It occurred to me today that there are two kinds of people in the world.

I just got off of the phone with a friend of mine; he just reached out to catch up and to see how my family and I have been doing. We shared some pleasantries, and then the conversation turned toward some of the things on which we’ve been spending our quarantine time. He was talking about being happy to have had the extra time to connect with his family more. I talked about being able to write more and read more.

In that respect, I have actually enjoyed being quarantined. I have had the opportunity to reorganize my priorities and to investigate other options for spending my time. I know that many have been clawing and scratching to get out of the quarantine, but as for me, I’ve chosen to make the most of the time that I’ve been given. I’ve chosen to look at the bright side. I know of others who’ve been using this time to be productive, as well –> I have one friend who keeps posting pics on social media of all of the home improvement projects he’s completing.

I have always believed that there are two kinds of people in the world: consumers and producers. In fact, this is one of the entry-level lessons in a social studies classroom unit on economics. Everyone knows (or should know) that the producers are the ones that create the goods and services that the consumers, well, consume.

I have tried teaching this lesson to my children, especially when I feel like they’ve been spending too much time starting at computer screens or television screens or cell phone screens.

And, of course, each of us is each of these, to a certain extent. We all consume and we all produce. The question is this, “What’s the ratio of one’s production to one’s consumption?” The question is also this, “Is the ratio of one’s production to one’s consumption pretty even, or is it askew?” The question is additionally this, “If the ratio of one’s production to one’s consumption is askew, is that a bad thing?”

A life of productivity (notice the root of the word ‘production’ and the root of the word ‘productivity’ –> produce) is a good life. A life of consumption ends up being mostly pointless.

Of course, the trick in this balancing act, as is the trick with so many things, is to avoid the extremes. If you’ve been reading my blog for very long, you know how I hate extremism (and if you don’t know how much I hate extremism, try THIS POST on the subject).

Now, it should be obvious how consumption, to the extreme, is a bad thing. Ever seen a plague of locusts on a field of crops? That’s some extreme consumption! It might be less obvious how one could manage to be an extreme producer. Nevertheless, extremes are very rarely a good thing, and the same rule applies here. You should try to strike a balance in your life. Take an inventory of your ways –> if you died today, would there be a hole because of the things that you’ve been doing that people would miss?

I can tell you this: if you died today, no one would miss you because of the lack of your consumption.

Another way to look at this –> give and take. Do you give to the world, to those around you, to our society, as much as you take, or do you take more than you give?

Now, at the start of this post, I tried to draw some comparisons between people and how they’ve been dealing with the quarantine and whether or not they give more than they take. I don’t mean to say in all of this that people who have not enjoyed the quarantine time are useless and unproductive. I know people who I respect, people who I know to be producers, who have been put upon by the quarantine and its limiting effects.

However, I have also noticed, in the rush that people have had to get back into the pandemic world that is waiting out there, that there is a sub-current of consumerism at work. I just watched a video of a restaurant in Colorado that opened for Mother’s Day, in violation of that state’s quarantine orders, and the place was packed and the people that I saw there weren’t looking for ways to be productive –> they were looking for ways to consume.

Before I go off, let me just say that I think that all Americans would be wise to look at what they’re doing with themselves and try to err toward the productive end of the spectrum.