“It has become difficult ever to say that someone or something is good enough. We are all supposed to be engaged in lifelong learning processes, i.e. processes with no end. They never stop.”
Perhaps I am getting crotchety in my old(er) age, bur there are some words that have been popularized over the last 10 years or so that I can’t stand and refuse to say. Among them: “Selfie”, “Influencer” (in the sense of prostituting yourself to advertisers in the hope they will give you free stuff and in return you promote their products on Youtube), “Woke” and “FOMO” or “The Fear of Missing Out”. In the case of the author Svend Brinkmann, it seems I have a kindred spirit.
Brinkmann finding the term FOMO troubling, if not an accurate depiction of modern society, has instead coined his own term, “JOMO” or the Joy of Missing Out, which coincidentally is the title of this book.
He argues that society is always moving on to the next big thing and lives in a kind of existential dread of being out of the loop. Therefore we discard perfectly useful cars, phones, televisions etc., in order to keep up with where society (advertisers) say we should be. We are promised happiness if we do so but as it turns out, few of us really are. Rather we are on an endless treadmill where real satisfaction and happiness is no closer than before we bought that new iphone (as an aside, my iPhone 5 broke last summer and I promptly replaced it with…another iPhone 5). Rather than opt in to this endless cycle of gratification followed by what he refers to as “aesthetic despair”. He argues that we should instead opt out, and live a life of moderation where we are satisfied with what we have. Doing so enables us to use the time we would otherwise use pursuing the buzz of obtaining more, to grow as human beings and better citizens.
Brinkmann however is not only critical of consumer culture but our willingness to discard long standing societal norms in the name of being the best self we can be. In particular, he spends a significant amount of time discussing ritual (marriage, funerals, moving into adulthood) that not only provide community but links to the past with those who practiced such rituals before us. That many are now choosing to do things according to their “brand” or “narrative” (two more words when used to describe human life that I abhor) rather than following traditions is in his opinion a contributing factor to unhappiness and an unease that is not always easy to pinpoint.
While I agreed with many of his points, some of his arguments lacked any observable data or examples.
One that stood out in particular was what was probably just a throw away sentence about education and reading:
“The point about books though is that it can be free to read them and a decent education is needed in order to appreciate them properly.”
Is that the point? Someone ask Abraham Lincoln who never had a “decent education” if he appreciated Shakespeare (he did). My high school resembled a war zone more than a series of classrooms but you can’t tell me I didn’t or couldn’t appreciate reading even back then. It’s ironic because Brinkmann spends a lot of time talking about how he doesn’t want to come off as elitist, especially in the context of telling people in the 3rd world that they should learn to make do with less.
My only other criticism would be that while Mr. Brinkmann’s book is heavily sourced and footnoted for such a slim volume, he spends a great deal of time quoting others rather than developing his own ideas. In addition, he is quite fond of referencing his own books. A lot. Even his footnotes contain citations linking back to critiques he wrote of the work he’s citing. Yikes. If you didn’t know Brinkmann’s previous work before picking up this volume, he ensures you will once you’re done.
While there is not a lot of new ground broken here (essentially we should all slow down, stop multi-tasking, and live less selfishly), this book is still a quick but interesting reminder to put away your phone every once in a while spend some time with other human beings.