Sílvio Meireles Notes I like productivity.
I like organizing things, measuring progress, tracking metrics, creating systems, optimizing processes, and trying to do better tomorrow than I did today.
Maybe even too much.
There’s something almost comforting about turning life into a system that can be observed and improved.
How many books have I read? How many workouts did I do? How much did I produce? How much did I invest? How much did I learn? How far did I get?
The problem isn’t necessarily in those questions.
The problem starts when they become the only questions we ask.
Lately, I’ve been thinking about this a lot. About cozy games. About activities we do simply because they’re pleasant. About the Japanese concept of Ma. And, more recently, about a line from Luiz Antônio Simas:
“The opposite of life is not death. The opposite of life is disenchantment.”
These ideas seem to be about different things.
Actually, I think they’re talking about exactly the same thing.
They’re talking about the spaces in life that don’t need to produce anything.
#When even resting has to be productive
There’s something curious about our current relationship with productivity.
We don’t just want to work well. We also want to rest well.
Sleep better. Read better. Train better. Meditate better. Have better hobbies.
Even recovery got its own metrics.
Today we can wake up and find out, before we’ve even figured out how we’re feeling, whether the watch thinks we slept well. We can measure heart rate, stress, VO₂ Max, steps, calories, recovery, productivity, screen time, and dozens of other things.
I like these metrics.
They’re not the problem.
The problem shows up when we start believing that whatever can’t be measured might not have any value.
So even leisure has to justify its existence.
If I’m playing a video game, the game has to teach me something. If I’m reading, it should be a book that adds knowledge. If I’m watching something, maybe I could be watching a documentary instead. If I’m walking, I could take the chance to listen to a podcast.
If I’m sitting there doing nothing, it immediately feels like something is wrong.
There could always be some kind of optimization.
And so we manage to pull off a small feat:
we’ve turned even rest into work.
#Cozy Things
That’s when I started getting more and more interested in the concept of cozy.
Cozy games are probably the clearest example.
Stardew Valley, Animal Crossing, games about exploring, building, farming, fishing, organizing, and simple stories.
There usually isn’t enormous pressure to win.
You don’t have to prove anything to anyone. You don’t have to be at the top of a leaderboard. You don’t have to turn that skill into a profession.
You just play.
At your own pace.
There’s progress, but there’s almost never urgency.
And I think that explains much of the comfort in these games.
They offer something that’s becoming increasingly rare:
progress without pressure.
Maybe that’s exactly why they make so much sense in adult life.
When we spend a good part of the day solving problems, making decisions, and trying to reach some goal, it’s comforting to step into an environment where planting a few seeds, tidying up a small house, or simply walking through the scenery is already enough.
But the concept of cozy, for me, goes far beyond video games.
It can be building LEGO, reading fiction, playing chess with no competitive pretension, taking care of plants, drawing, listening to a whole album, cooking something without rushing, watching an anime, having coffee while looking out the window, or simply walking with no destination.
Cozy is any activity whose main purpose is to provide rest, curiosity, and pleasure.
Nothing else.
And maybe that’s exactly why it’s so important.
#Not everything needs to become a project
There’s a particularly strong temptation for people who like building things.
You start a hobby. Then you think about how to get better at it. Then you start researching equipment. Then you set goals. Then you look for courses. Then you track metrics.
And before you know it, what was supposed to be rest has turned into one more project.
I know this logic very well.
We’ve learned that every skill should have some kind of return.
If you like writing, you should build an audience. If you like photography, you should create an Instagram. If you like programming, you should build a product. If you like finance, you should try to beat some benchmark. If you like video games, maybe you could stream.
Even hobbies started having to show ROI.
But there’s an important question:
what if some things are valuable precisely because they don’t lead anywhere?
Maybe an hour playing Stardew Valley doesn’t need to turn you into a better person.
Maybe reading a novel doesn’t need to increase your productivity.
Maybe playing guitar doesn’t need to turn into a band.
Maybe walking doesn’t need to count as cardio.
Maybe it’s enough that it was a good hour.
#Ma
There’s a Japanese concept I really like called Ma — 間.
It’s hard to translate perfectly.
It’s usually explained as the space or interval between things.
But it isn’t simply emptiness.
It’s a meaningful space.
A pause that allows whatever is around it to exist.
In music, Ma can be the silence between two notes. In architecture, the space between elements. In a conversation, the pause before answering.
In Studio Ghibli films, it’s those moments when apparently nothing happens.
The character looks out the window. The wind moves the grass. Someone cooks. A train goes quietly through the scenery.
If we analyzed these moments with the logic of productivity, we could simply cut them.
They don’t move the story forward. They don’t deliver information. They don’t resolve any conflict. They don’t increase narrative efficiency.
But maybe those are exactly the moments that let the story breathe.
Without silence, there is no music.
Without pause, there is no rhythm.
Without space, there is hardly any beauty.
I think our life needs Ma too.
The problem is that we try to remove all those spaces.
Waiting for the elevator? Phone.
In line? Phone.
Lunch? YouTube.
Walking? Podcast.
The gym? Podcast.
Driving? Audiobook.
Before sleeping? More content.
Any empty space has to be filled immediately.
We’ve created a horror of the interval.
And maybe we’re paying a price for that.
#The opposite of life is disenchantment
That’s when I came across the line from Luiz Antônio Simas:
“The opposite of life is not death. The opposite of life is disenchantment.”
The line stayed with me.
Because disenchantment doesn’t necessarily mean sadness.
You can be perfectly functional and deeply disenchanted.
You can work, make money, hit your goals, train, study, travel, build wealth, and do everything you’re supposed to do.
And still slowly lose the ability to marvel at small things.
Maybe it’s possible to manage your own existence like an extremely efficient company and still forget to live in it.
When that happens, we start seeing everything through the lens of usefulness.
What’s the benefit? What’s the return? What’s the result? What’s the metric? What’s the next goal?
Except some of the best things in life answer those questions very poorly.
What’s the ROI of playing with your child?
What’s the measurable benefit of a long conversation with someone you love?
What’s the productivity of watching the sunset?
How much does a song have to deliver to justify five minutes of your life?
Maybe the question itself is already wrong.
#Productivity is not the enemy of life
I also don’t want to fall into the opposite extreme.
I don’t believe productivity is bad.
I don’t believe goals are bad.
I don’t believe metrics are bad.
Quite the opposite.
There’s enormous satisfaction in building something, learning, evolving, solving hard problems, training, creating companies, publishing a piece of writing, or completing a project.
Productivity can help build an extraordinary life.
But it should be a tool of life.
Not its purpose.
There’s an enormous difference between organizing our life in order to live better and living only to keep optimizing our life.
Maybe maturity lies in learning to alternate between those two states.
There are moments for intensity and there are moments for Ma.
Moments to run and moments to simply walk.
Moments to build something and moments to do something that doesn’t need to lead anywhere.
#Protecting useless spaces
I’ve been thinking that maybe we need to intentionally protect some “useless” spaces in our life.
Useless in quotes.
Because maybe they’re exactly the ones holding up everything else.
A night playing something quiet.
A walk without headphones.
A conversation without checking the clock.
A song listened to without doing anything else at the same time.
An afternoon with no obligation to produce.
A hobby we don’t need to get good at.
A few minutes looking out the window.
A bit of silence.
Small things.
Cozy things. Ma. Enchantment.
Maybe they’re different names for a very old need.
The need to exist without having to justify every minute of your own existence.
#Life doesn’t need to fit in a dashboard
I’ll keep using metrics.
I’ll keep setting goals.
I’ll keep trying to improve.
I’ll probably keep turning a bunch of things into spreadsheets, systems, and dashboards.
It’s part of who I am.
But I’m trying to learn something else too.
Not everything needs to show up on the chart.
Not every bit of progress needs to be recorded.
Not every activity needs to generate a result.
Not every hour needs to be productive.
Because productivity helps build a life.
But maybe it’s the small spaces between the goals that make that life worth living.
Emptiness isn’t necessarily wasted space.
Sometimes it’s precisely the interval that allows life to happen.
And maybe living well also means preserving a few places where we can still be enchanted.