Chewing Gum
blogChewing gum is like modern culture: it quickly loses its flavour and makes the world a less beautiful place. Indeed, how anyone can look at Britain’s city centres and not call for an immediate ban bemuses me. Every pavement is pitted with its dirty white buboes, every station concourse is sticky with the stuff. Why do we allow it?
Apparently people use chewing gum to freshen breath, relieve boredom, and alleviate anxiety. None of these things need to satisfied with gum. You could eat mints, carry a yo-yo, and actually deal with your problems rather than attempt to masticate them into submission.
Despite much outcry in the West, Singapore banned chewing gum with no ill-effects. No black market was ever created as a result, despite the odd grumble. My big worry is that manufacturers will begin making caffeinated gum available to the public (it is already being used by the US army) — addictive gum would be even harder to eradicate than normal capitalist chewing gum.
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Talking of addictions, I have been doing an experiment banning myself from checking email more than once per day. Don’t get me wrong, I love email: it is quick, functional, free, accessible . . . but I seem to have a problem with it. I check it autonomically in the interstices of my existence — any gap, any pause to think, any slight annoyance is met with a quick check on my inbox. It’s not as if I ever get anything interesting, but every so often I do, which is what makes it as addictive as a slot machine. The checking doesn’t take very long at all, but what is really scary is that it apparently takes 64 seconds to recover your train of thought.
The key question now is: if I am only going to check my email once per day, what time should I check it?
Never in the morning, you’ll usually be disappointed and will be tempted to check later in the day. The evening might work, but you wouldn’t want it to impinge too much on your leisure. The afternoon is probably best, especially if you have to respond to people before the end of work. Say, 4pm?
Maybe I could do what Tim Ferriss does in the 4-Hour Work Week and pay someone else to deal with it. Hmmm.
Update: I tried checking at 4pm and realized that it doesn’t really work if you haven’t got time to actually process the emails. So I’m going for immediately after I arrive back at home (and have got into my dressing gown and slippers).