Deoptimisation, defined

Honestly, it’s no surprise that people are struggling to relax. Rather, we appear to be in an era of endless optimisation.

Women have apparently started training for pregnancy “like it’s a marathon”, doing everything from unplugging the WiFi at night to undertaking cellular healing diets. Much of this is driven by ‘fertility anxiety’, of which three-quarters of Gen Z report having. 

Zoomer anxiety doesn’t stop there. A recent article outlined how the generation is ‘starved for sex, food, and the messiness of life’, with a relentless exposure to all the information, all the time driving them to retreat inwards. 

It’s easy to judge these anxious tendencies harshly. Until, that is, you casually check the news, see a headline that reads “A hellish hothouse Earth getting closer, scientists say” and leap eagerly into the same mental bunker.

Perhaps we all need to learn to de-optimise. Many are (not) trying. 

The latest parenting tip (after all that marathon training to get there, of course) is to let kids fail. Apparently, early exposure to setbacks can help deal with disappointments later in life. Given the aforementioned starvation, the more exposure the better.

Some people are refusing to Google answers to very simple questions, preferring to endlessly bug their friends for the information instead. Because they will never lift a finger, these annoying acquaintances are known as ‘finger princesses’, a term that could probably do with a touch of optimisation.

And in arguably the least optimised decision of all time, a 24 year old man in the French city of Toulouse turned up to hospital having, well, let’s just say this Zoomer very much embraced the messiness of life, eight-inch-long WWI artillery shell and all.

In a culture that ceaselessly encourages the optimisation of everything, perhaps doing a little less really is more. Although as ol’ Pierre has shown, balance is probably best.