There’s something almost Calvinist about the way Silicon Valley talks about productivity.
Every repetitive task must disappear. It must be automated. As if repetition itself were a software bug waiting to be fixed.
In this tragicomic worldview, human beings are supposed to exist in a permanent state of peak creativity, as though the brain were designed to spend twelve hours a day in brainstorming mode.
I was discussing this with a friend recently, and his take reminded me of something we all understood perfectly well before LinkedIn turned every manager into a warrior monk of performance:
The human brain occasionally needs to be bored.
It needs cognitively “empty” moments. Spaces where it can reorganize itself without pressure.
In much the same way that Rundtgåing av den transcendentale egenhetens støtte by Burzum works through the obsessive repetition of the same musical pattern until it becomes hypnotic, we too need repetitive activities to decompress the biological operating system running inside our heads.
A task can be monotonous without being alienating.
There is a world of difference between filling out a spreadsheet while listening to music, cooking dinner, organizing files, building slides, entering data…
…and spending eight hours at a corporate retreat with people enthusiastically using words like “synergy,” “framework,” and “alignment.”
And this is where AI risks becoming yet another toxic religion of efficiency.
Because if we automate everything repetitive and boring, we may end up leaving humans with only the emotionally intensive work: decision-making, forced creativity, constant cognitive pressure.
In other words: Burnout as a Service.
Perhaps the goal shouldn’t be to eliminate repetitive tasks.
Perhaps it should be to eliminate the spiritually deadening ones. The tasks that drain you rather than sustain you.
Because the defining violence of our era isn’t disciplinary.
It’s performance-driven.
And honestly, if my choice is between filling out an Excel spreadsheet while listening to Descendents or attending yet another workshop about corporate purpose…
I’ll choose Excel every single time.
See you next week,
SIMONE PUORTO
