I was talking to my brother. I have a problem with immediate gratification. I want what I want and I want it now. Lots of us have this problem. It’s a society of bic razors, and quick and dirty solutions. Companies can’t invest for the long haul because investors are watching quarter to quarter. We buy fiberboard furniture from Ikea and we’re lucky if it lasts a couple of years. I change cars every couple of years. Everything is temporary, and I’m no better.
I heard about this group called The Long Now. www.longnow.org. Their goal is to change this, promote long term thinking and goals. Some very smart people belong. So, I joined. I signed up and two days later my very cool stainless steel membership card showed up in the mail.
“So you solved your problem with short-term thinking?” My brother asked.
“Yup,”
“Just like that?”
“Yup. What’s your point?”
“You’re not seeing the irony, are you?”
“Ummmm… Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you!”
Then it occured to me, my brother is really right, and perhaps it doesn’t just apply to me. Perhaps it applies to the whole concept. You can sign up for the Long Now society in two minutes, for eight bucks a month. Then you watch some lectures, get your membership card.
Is the irony only on me, or is the whole thing ironic?
Wouldn’t you have to speak to someone at their level in order to teach them something? Isn’t that why we don’t have college professors teaching Kindergarten the same way they would a graduate level physics program?
If you are going to teach long-term thinking to someone with a short attention span and a need for instant gratification wouldn’t you start where they are now?
Of course the whole program might be a total piece of crap. I don’t know.
It’s a quirky mix. The Rosetta Stone project inscribes the introduction to Genesis in umpteen languages on a single metal disc. Their website now has the largest collection of linguistic data on the Net.
The 10,000 year clock is designed to tick once per year. "The century hand advances once every one hundred years, and the cuckoo comes out on the millennium… When I tell my friends about the millennium clock, either they get it or they don’t. "
My personal favorite is at http://www.longbets.org/ . People make long-term wagers (minimum: 2 years, maximum: none) regarding matters of public interest. Those making predictions must give their real name and must say why they believe their POV to be correct. I see that Warren Buffet is in for $1,000,000. (Proceeds goes to charity.)
Basically, it’s a really cool and really eclectic art project. I’ve been a fan for a while.
I think you need to flesh out your “problem” more. Immediate gratification, per se, isn’t good or bad. What type of problems is it creating in your life that you want to solve? What’s missing that needs to be brought in?
Delaying gratification has always come pretty naturally to me. I think that, as a kid, I would have passed the marshmallow test. I’m happier the more future good things I have to look forward to (and the fewer future bad things I have to dread).
The lesson I’ve had to learn is to carpe the diem. The pleasure you’re deferring for later might not still be available when later comes. I learned this at Scout camp one summer when I bought a candy bar to have later, and the mice got it. And if you enjoy good things today, there will still be plenty more good things tomorrow. (Or as Jay Leno said in the Doritos commercials, “Crunch all you want—we’ll make more.”)