To reference Neil Sedaka, who recently died at age 86, is to age oneself. Some of Sedaka’s most famous songs (“Laughter In the Rain,” “Breaking Up Is Hard To Do,” and “Love Will Keep Us Together”) were either performed by the songwriter/musician, or by other musicians in the 1970s.
Which means that if you’re 34 while reading this, or even 44, odds are you’ve never heard of Sedaka. It’s an age thing, but age is in some ways the point of this opinion piece. Particularly for those too young to have heard of Sedaka.
In a recent obituary for him, it was written that he “still played dozens of concerts a year well into his 80s. He retained the enthusiasm and broad vocal range of his youth and never tired of the standards he had sung hundreds of times.” Sedaka worked into his 80s, which is a remarkable thing.
Better yet, Sedaka wanted to. The work reinforced him and his singular genius.
As time goes by, and as technology renders redundant much that’s done today by humans, the number of people who will happily work into their 80s and beyond will skyrocket. Sedaka instructs.
His songs didn’t clothe, feed or shelter us, they didn’t aid in the efforts to cure various forms of heart disease or cancer, nor did they power technology or transportation advances that will make cars, airplanes and the internet appear primitive by comparison. In Sedaka’s case, he gave the productive a pleasant way to pass their time when they weren’t working. Or when they were.
No doubt Sedaka was in production, albeit for an increasingly productive (think affluent) global population that wanted to be entertained in growing amounts in its free time. Put another way, soaring global production and in particular soaring U.S. production of necessities at prices that have consistently declined have made it possible for a growing number of us to meet and lead needs of increasing numbers of people for whom life’s necessities are a foregone conclusion.
Importantly, the automation of so much production that will skyrocket amid the proliferation of AIs that do and think for us foretells a future not just of abundant, low-cost necessities, but of former, well-out-of-our-grasp luxuries themselves morphing into low-cost necessities. For the young people reading this, private jets will soon enough become mere jets as an effect of their ubiquity.
What this means for all of us is not a life of indolence, but life defined by more work than ever and later in life than ever. That’s because the work of the future won’t feel like work.
Call it Tamny’s Law. It was pretentiously featured in my 2018 book The End of Work, which was more aptly titled The End of Laziness when submitted to the publisher: “Laziness decreases as prosperity increases, expanding the range of work options so that every person can do the work that most accentuates his individual talents.” Some will call the “Law” a prediction, but really it’s just a statement about human nature.
We’re all great at something, or realistically many things, but historically the pressing need for life’s necessities suffocated our individual greatness. The coming age of abundance will unearth the greatness by freeing many more of us to do what we can’t not do, instead of what we must.
Sedaka already lived this truth. Prosperity created a market application for his talents, and growing amounts of it will unearth many more talents of exponentially more people. In the future, we’ll all be Neil Sedaka.
