What Is Progress?

Photo courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/bionicgrrl

Most people who visit the Tablet office in New York have the same reaction: “It’s so quiet here!” Their eyes widen as they try to compute how dozens of people sharing desks in a large open space can generate so little noise. Maybe they expect something more like the lobby of the Delano, with models walking around and beautiful people offering you drinks and help with your luggage. In reality we’re just a bunch of really good-looking people (honest!) typing away.

That said, we know we need to try to keep life here in the office inspiring. We’ve decided to take everyone out of the office every now and then to look at something other than a laptop. Our most recent outing was to the Guggenheim Museum to see the Tino Sehgal exhibit, which just closed.

Seghal’s “medium” is difficult to describe, but for context’s sake I’ll call it performance art. The exhibit begins as you cross the ground floor, where a young couple dance and occasionally kiss. As you ascend the rotunda, a young child walks over and shakes your hand. “What is progress?” she asks. Under pressure the best I could do was something like “Progress is enabling as many people as possible to achieve a certain quality of life.”

As you continue up the rotunda you’re passed from guide to guide, each one older than the last. The second guide, a young adult, reminded me of myself at that age — a frenzied, know-it-all kind of character. Talking to him was exhausting, and made me happy I’m not in my twenties anymore.

Next was a woman in her thirties, who immediately delved into the question of whether women can have it all. Eventually she looked at me and said “It’s all just so stupid, you know?” Yes, I do know — I definitely struggle with the idea of working all the time now so we can finally relax in a few decades. Every now and then I am pummeled by a wave of exhaustion and can’t help but think this “having it all” idea, man or woman, is just so stupid.

My final guide, a man in his late sixties, was my favorite. We talked about screens, and how much time we spend staring at them. He wished his grandchild would spend less time on video games and more time talking and thinking. It made me think of my childhood. My parents used to strongly encourage me to play alone in my room alone for a little while after school to help me “decompress”. I’d end up spending hours just daydreaming. It’s not a habit I’ve kept up, unfortunately, and I miss this time dearly.

When we had finished going through the rotunda with our guides, a number of us gathered at the top to share our impressions of the exhibit. “What do you think the dancers/kissers are all about?” someone asked. We were all honest and admitted we had no idea. After a few moments, though, our colleague Nicky suggested that perhaps it shows that love is constant throughout these different stages of our lives. I like that idea. After hearing it I couldn’t help but think (hope!) that maybe, just maybe, chatting there at the top of that beautiful rotunda, we were making some progress.

How do you define progress?

This week’s guest blogger comes from Tablet’s marketing department — it’s our very own Julie Waters, Tablet’s official culture coordinator and arts aficionado.