Efficient

There is a word I despise and it's getting thrown around quite a bit in our current election year fiesta.

Efficiencies. 

It's the magic word to balance our budget.

It freaks me out almost as much as boring.

I've watched too many Marvel movies and visited too many communist countries to not cringe when I hear it. 

I'm not a Marvel expert, but it seems to me that most of the stories have a "bad guy" who is actually somewhat altruistic and looking for the most efficient path to peace. It soon becomes clear that the most efficient path to peace is to get rid of people. 

Same with Communism. It looks awesome on paper. It's an incredibly efficient way of managing people and resources until you actually have to deal with people. 

Efficiency dehumanizes. 

It turns people into machines whose purpose is to accomplish a set task. It creates distrust and anxiety in communities as people strive against one another to not get "cut". 

I have to agree with Bill Watterson, mainly because I love him for bringing us Calvin and Hobbes, but also because I think he's right when he says, 

We don't value craftsmanship anymore! All we value is ruthless efficiency, and I say we deny our own humanity that way! Without appreciation for grace and beauty, there's no pleasure in creating things and no pleasure in having them! Our lives are made drearier, rather than richer! How can a person take pride in his work when skill and care are considered luxuries! We're not machines! We have a human need for craftsmanship! 

We have a human need for grace and beauty, and we find that grace and beauty in our relationships.  We need relationships with the work we're doing, nature, people, our selves, and God. It's these relationships that make us more creative and engaged workers as well as people who have boundaries with our work. 

But, relationships take time. We need to just be present with one another, nature, our selves, and God. Taking breaks and wasting time  is not efficient, but it is what gives us the space and energy to dream, to be creative, and to be human.