Why should we be optimised?

I read an article some weeks ago about the prevailing age: we're driven to optimise and make everything more efficient. We apply this philosophy not only to our software and business, but also to ourselves: extend life, optimise exercise routines, make use of our time more efficient. But, why? We're not software, are we? Marketing, profit, and recognition, perhaps, motivate the thinking and behaviour. It's all about improving the self, just as we roll-out software updates. It's an age of hermetic purity and insular self-improvement rather than an age of messy hedonism and social exploration. In a world where we're sold health supplements and red light machines on the basis of extending our lives (fear of death and filling the pockets of salespeople - the same old story) and where we tend to view everything through the lens of software and hardware (our brain is data that can be uploaded, according to some people who are sure to gain something from this), it’s no shock that at the…