"The time I save setting up and cleaning up probably balances out by the time I spend on output"
About this Quote
Efficiency is supposed to be a clean moral: optimize the process, get more life back. Buffy Sainte-Marie punctures that fantasy with a shrug that feels almost punk in its practicality. The line is funny because it refuses the usual tech-and-productivity storyline. You streamline setup, you eliminate cleanup, and what do you get? Not leisure, not freedom, just more output. The saved minutes don’t evaporate; they get reinvested into making more.
The intent reads as a quiet critique of “labor-saving” tools and the mythology around them. It’s not that the tools don’t work. It’s that the system around the work has a way of absorbing any gains. Sainte-Marie’s phrasing is deliberately unglamorous: “probably balances out” has the tone of someone who’s done the math in real time, in the messy middle of creating. That understatement is the point. No manifesto, just lived experience.
Subtext: if you’re always producing, your workflow improvements can become a trap disguised as progress. The line lands especially well coming from an artist whose career spans eras of radically changing production tech. For musicians and makers, each new convenience (faster recording, easier editing, frictionless sharing) promises to lighten the load. Instead, expectations expand: more versions, more content, more responsiveness, more everything.
It works because it frames productivity not as a personal virtue but as a cultural pressure. The joke is on the idea that time saved naturally becomes time owned.
The intent reads as a quiet critique of “labor-saving” tools and the mythology around them. It’s not that the tools don’t work. It’s that the system around the work has a way of absorbing any gains. Sainte-Marie’s phrasing is deliberately unglamorous: “probably balances out” has the tone of someone who’s done the math in real time, in the messy middle of creating. That understatement is the point. No manifesto, just lived experience.
Subtext: if you’re always producing, your workflow improvements can become a trap disguised as progress. The line lands especially well coming from an artist whose career spans eras of radically changing production tech. For musicians and makers, each new convenience (faster recording, easier editing, frictionless sharing) promises to lighten the load. Instead, expectations expand: more versions, more content, more responsiveness, more everything.
It works because it frames productivity not as a personal virtue but as a cultural pressure. The joke is on the idea that time saved naturally becomes time owned.
Quote Details
| Topic | Work |
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