Coming down off one of my busiest weeks in recent memory, I feel like I’ve tripped on a block of half-planned obligations and crashed face-first into the vast disorientation associated with sleep deprivation. Maybe it’s exhaustion, or maybe it’s just that I don’t remember doing much else besides going to classes and going to work, but I’m beginning — possibly arrogantly — to believe that my recent life has descended into an apt metaphor representative of the modern world of caffeine double-doses, fast food and fast living.
And, frankly, that scares me just a bit.
About the time I graduated high school, I looked up at the rest of the world and saw people who were too busy with investment banking or petty political battles or other occupations that turned into 10- to 14-hour days. In some blend of revulsion and (what may be) naiveté, I told myself that I’d never be part of that world, that I’d always have enough of a grip on the moment that life would never slip by out of my control.
But as it turns out, all sorts of forces are conspiring against me. Everything in our society is geared to turbocharging, super-efficiency and instant gratification.
To wit: Some consumers are evidently unsatisfied with digesting information in real time. So, companies like technology firm Prime Image sell devices like the Digital Time Machine, which speed up video and audio recordings by up to 12 percent, without curtailing comprehension.
Laura Gaines, the company’s vice president, touted the machine to the New York Times in a Thursday article, and offering potential customers — television advertisers included — a “66-second minute.”
But, advertisements for products through an appeal to saving time aren’t limited to adults. Through April, even the casual cereal devotee can trade two proofs-of-purchase from designated Post Kids Cereal boxes and $1 for shipping for their very own personal digital assistant that features memory for an extensive list of lemonade stand suppliers and clients, and a planner for the hectic schedule of the modern multitasking 9-year-old.
Now, this is certainly not an argument against speed or modernization, or anything equally ignorantly Luddite. So-called competition of ideas is generally a positive process that improves the human condition: It creates better medicines; new, interesting meals; and tools that lighten the labor of human hands.
Even so, all this efficiency doesn’t seem to save Americans much time. In 1997, Americans spent an average of 1,966 hours on the job — the most of any industrialized nation — according to the International Labour Organization.
So, what’s the lesson? Reject the amenities of modern life? Clearly not. People invent those conveniences so that we can spend less time doing less fulfilling tasks and spend more time doing the things we enjoy, inside and outside the workplace.
Next week, God willing, I’m going to spend a little bit less work in the maelstrom of organizing and notes-sorting, and with any luck, I won’t let down my high school self.