In the old-school factory,the twin taskmasters are the manual and the assembly line.
The manual tells you what to do,and the assembly line keeps the work coming.Its not your job to decide.
When we move away from assembly and manual labor,it was easy to pretend that we were no longer working in a factory.It turns out that our work changed,but our psyches didn’t.
Now,we go looking for something to distract us.That is the culture of the internet,combined with the culture of the white-collar cubicle worker,combined with fear.
You don’t want to take initiative or responsibility,so you check your incoming mail,your twitter stream,your blog comments.Surely,there’s something to play off of,something to get angry about,some meeting to go to.I know for someone who goes to forty outside the country meetings and never seems to actually produce anything.And you can repeat this process forever.Forever.It never ends.
The alternative is to draw a map and lead.