This is a guest post by Jesse Homan, a Dialectical Behavior Therapy therapist and trainer. He is passionate about humans and how we all connect with each other, our communities, and the planet.
A few months ago, I hosted (and participated in) an immersive weekend retreat in rural Washington with other therapists. As a way of nurturing ourselves, we cooked meals together, created eco-art, sang, played games, and participated in a guided forest bathing session.
The retreat was co-created by participants, each of us sharing an activity with the group. For my part, I handed out Holga 120mm cameras so that everyone could shoot film for the weekend. (For those unfamiliar with Holgas, they are extremely basic cameras – with a plastic body and lens, two “f-stops,” and one one shutter speed).
In gifting these cameras to everyone, I had one goal in mind – and it certainly was not to take brilliant photos. It was to struggle with learning to use these cameras. Why would I intentionally suggest a project deliberately based on inevitable frustration and disappointment?
Well, my gift was meant to be a meaningful reminder: that just playing around and having fun, even amidst frustration and disappointment, can be a worthwhile journey in and of itself. With commitment and sustained effort, I speculated, they could certainly learn how to use these cameras and build mastery.
In the midst of rapid technological spread and the rise of AI this question seems to be taking on a new importance: As humans, how can we create meaning, feel a deep sense of accomplishment, and tap into the simplicity of joy in this complicated modern era?
Although this is a fraught and frequently discussed topic, Sebastion Junger’s Tribe offers a clear response to this question: too much comfort is the enemy of life, meaning, and vitality. When I think of all of the modern conveniences with which many of us live with nowadays – on-demand streaming, GPS navigation, Smart Phones – I can see the downsides. As convenient as these devices are, they might actually be undermining our ability to grow, and enjoy life. Ironically, these modern technologies might actually make us less intelligent, less competent, less confident and increase our fragility.
Remember, for example, the days of DVD movie rentals at a video store like Blockbuster? If you wanted to watch a movie at your home, you would have to go to a rental store and rent one. This action potentially brought with it a flurry of minor frustrations and inconveniences: leaving the house, navigating traffic, interacting with people in the store, waiting in a checkout line, and sometimes adapting plans if all copies of the movie you wanted were out.
Guess what? Frustration and disappointment were part of the movie rental experience.
Of course, there are countless other examples as well, such as getting lost on the way to a new restaurant or meeting spot, waiting for a friend to get off work to return your call, trying to figure out how to repair something broken in your house without an AI-fix, etc. As strange as it may sound, I find myself now pining for those experiences. As a therapist, I believe that these types of minor frustrations built grit and resilience – and even a certain type of satisfaction – into the backbone of American culture.
To go further with this idea, recovering from disappointment is an important rite of passage that helps children prepare for future disappointments, and it teaches them how to navigate less pleasant emotions. Back then, if a child’s first pick movie wasn’t available, then they would have to pick something else. If their parents wanted to order in, then their choices were few: mainly pizza or Chinese food.
Nowadays, it goes without saying that if you want to watch a movie at home, it can usually be delivered instantly across many platforms. If you want to order in food, your choice is nearly every restaurant in existence. The gig economy means any number of businesses will bring what you desire to your doorstep. No patience is required, and you can do it all with limited human interaction.
Yet, for all of its comforts and conveniences, technology has failed us on a very basic human level. While you might get “x” sooner, that creates expectations and speeds up life to the point that you actually might feel more stressed and less happy.
Indeed, according to a Stress in America poll, over 50% of US adults now report signs of loneliness. As Dr. Anna Lembke puts it in this NY Times interview, “What we’re doing is spending a whole lot of time masturbating, shopping and watching other people do things online.” Is this really how we want to spend our lives?
As a specialist in Dialectical Behavior Therapy, I understand that building mastery is a way in which we can decrease our vulnerability to negative emotions. Building mastery involves engaging in behaviors and actions over a period of time that can eventually make us feel competent, confident, and effective. And that includes encountering barriers, hiccups, and struggles along the way. What I encourage my clients to do at first is to try something difficult, yet doable – and then work at strengthening this over time. For example: try learning a language, or tackling a DIY home project, or practicing an instrument, or planting a garden for the first time, or darning a sock.
As far as the Holga camera goes, its imperfection and clunkiness is a life lesson in patience, practice, and – perhaps, one day – mastery.
Sure, at our retreat, we might have short-circuited all of this and gotten our photos faster. We might have used auto editing features or filters to get an instant and amazing end result. But then again, what would we have learned, really?
As you navigate living in a post-AI world, you can choose to relinquish your skills, and trade them in for a device that has them program-ready. Yet in doing so, you move from manual skills to passive receptivity. And there is a deep loss in that — a loss of knowledge, creativity, growth, and resilience. We can’t possibly fathom how much we will lose until it’s too late.
