Haha I have so much resistance in me to writing this

Not because of this topic in particular. Just my current state of mind thinks any kind of writing is going to be painful

I know that that means… fear

So what’s the fear here?

It’s fear of… not having anything good to write

Ha

That’s a silly fear

I’m just writing. There’s no need to judge it as good or bad

I know how to write, right?

Right

So

What I want to talk about is efficiency

In Barbados

Lived in Barbados for a year

Like many islands, efficiency isn’t what they value

Let’s backtrack

GAP BURGER

Burgers that taste amazing but only drunk at 2am

Big queue

They pretty much only sell burgers

First person in the line

What do you want?

A burger

Start grilling the burger

When it’s ready, they give that burger to that person. And then ask the second person in line what they want

Oh, also a burger?

NOW they start grilling the second burger

A lot of tourists are driven mad by this

Especially when it’s happening everywhere you go.

For a year

Especially Londoners and New Yorkers :)

So, what’s happening?

This system is incredibly inefficient

And if you believe that the things you value are the things everyone ought to value, you can see why this would become infuriating

They’re not being efficient! There’s a BETTER way!

But what do we mean by better?

That’s ‘better’ as in ‘closer to my own values, which include efficiency’

It’s not universal or objective.

In Barbados, they don’t value efficiency in the same way

They value acting at a leisurely pace

Having time to chat

Their way isn’t wrong. It’s just different

And the degree to which this is tolerable (joyous, even) is proportional to the degree to which you recognise and accept that your values are no better than someone else’s