We were reading
Generation X to each other aloud, taking turns. We stopped between shifts to talk. Once we talked about how rude we thought cell phones are. I said that I thought the main motivator for new efforts for global communication stemmed from the basic need we all have to be reached out for, to be called.
There are so many ways we streamline our time, even in how we eat. The sizes of things are shrinking, becoming more and more compact. We have to be reminded now to take our time, practically forced to do it. Just like in prior societal circles, when those who were wealthy showed it in their waistlines, now women pay to be starved. When once common things that took time were the norm now has become an opportunity to market back to us the things that once were free.
Maybe some of us are actually doing more with our time in the face of such advances that free it up. But I don't think so, not if my life and lives of others I know are any example. There is a belief expressed in Coupland's book by some of the less admirably represented characters that humans just were not built to deal well with free time. Even idle time, time spent sucking up monitor rays or TV rays, is not really free as much as it is absorbed. Maybe I'm wrong.
My resolutions are to get out and do more, because I can't use that excuse that I have no time. I don't cook, I have no children or SO. I don't think I can just run out and get some hobbies, but I'm sure I can find more to do with myself, even if that means just slowing down.
It's funny that you have to learn things like that, learn them over like you've been in a coma. You have to learn that being stuck in the house during a 3 day rainstorm or week long bouts of cold doesn't have to be something you detest. You have to learn to be creative again. And it's like...it's like no one ever told you how in the first place.