ARTS & CULTURE
ON OPTIMIZATION: OPTIMIZATION: THEDIFFERENCE DIFFERENCEBETWEEN BETWEENTRAILS TRAILSAND ANDWOMEN WOMEN THE By Audrey Ledbetter
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n the mountainous Alaskan tundra, caribou draw trails as they cross landscapes full of low and stubborn brush, the pencil of their hooves tracing over and over the paths of least resistance. Thin lines, just wide enough to accommodate an animal’s athletic build, cut across around the sides of peaks to reach water sources. “A trail sleekens to its end,” writes Robert Moor, author of the philosophical and scientific book On Trails: An Exploration. Over time, these paths adapt, recalibrating according to the goal of the herd as the dirt packs down harder and unwieldy branches are cut down to allow for easier travel, showing caribou the way and limiting their impact on the land. In Moor’s On Trails, an entomologist says, “All things optimize in nature, to some degree.” This optimization—the process of honing in on goals and maximiz28 TUFTS OBSERVER OCTOBER 11, 2021
ing efficiency over time—is simply part of evolution. In the grand graph of things, the earth naturally moves forward, zig-zagging up and down, ultimately headed up towards the top right corner labelled “better.” Following this trend satiates a distaste for aimlessness. “Everyone optimizes,” Moor goes on, “whether we are pioneering or perpetuating, making rules or breaking them, succeeding or screwing up.” We pioneer, perpetuate, make rules, break rules, succeed, and screw up in search of that top right corner. It’s a beautiful process, optimization, when you picture paths working their way through the woods, shape shifting over time so that their home and their users together end up at equilibrium. Like many people, I have a tendency to turn natural processes into metaphors applicable to my own life. The ideal of optimization, however, got stuck in my throat
the moment I read it. This discomfort originates from Jia Tolentino’s essay “Always Be Optimizing,” a seething and selfimplicating criticism on the cult of the ideal woman. “She looks like an Instagram,” Tolentino writes, “which is to say, an ordinary woman reproducing the lessons of the marketplace, which is how an ordinary woman evolves into an ideal… This woman is sincerely interested in whatever the market demands of her (goo d lo oks, t he impression of indefinitely extended youth, advanced skills
