The performance of business is the dumbest Ponzi scheme of all time

How often do you answer “how are you?” with a sigh and a rundown of your packed schedule? We’ve built a society where exhaustion is a currency of social standing - where being busy signals importance, and having free time is treated with suspicion and pity. But what if most of our busyness is a performance? What if we’re all actors in a massive, coordinated play, too deep into the act to realize we’re acting?In this video, I explore the cultural, historical, and psychological roots of our obsession with busyness - from Veblen’s theory of conspicuous leisure to Seneca’s warnings about wasted time, from the Protestant work ethic to Parkinson’s Law. Along the way, I examine how we use email inboxes, overflowing calendars, and delayed replies as props in a theater of pseudo-productivity, and why we seem unable to stop.Topics Covered:The performance of busyness and why exhaustion has become a status symbolThorstein Veblen and the inversion of conspicuous leisureSeneca, On the Shortness of…