Speed of the world

hedgetrimmer

The post here http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.phps=&threadid=145233 got me thinking.

Now these thoughts aren't knew, and I need some time to write them properly - in fact it's the major theme of a novel I am writing.

The world is moving at a frenetic pace, far too fast for the average person's capacity to cope. People are dealing with it, IMO, by
a) Finding a quiet place to live their own lives - moving down the country is becomnig popular
b) Seeking a spiritual outlet and focussing of self in the wave of far too many stimuli and recommendations to become a societal icon
c) finding a crutch - alcohol, sex, internet, whatever
d) trying to cope with the change and getting caught up in the flow, occassionally exploding in a surge of self-re-determination in order to remind yourself of yourself
e) not coping

When you think that some of us here can remember a time before mobile phones, hell before PCs, and to others that notion is alien. Are we a lost generation, subsumed by technology, societal changes, life exceeding living?

There are many myriad and scattered thoughts I have, but just posted up here maybe to provoke a discussion, but primarily to see if anyone else out there is feeling this.

Beruthiel

perhaps this would be better in Humanities
what do you think?

Stark

Don't blame the technology. Mobile phones and PCs are great for getting in touch with people and information, and enhance our lives IMO. The fact that you're posting here means you're not too opposed to PCs and internet.

The problem is the pressures put on us by other people. You spend the first 18 years of your life in education, pressured by teachers and parents to achieve. Then you move on, go to college where you've more pressure with studying and trying to provide yourself with an income at the same time or work where you have to move as fast as you can cope to make your higher-ups rich.

You just have to be more assertive, be realistic in your own abilities and the demands being placed upon you. If people are pressuring you to move faster than this, then be upfront with them. Tell your manager "no it's a complex project, it can't be done by Friday", tell your parents "I'd like a break from study" etc. It's all about self-responsibility. You live in this world, you know it as good as anyone else, you can learn to work it.

kiffer

Originally posted by k.oriordan

You just have to be more assertive, be realistic in your own abilities and the demands being placed upon you. If people are pressuring you to move faster than this, then be upfront with them. Tell your manager "no it's a complex project, it can't be done by Friday", tell your parents "I'd like a break from study" etc. It's all about self-responsibility. You live in this world, you know it as good as anyone else, you can learn to work it.

um so you just have to say no eh? be more assertive ...
thats not a just.
every one lives in this world and not every one learns to work it to the same degree. not every one knows it as well as everyone else.

slowing down?
you dont have time!
alot over people are in jobs/situations that will not slow down and wait for them.

oh and the link in the start of the thread is dead

dictatorcat

The world only moves as fast as you want it to. We all have a choice as to what we want to do, many people choose to live life in the fast lane, accumilate loads of money and die of a heart attack when they're 35. Personally i'm like the tortoise, i move at approximately 0 mph and take lots of little breaks and plan to live to be 200. As for pressure from bosses there is a general rule, they tell you to do things because they have to be seen to delegate, hence alot of what they tell you to do is pointless, if they tell you to do it a second time then it must be important so you do it, if they forget about it it wasn't worth doing in the first place. Life is too short to spend it rushing about, often if you slow down a bit and take the time to look around you'll find those opportunities others are too busy to see. That's my 2 cent worth anyho.

SheroN

This is a better home for this thread.

Feel free to move it if you want amp/micro.

Saruman

I think most people cope quite well with the pace the world is moving.. its the people who cant that might post stuff like this and decide to try to move into seclusion etc.
If you want peace and quiet then go somewhere quiet for the day. The mountains or something.. even a park is quiet compared to the city outside it...
The world changes, those that cant/wont change with it will be left behind.

kiffer

Originally posted by dictatorcat
The world only moves as fast as you want it to. We all have a choice as to what we want to do

you are very lucky the you have such a degree of control in your life that it only moves as fast as you want it to... many people do not have that choice and are not in a position to ignore what their boss tells them to do.

so for those people who are not in a position to "just slow down"

well actualy they are ... they could quit their jobs and leave their families and friends... or just ignore their problems...

dr_manhattan

Nah, the world's always been like this: even when the horizons didn't seem so close, our concept of "the world" was smaller, so it cancelled out. Take your list of things people are doing:

a) Finding a quiet place to live their own lives - moving down the country is becoming popular

Assuming this is a dub's perspective, actually I think you'll find property prices have a lot to do with this. Also, people have been opting for more remote places for hundreds of years now - from hermits and ascetics to eccentric millionaires. That's why, when you go to remote places, they usually have great big ruined castles in 'em. People have always sought respite. Even when it was only respite from a cave.

b) Seeking a spiritual outlet and focussing of self in the wave of far too many stimuli and recommendations to become a societal icon

Err... to be honest this sentence does a bit of a back flip and it's hard to understand what you mean. "in the wave of"...? what do you mean by "recommendations to become a societal icon"?

but if by this you mean "finding religion or spirituality as a respite from fast paced living" then all I can say is - see above. People have been looking to other things to solve the problems of hectic day to day life for a loooooooong time now.

c) finding a crutch - alcohol, sex, internet, whatever

Now this *certainly* did not begin yesterday: sure, the internet wasn't always available, but there again the thrills of high seas piracy and big game hunting are no longer available: important thing being, there's always been crutches. Before people were building tents, my guess is they were using metaphorical crutches ;-)

d) trying to cope with the change and getting caught up in the flow, occassionally exploding in a surge of self-re-determination in order to remind yourself of yourself

(cough) once again, I don't really do this very often ;-) - or else maybe I don't understand it. I certainly don't know what a "surge of self-re-determination" is. ahem.

But if you mean "living the fast-paced life" then sure, people do this. Like the other options, they do this for a while, and then do other stuff from the list: naturally

e) not coping

Certainly not a new, 21st century option.

Whenever people tlak about the pace of life becoming too fast, I am reminded of turn of the century worries from the 1890s/1900s - that london would be choked by horsepoo if the population continued to rise, or that people who moved at more than 40mph would snap their necks.

Society has always been a little too fast for its fastest members, and leaving its slowest members for dust. It's because our society is designed to filter itself in a very unfair and vicious way, and hold itself together with cultivated tensions. The reason why biblical predictions or the works of nostradamus have an amount of resonance / seeming validity is because society has always operated under these defining principles, so if you're clever enough to tap into the broad themes, then in 200 years you'll seem wise.

But the fact is, it's just counting cards in a huge, high speed blackjack game ;-)

Specky

Hmmm...well saying that "the world" moves at this pace isn't strictly true. The class in which you dwell moves at a particular pace. The paces of different classes is very different and those within the class have little control over the pace at which they move.

In my opinion the problem is the difference between the paces at which the classes move. As things are I believe that many classes are being left behind to an extent where they cannot catch up and to an extent where the differences between classes makes it impossible for someone in one class to "work his way up" to another.

Don't argue that we live in a classless society because we don't. Just because you see only one class does not mean there aren't any others...the fact that you don't see the others is more of an indication of the extent to which classes define our lives and the way we live them.

dr_manhattan

Excellent points specky - I stand corrected, but all I was doing was assuming a middle class POV - I don't have any other, haha. Unless you count my 'middle class objectivity' hat, hahahahaha.

BUt you're 100% on point there, and I think this class difference in terms of the pace at which we're exposed to things is a tremendous drag on social growth and development.

Just to add: as far as class is concerned, often religion and ethnicity work as factors here - but I've never been able to understand where the chicken and egg sits there.

ya see, often fundamentalism is peddled to the desperate and disenfranchised - and this puts an ever increasing gap between the morals of the fundamentalist lower classes and that of the often agnostic establishment. So it not only increases the gap in pace and apprehension of the world, it also makes those from below the poverty line less inclined to rise upwards, into an establishment they see as 'decadent'

Often, racial as well as social reasons are provided for 'segregating' classes - symptoms of mistrust of ones neighbours. Eventually, every reason exists.

An example of this would be the rise of Islam (and the Nation of Islam) among african americans - many will claim that islam first spread among the black community because, with a huge percentage of young black males in prison, a moslem diet was the only way to get decent food in prison, so therefore islam spread right into the black community (personally I think this is over cynical - I think that the strict discipline offered by Islam, and its extremely earthy emphasis, is what appeals to a young african male looking to find shelter in a madhouse like the US of A)

now, these days the N.O.I., and its somewhat fundamentalist beliefs in a 12,000 year old world, Dr. Jakub, etc. could be viewed as holding back african americans intellectually, but it also undeniably provides a form of discipline and structure in difficult urban communities - so it becomes a paradoxical influence on its "own" class... if you get what i mean...

Another good example would be here:

Because of utterly non-spiritual reasons, the split between catholicism and protestantism has defined a class-type mentality in Ireland v England terms - the perception of the wealthy anglo irish protestant elite as decadent and materialistic was fostered by catholic teaching, but ironically enough most of the protestant church's teachings were far, far more egalitarian and open minded.

So we had a situation not long ago where, even though the catholic teachings on morality, ethi9cs etc were holding us back, we still preferred them to a supposedly 'foreign' amoral influence...

or maybe I've lost track of what I'm saying... anyways, nearly time to go home, hahaha.

later folks

Specky

or that people who moved at more than 40mph would snap their necks.

Prior to the opening of the world's first passenger railway, the Liverpool Manchester railway in 1930 (preceded by the Rainhill trials in 1829 at which Stephenson's Rocket won the competition to be the locomotive that pulled the cars) objectors claimed that people would suffocate if they travelled at more than 15mph.

Even then, on the very first railway, accommodation was divided into 1st, 2nd and 3rd class.

Most railways have now done away with this but it is still common to find railways refer to the general carriages as "standard" class, thus making everyone feel like they're just the same as everyone else...but they still have a first class. Obviously for people who are just a little bit better than standard...

Aircraft use "economy class", "coach class" and "business class" but they still divide people into "us" and "them". Those who have and those who have not.