⛪️ Is it important to go to church?

The other day, I was listening to an episode of The Culture Study Podcast titled “Why Is Katy Perry So Embarrassing?” I love Culture Study because so often, an episode about why Katy Perry as a brand is embarrassing ends up diving into much deeper waters. This time, Anne and her guest discussed our obsession with optimized living and how it’s kind of killing our connection with each other.

“I’m seeing a rejection of optimization and an understanding that optimization makes you feel nothing. It’s like we’re seeking frictionless lives when really friction is the stuff of everyday life.” -

Anne Helen Petersen

In one way or another, this conversation keeps coming up for me, and its implications are across our modern lives. Regarding spirituality, technology, relationships, food, money— all of life, actually— we’ve attempted to maximize productivity at the cost of connectedness.

Take AI, for example. Artists, writers, creators: in general, we are not fans of AI, specifically when it steals from our already created content without our approval, or steals a job from us because it’s more efficient and (let’s be real) cheaper. But the prevailing sentiment from many artists I’ve encountered can best be summed up via tweet from fantasy author, Joanna Maciejewska:

And this sounds dreamy, right? What writer wants to be interrupted by something as tedious as mowing the lawn, or taking out the trash? I think I even reposted this tweet at some point, but the more I think about it, the less I agree now. Because I think I’m learning that inconvenience is where a lot of life happens.