The Greatest Machine of Them All

Winter break is a time for rest. A time for relaxation, for fun, and to forget about all the stress and problems slapped in our faces by school. Well, until it's time to come back that is. January 5th, we all need to get our timecards handed back to us and punch in once more, facing the grueling grind until finals and then onwards. While a break might seem like a good thing at first, it does have the unfortunate effect of sorting our time into neat little boxes. Always obsessed with order, our society's gotta have carefully set times that it's okay to relax in. These are the hours you work, and these are the hours you play. After all, this is the only way to keep the cogs in the machine turning regularly.

Though this rigid structure might be helpful for keeping society at its maximum efficiency, there's still plenty of room to resent it. Namely on the grounds that efficiency isn't all that good. Stating that in today's world is seen as basically treason. The economic system is built on growth, and the only way to keep that growth at acceptably cancerous levels is by squeezing every drop of work out of our fingertips. Efficiency is the altar our society worships at, always with money on our minds. Well, what if we just all, y'know, chilled for a moment? Maybe even more than moment. Take a step back and re-evaluate our priorities. Why are we working this hard? Is it even for a cause we believe in, or is it for a nebulous promise of future enjoyment? A re-evaluation of the fundamentals of our system is long overdue, and asking these questions is the first step to that.