It’s gotten to the point to where if I hear the word “optimization” I roll my eyes and slow run in the opposite direction. Yes, that is correct, I won’t even optimize my escape. Could I run a bit faster? Perhaps. I feel a lot of pressure that to do well in this life, the one that is now strongly directed by algorithms and data, I must be an optimizer. Better, faster, more focused, and equipped with a legion of hacks to improve my coffee, my diet, my writing, my reading, my parenting and marriage, my closet. If I don’t “hack” or “optimize” my life—what, or truthfully, who am I?
I’m becoming an anti-optimizer, a do nothing-er, and a maker. Ultimately, I’ve tried to resist the demands of an attention economy, largely molded by social media platforms, and spend more time in places where hobbies with my hands are given the space to develop. Unfortunately, as a journalist and writer, I do spend a lot of time online and while a lot of the virtual environment offers some good, there’s a lot of time where I feel unproductive and discouraged. Over the years I’ve shuttered most of my social media accounts, after noticing my discontent from mindless scrolling and landing upon the clear thought that I didn’t really have that much to say, save idle thoughts given unnecessary amplification. Who really needed to know what I ate for dinner or if I went for a hike with my kids? No one, truthfully.
I’ve taken heart from many others who’ve escape the insane demands of constant posting and tracking. I just want to take a bike ride without uploading my data or tracking my output. I’m not a machine. I’d like to remain that way. Jenny Odell’s 2019 book, “How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy” has helped clarify and expanded my perspectives on production and reconsider the forceful corporate push for hyper individualism and technological reliance. Odell smartly outlines why cults of optimization often makes us less productive and more disconnected. In the times when I can be offline, I’m testing out new hobbies that don’t require an internet connection. Thankfully, in the Flathead Valley there’s plenty of places to make stuff, with your hands, and—ideally—with others.
Last week, I broke glass. A lot of it. Under the tutelage of Morgan Ray, Flathead Valley Community College’s library director, I learned how to create stained glass. This summer FVCC is hosting a series of makerspace workshops, from stained glass to sewing, resin pouring, print making and more. Stained glass is a hobby of Ray’s, and the makerspace has kits that contain everything needed to take sheets of colored glass and transform them into art. Or, in my case, art-like. While I’m thrilled to have learned in the space of eight hours how to cut glass and solder, my end piece, a crescent mood, has a shape that takes a bit of interpretation. Nonetheless, for a first time attempt to learn a multi-step and focused hobby, I’m hoping to sign up for another class. Or try my hand at bookbinding and printmaking. Anything that taps into my creative side, introduces me into a new medium, and provides the opportunity to meet new people. I have a few hands-on hobbies that don’t entail flipping the pages of a book, and when I sit down to knit or embroider, I feel a sense of calm and focused attention that I crave. There’s a rise—and as I learned from my other stained-glass classmates, fueled by Instagram and YouTube—in these so-called “grandma hobbies” like knitting or sewing or stained glass. Of course, my mother, who also happens to be a grandmother, rolls her eyes because she’s been a quilter long before she had me and knows the benefits, delights, and joys of hands-on hobbies. Offline, these activities invite contemplation, concentration, and experimentation and while sometimes these are challenging and demanding the rewards go so much deeper. My moon hangs from my bedroom window, and I marvel at the five different shades of blue I cut, nowhere close to perfection, and my solder joints look okay thanks to Ray’s offer to help but at night, I look up and think: hey, I made something. Making stuff is good.