How to stay hopeful about the future? Keep dancing

Kurt Vonnegut has this little story that I return to often, about telling his wife he is going out to buy an envelope. “Well, you are not a poor man,” his wife observes. “Why don’t you just buy it online?” He pretends not to hear her and goes to buy the envelope and “have a hell of a good time” in the process. That hell of a good time is what we should all be looking forward to.
If you have ever even flipped through a self-help book, or engaged with therapy advice in any form, “live in the moment” and “enjoy the little things in life” probably are sentiments you have come across. Although it seems very obvious, it is not only about our mindsets. Currently, the world around us is structured in a way that disincentivizes us from having the hell of a good time, as Vonnegut talks about. 

He explains: “I meet a lot of people. And see some great looking babies. And a fire engine goes by. And I give them the thumbs up. And I’ll ask a woman what kind of dog that is. And, and I don’t know.”

One of my favorite things to do when I am back in Turkey is just to walk around and enter random stores. I have a second-hand book shop that I frequent, and every time I go in, the owner asks me how it is going–sometimes we discuss which book he recommends or what I read and enjoyed recently; sometimes we just chat about the weather. “You haven’t been here in some time,” he observes. Then, if the weather is nice, I go to the ice cream shop where they make it themselves. On the way, I see a fat pigeon, or a dog with fur whose colour creates a heart shape. Or, I meet a classmate from years ago, and we chat for a couple of minutes about how they’re doing before going our own way.

The owner at the shop smiles at me and I remark that my favourite ice cream flavour is out. It’s all good, I’ll get another one. He says something, we start chatting and he complains about politics or the state of the economy, or raves about how nice the weather is. 

But technology moves forward–and I am not only talking about AI. I am talking about online deliveries, self-checkouts, and automated chatbots; everything is designed to have as little human contact as possible. Beyond that, the ever-present advertisements, phone notifications and headphones provide a constant stream of stimuli that makes it almost impossible to be in the moment, not think about something else that is somewhere else.

This design seems inescapable, like it is simply the reality we live in, that we should accept and move on. However, it is in your control. More and more young people are choosing to go offline, or changing to old Nokias, making everything less smart, less online. 

If every time you open the news you feel depressed, maybe you should do something about it. Of course, you are not going to change geopolitics from your couch, but you can talk about your frustration with your friend and learn their opinions and feelings. You can read about the history of the issue, educate yourself, and learn what you think about it. Or, you can organise, go to protests, educate, fight. 

On Students' Viewpoint, UU students share their views with the rest of the university community. The UCU student Iren is one of the columnists invited for this space. You can also read the perspectives of staff members on Staff's Viewpoint and click here to check out the columns by students and staff in Dutch.