For the last few years, 90% of my reading list has been about work. Strategy, business, advertising, marketing, media, tech. Important stuff, but kind of a boring answer when others ask what you’re reading right now. And to the point of thinking for a living, probably too one-dimensional. Even if the books themselves are quite rich.
So this year I made myself a promise: I’d intertwine all the biz stuff with other things like politics, economics, culture, society, comic books and yes, philosophy. Just to make sure I wasn’t calcifying my own brain to think of everything through a marketing lens. And to embrace the notion that there are so many things that matter so much more than any clever creative briefs I’ll ever write.
One such book is Attack of the 50 Ft. Women, by Catherine Mayer, who among other things is the co-founder of the Women's Equality Party in the UK. Catherine talks a lot about gender equality and what stands in its way, but also covers broader things about the human condition. At one point, she mentions a strand of psychology that I think poses a deeply philosophical question:
“Terror Management Theory recognises much human activity as a mechanism to distract from fear of death.”
Why is this interesting? Because in more developed countries and big cities, we’re constantly primed to keep going. How are you doing? “Oof, busy”, they say with a mixed sense of proud despair. In London this is the bane of social existence. Everyone’s calendars are rammed (mine included). People are only available in three weeks’ time (myself included). Our lives are constantly on the move, so we’re literally occupying ourselves to death. But...
What happens when we stop?
This has been the fucking question in my brain recently. I’ve found out I am physically incapable of stopping, lest I get some weird palpitations and feel like I’m just being worthless. But deep down, I realise I’m probably just afraid of confronting the idea of my own transience and mortality. We don’t talk about this stuff as much as maybe we should. I feel it’s at the root of a lot of anxiety out there.
This also makes me wonder about men. We’re primed to be action-driven, loud, to get shit done, to crush it and hustle until things are over-crushed and over-hustled. But look beneath all that hustling and crushing and what do we see? Perhaps a fear of facing some pretty dark thoughts, or a lack of cultivated empathy towards others. Hustling is not the same as leading. [tweet this]
If the job of strategy is to establish narratives through which other people can interpret the creative and tactical stuff, the way we do that that tells a lot about who we are. Some are quite pragmatic in their approach, and know when to let the subconscious take over. Others are quite chaotic and antsy, known to email you overnight or obsessively type notes on their phone. I’ve always been the second one. I’m trying hard to be more of the first one. Call it experience, a desire for personal sanity or just renewed empathy towards others.
But the question keeps haunting me and I’d love to hear how you deal with this: if you love what you do, what happens (psychologically, emotionally, spiritually) when you stop?
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