Saragossa, by Polish proto-surrealist Jan Potocki), but that didn’t help me very much - and the film was all the better for it. 

In terms of stepping off the wheel, I’m taking today off to spend Hope’s birthday doing some fun city things with her - maybe it’ll give me something to write about next week. Have a great weekend!