In praise of inefficiency

Dr Levey with his Year 12 class

I like to walk most places. If I had time to walk all the way to work, I would. I’m not particularly passionate about fitness and nor do I walk because I’m any more environmentally conscious than the next person. If I’m honest, I walk because it’s inefficient, and we have so little time these days to do what the rest of life is pressuring us not to that it feels indulgent, a luxury. Sure, I could drive my car to school and save myself a few hours of walking and riding the trains, but I would miss out on a lot: the people-watching, the podcasts, the music, the chance to look cool while reading Shakespeare on public transport…

Another ‘inefficient’ thing I like to do is read poetry. No one needs to read poetry, no matter what English teachers like to tell you. Does the activity produce anything of value? No. Does it make the world a better place if you parse a few stanzas over breakfast? Nope. In fact, it probably makes the world a bit worse given that poetry is printed on the pulp of dead trees. Nevertheless, to me it’s one of the most valuable parts of life. There’s a particular poem I used to know off by heart. It’s called ‘The Snow Man’ and it’s written by an American poet named Wallace Stevens. I don’t know all of it anymore, but the opening stanza goes:

One must have a mind of winter

To regard the frost and the boughs

Of the pine-trees crusted with snow

I like the poem because it’s akin to a puzzle. How you interpret certain punctuation and phrasing later in the poem can alter its whole meaning. Arrange the emphasis differently in your mind and everything changes.

Even in this first stanza there are different arrangements possible. Is the poet arguing that a wintery mind will only find wintery things to dwell upon? Or is he offering, instead, a message about empathy? Does having a mind of winter, getting down on its level, allow you to empathise with the beauty of the cold things that others might not value? About what about that title, ‘The Snow Man’? This is not a snowman that Stevens wants us to think of, that heap of snow shaped to mimic a human form; it’s a man defined by the qualities of snow. A Snow Man. What might that mean?

… And here’s that inefficiency again. Wouldn’t I be better off setting my brain to work on something more useful than thinking about poetry? I could be marking essays, sending emails, reminding my students to write their speeches. There is plenty for me to be doing.

But my point is that not everything has to be done for a reason. Sometimes it’s just okay to do something because you enjoy it. This is not the same as procrastination: the world wants you to waste time scrolling on your phone and watching YouTube. Don’t do that. Do what’s difficult instead. Try to enjoy doing things that the world is pushing you not to. Walk to school. Concentrate. Memorise a poem. Get all your work done, of course, but enjoy the space in between.

Dr Nick Levey Head of English

This article was originally published in the student-led weekly newsletter ‘Roxeth’.