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Goodpain Podcast Season 02 Episode 013: Sacred Inconvenience – A Reflection Under 20 Minutes
40 Plays25 days ago
This week we are taking a short break from our long form conversations to reflect on the idolatry of convenience.
Following a short introduction from Tyler, we share a 2004 address by author Kurt Vonnegut confronting the costs of convenience where he entreats us instead to "embrace the vitality of struggle."
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Good Pain' Podcast
00:00:01
Speaker
I'm Jeremy. And I'm Tyler. Welcome to Good Pain, where we talk about life's true intensities without pretending they're easy solve.
Finding Wisdom in Challenges
00:00:09
Speaker
What if the things we're told to fix, optimize, or get over are actually where the real wisdom lives?
00:00:14
Speaker
Each week we gather for the kind of honest conversations you desire to be a part of more often about the relentless demands, the unexpected grief, the quiet victories, and everything
Kurt Vonnegut on Modern Masculinity
00:00:24
Speaker
in between. Because maybe, just maybe, the answer isn't to eliminate the hard stuff, it's to find the good in it. Welcome to the conversation.
Impact of Convenience Culture
00:00:42
Speaker
We're going to take a short break from our longer form conversations this week, and our personal guide will be a short talk delivered by one of my favorite authors, Kurt Vonnegut.
00:00:52
Speaker
How does this fit into modern masculinity? Well, it gets at the idolatry of convenience that threatens to suffocate us. So much of the masculine efforts to dominate structure and order use convenience as its measure of success.
00:01:07
Speaker
That being said, all of this is important for all of us in this modern era. In our modern era, we have been sold a cultural narrative that equates human progress with the elimination of friction, of convenience.
Avoidance of Public Life and Its Consequences
00:01:23
Speaker
And we worship at that altar of efficiency, seeking to optimize every second of our existence through the convenience of digital screens that allow us to work, shop, and socialize without ever leaving our homes.
00:01:36
Speaker
Yet as we retreat into these virtual information cocoons, we are discovering a terrifying trade-off. Every time we choose convenience over human contact, our sense of being part of a living civic community is dulled. We are currently suffering from what might be called the privatization of life.
00:01:55
Speaker
By insulating ourselves behind glass and algorithms, we avoid the inconvenience of the stranger, the messy otherness of our neighbors. But the ancient root of the word private is privere, meaning deprived.
00:02:10
Speaker
To live a life of total convenience is to be deprived by the yeasty mix of public life, as Parker Palmer calls it. It's the primordial soup of disorder and diversity that makes us truly human and keeps our democracy from withering into an idiotic isolation.
Inconvenience as a Spiritual Necessity
00:02:29
Speaker
Inconvenience is not an obstacle to be overcome. It is a spiritual necessity. Like the old man in Calcutta who refused to use a pulley to draw water from a well because the focused, time-consuming act made the water taste better, we must recognize that intention and care are hidden in the effort itself.
00:02:50
Speaker
This is important and follows on from last week where Jeremy and I discussed the question of what does it mean to practice what it means to be human? In this conversation, we're talking about practicing inconvenience is itself a practice in remembering our humanity rather than constantly looking at others and ourselves as efficient projects.
Creativity vs. Efficiency in Technology
00:03:13
Speaker
When we fart around, to use Kurt Vonnegut's glorious phrasing, We are engaging in also what philosopher John Dewey called the pleasurable activity of the journey itself, refusing to be carried forward merely by the mechanical impulse of curiosity toward a final, efficient solution.
00:03:33
Speaker
A technology with a human face is one that does not make our hands and brains redundant, but rather integrates our creative spirit into the productive process. We need the inconvenience of the post office, the strange attractors of a neighborhood water stand, and the dance of public life on a crowded sidewalk to remind us that we're all in this together.
Embracing Life's Struggles
00:03:56
Speaker
These moments of friction, the near collisions with strangers and the farting around in three-dimensional space, these are the very things that rescue us from the deprivation of a strictly private, egocentric life.
00:04:12
Speaker
In the following speech delivered at West Case University in 2004, Kurt Vonnegut celebrates the beauty of the long way. He reminds us that we are not here to be media-engineered clones optimized for a post-apocalyptic dystopia of efficiency.
00:04:26
Speaker
We are here to be dancing animals who find the divine, surprise, awe, and wonder in the colorful drama of change and the joyful, inefficient, and utterly human act of just being present.
00:04:40
Speaker
So this is a little bit of a call for reflection, maybe one that says, let us reject the cold and ruthless empire of total convenience and embrace the vitality of the struggle.
Vonnegut's Human Connections
00:04:52
Speaker
As Vonnegut so wisely notes, there is no ordinary envelope. There's only the transformation of the mundane into the animal through the sacred act of simply taking our time.
00:05:03
Speaker
Back in the old days when there were still typewriters. And ah you could choose between either a typewriter or or a computer.
00:05:15
Speaker
i so of course, chose typewriter. And it was my violin. And there in New York, my wife and I work at home. We both have offices in our home. It's a four-story house.
00:05:28
Speaker
in New York. I work on the top floor, she works on the ground floor. She is the photojournalist Jill Kremens, who has published three books to every one of my one. One of was a very young dancer, for instance.
00:05:43
Speaker
Anyway, ah Back in the days when I still used a typewriter, I'd be up on the top floor. And, you know, and I'd be typing away, and and the pages would, you know, be quite messy, and I'd mark them up with a pen and pencil and make corrections and everything.
00:06:03
Speaker
And then I'd pick up the telephone and call up my typist. Can you imagine there used to be such a trade as typist? And all over this country, it was mostly women who made substantial contributions to their family incomes because they could type without making a mistake. They should have been concert pianists. They were so deft.
00:06:25
Speaker
I hope they haven't all turned to crime now.
The Joy of Simple Tasks
00:06:30
Speaker
Anyway, in the good old days, I'd have a bunch of pages finally, but really messy, but responsibly edited. I pick up the phone instead. call up my typist, Carol.
00:06:44
Speaker
I'd say, hi Carol. How are you, honey? And she'd say, hi Kurt. What's up? Wasn't that nice? And talk about safe sex.
00:06:57
Speaker
Anyway, I'd say, ah i got some more pages. She said, okay, good, hooray. Send them over. And ah so I'd ask her, you know, about I know she had back trouble for a while, and she's got a husband who, ah well, never mind what her problem is with him. ah Anyway, I tell her, all right, I'm going to mail you many of these pages. And she said, okay, look forward to seeing them.
00:07:26
Speaker
And so I'm taking these pages, and I've put them together with a paper clip. And so I take these messy pages down two flights of stairs to the ground floor where where my wife works.
00:07:39
Speaker
And I dance on the way down. This is very good exercise. And... ah You know, what what Microsoft, what's the name of the guy who runs it, the richest man in the world? ah Anyway, he doesn't seem to realize we're dancing animals.
00:07:57
Speaker
Anyway, I danced down the front steps and doing some pretty good stuff, may I say. And my my wife hears me going past her workstation there and she says, where are you going?
00:08:11
Speaker
And her favorite reading when she was a ah child was Nancy Drew, girl detective. And so I say, I'm going to buy an envelope.
00:08:23
Speaker
And she say, one envelope? Why don't you buy 100 envelopes and put them in a closet up where you work?
00:08:33
Speaker
And I pretend I haven't heard her. And I,
00:08:39
Speaker
and i out into the world I go with my pages. And what a figure I am. I am a man with a mission. And I go dancing down our front steps and out on the sidewalk, sort of a ah ah an understated buck and wing, I would say. And, ah you know, if his people are so cheered up and excited to see a man so full of purpose, what can those papers be? They must be terribly important. And he must be terribly important.
Cultural Diversity & Everyday Interactions
00:09:12
Speaker
And may I say, I think I look quite sexy.
00:09:16
Speaker
Anyway, I go down the sidewalk and I'm headed for a news store where they sell not only magazines and newspapers, but lottery tickets and stationery and so on.
00:09:30
Speaker
And, you know, on the way. You know, I may stop a woman and ask her what kind of crazy dog that is she's walking. you know, it looks like a half Labrador and half Chihuahua. and Or if a fire engine is going by, i might give them thumbs up because I'm all for firemen.
00:09:48
Speaker
Anyway. Off I go, a man with a purpose. And I go into the news store there. And ah there's a long line, mostly for lottery tickets. But I know their stock.
00:10:03
Speaker
And so I go back and I get an 8 1⁄2 by 11 envelope, Manila envelope. And people are very... I'm a celebrity, but everybody is very polite and pretends they don't know who I am.
00:10:19
Speaker
And...
00:10:24
Speaker
And so, just like another Joe, I take my place at the end of the line ah with my envelope. And, ah you know, I like to talk to people.
00:10:38
Speaker
And also, i like to look at all the boobs on the cover of the magazines. Anyway, you know, do you know anybody who ever won a lottery or won any...
00:10:51
Speaker
money in a lottery or, you know, what happened to your foot and that sort of thing. And we'd chat and everything. And the time goes by.
00:11:00
Speaker
And finally, now look, this store was then, no longer, but was then owned by Hindus. A woman behind the cash register, the wife, had a jewel in her forehead.
00:11:17
Speaker
Now that's a worth a trip right there. Anyway, i finally reach the head of the line, acting like just anybody else, and ah pay for the envelope, which is now mine.
00:11:32
Speaker
And i take my pages, and I put them in there, and they're inside there. And the flap on the envelope, it's very cunningly designed, has both mucilage,
00:11:48
Speaker
It has a hole in it too so that a easily bendable metal prong can be spread out to seal it twice. Well, all right, so there in the store sill I licked the underside of the envelope, which is pretty sexy.
00:12:07
Speaker
And anyway, I seal the envelope and the little fin diddly, the metal fin diddly, I don't know what it's called. It comes up through the hole and I spread that out.
00:12:19
Speaker
Now look at this.
00:12:22
Speaker
Two of the largest parts of our brain are devoted to the most sensitive parts of our body, our fingertips and the tongue. And I have exercised both of those.
00:12:37
Speaker
totally involved them in this process of simply sealing the envelope. So I put Carol's envelope and an address on the envelope and I head two blocks south to a postal convenience center.
00:12:52
Speaker
Now
00:12:56
Speaker
my heart was beating hard when I first talked to Carol on the telephone because that's you know erotic. Uh But it's really pounding as I approach a postal convenience center because i back then ah was secretly in love with a woman behind the counter there.
00:13:16
Speaker
She has disappeared. I don't know what the hell happened to her. I don't know what the hell happened to Carol.
Transforming Mundanity into Meaning
00:13:21
Speaker
a
00:13:24
Speaker
Anyway, this is very, very near the United Nations. And ah So what what's it like? You know, every every imaginable race is represented. And what it's what it's like to live as close to the UN as I do,
00:13:41
Speaker
It was like being at a dog show. a All these different breeds, you know, they're interesting. Anyway, I go into the postal convenience center there and there are all these foreigners in there. And ah the woman I love, is again there's a long line, is behind the counter. I've never seen her ah from the armpits up.
00:14:06
Speaker
because she's always behind the counter and she's also sheathed in the blue smock, the official blue smock of the post office department with the eagle on the bosom.
00:14:19
Speaker
But what she does with her neck and head to cheer us up every day, it's so generous. It's never the same thing.
00:14:32
Speaker
And she knows she's doing this. She's making us happy. And it's so generous of her because it must be a lot of work. is you know Sometimes her hair will be all frizzy, and that's kind of funny. And the next time it'll be really straight. you know Sometimes it'll be in braid. Now this is to entertain us because she knows how drab our lives are. And I don't know if she was born without eyebrows or whether she plucked them out.
00:15:02
Speaker
In any case, every day she looks different because she can paint on a different set of eyebrows. One day she'll look like Betty Boop and the next day she'll look like the the sister of Count Dracula. and I missed this, but I heard that one day she actually painted on a Hitler mustache and I wish I had done that, but she was doing that sort of thing to cheer us up.
00:15:30
Speaker
And so, all right, I talked to foreigners there in the line ahead of me and ah not giving a sign of how much I love this generous woman.
00:15:42
Speaker
And, ah you know, is ah if it's if it's a Chinese ah I might say to him, as you know, as how how grateful ah Americans are to the Chinese for movable type and pasta and gunpowder.
00:16:01
Speaker
ah If it it was an Arab, obviously an Arab, as I might thank him, I'd say, you know, for the the Arabs, for the numbers we use and for algebra.
00:16:15
Speaker
And, you know, that's why George Bush hates the Arabs, is they invented algebra.
00:16:27
Speaker
But anyway, ah and finally, I get to the head of the line, and here I am face to face with her. Oh, God, she looks wonderful. I think it was black lipstick that day. And I'm not kidding you. i Talk about lipstick. could be yeah It could be ax murder red. It could be any color. And it's all so exciting. And it all cheers us up. And there's all kinds of stuff hanging from her ears and around her neck all the time. One time, she actually hung fresh radishes around her neck to cheer us up.
00:17:01
Speaker
Anyway, I keep a perfectly straight face. And I think so does she. And I just simply hand her the envelope and asking her to weigh it and tell me how, sell me the proper number of stamps to send it on its way.
00:17:18
Speaker
And I think, I think if I had broken the spell, if I had suddenly blurted out, I love you.
00:17:30
Speaker
we both would have fallen to pieces as though made of glass and just been shattered because I would have broken something very magical. And so all I so said, you know, is how much? as
00:17:49
Speaker
And so she tells me how much and and I pay her and out I go. And here I've got this, what it was once a blank envelope, empty envelope.
00:18:02
Speaker
Full of pages. And
00:18:09
Speaker
it's addressed. It has become an animal raring to go. It's got a stamp on it. It's got stamps on it. What a transformation. This is no ordinary envelope anymore.
00:18:23
Speaker
i go to the mailbox. My friend on the corner. of The big bullfrog. And I feed it the envelope. And it says ribbit. that it swallows it. And I go home, and I have had one hell of a good time.
00:18:41
Speaker
And
Conclusion and Audience Connection
00:18:42
Speaker
let me tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody ever tell you any different.
00:18:58
Speaker
Thank you for sitting with us in this conversation, for bringing your own story, your own questions, and your own hard-won wisdom to what we're building together. If you want to keep this going, subscribe to Good Pain on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, where you can also leave us a review that helps others find their way to these conversations.
00:19:17
Speaker
And for weekly doses of conversations that go beyond quick fixes or surface-level advice, subscribe to our kindling newsletter at goodpainco.com. Good Bain is recorded in Colorado on Arapaho, Ute, and Cheyenne ancestral lands.
00:19:33
Speaker
And let's remember, we are not alone in this. Our struggle is not our shame. Whatever we are carrying today, we don't have to carry it alone. We will see you next time.