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In reality, this man of privilege bounds into the store on a cloud of positivity, only to be met by the sullen face behind the counter, 12 hours into a double s

In reality, this man of privilege bounds into the store on a cloud of positivity, only to be met by the sullen face behind the counter, 12 hours into a double shift on a day that she wasn't even supposed to be here. At the Postal Convenience Center, the object of his affection barely registers his presence because she is fears going home to her abusive boyfriend who is probably halfway in the bag already. When the letter arrives at Woodstock, Carol has to go through the painstaking trouble of scanning in his chicken scratch, and she'll spend the weekend fixing that which OCR cannot unearth. The whimsy of Vonnegut betrays the truth that too many of us suffer from too little time in the day to create genuine, shareable moments with one another. Technology can help beat back that tide by simplifying the tedious, and little by little, we may find ourselves making time to be more present in our everyday lives. Technology should be celebrated, and not feared.

DJEchoes 12y ago
"The whimsy of Vonnegut betrays the truth that too many of us suffer from too little time in the day to create genuine, shareable moments with one another." - Is this an absolute truth? Maybe the point is that we should work towards having more of this whimsical time, instead of submitting to the unnatural bustle of modern life and pressing buttons for more fucking laundry detergent.
- ChikkaChiChi 12y ago
  No existential truth is absolute. Vonnegut's position of privilege at the time of the writing certainly provided him with a better ability to revel in the finer things life has to offer. Not everyone in this world of ours is lucky enough to have this luxury. I disagree that modern life is somehow unnatural or participating in it requires some form of submission. Providing for our needs in a more convenient fashion is one of the pillars of civilization.
  - DJEchoes 12y ago
    So according to your logic, a person requires a level of success approximately on par with a Vonnegut to appreciate an errand to the post office? Anyone significantly less successful than him can't consider the possibility of a leisurely stroll? I understand that not everyone in this world has the luxury of free time, but if one has the ability to shop on Amazon, making time away from work and the internet is almost definitely an option. It's thinking like that which will hurtle us towards an Idiocracy-like reality.
evanlivingston 12y ago
Why don't we have more free time? It is precisely the post-industrialized culture of consumption, and economy of progress that is robbing individuals of our free time. When did laundry and cooking and doing work at home cease to be a social function and instead move into the sphere of "work"? http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_affluent_society http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_affluent_society
- kristofferR 12y ago
  > When did laundry and cooking and doing work at home cease to be a social function and instead move into the sphere of "work"? Do you realize that you're basically implying that housewifes were chilling at home while their husbands were doing the real work? Home work has always been real work, but us men didn't really feel it before we had to do more of it due to gender equality.
  - evanlivingston 12y ago
    I didn't mean to communicate this. housework is indeed real work, real labor. But post-industrialized societies have worked to strip joy from all chores. The idea of of a housewife is a good example of this — A woman alone in a house cooking for another person, cleaning a vast amount of things that endlessly collect dirt. So long as we don't reach the singularity there will be chores to do, mouths to feed and things to clean. Is it easier to spend all our waking hours devising "technologies" to "simplify" life or is it easier to re-evaluate what a simple life is and embrace that labor is a part of life.
    - icebraining 12y ago
      Definitively devising technologies. I don't envy my great-grandparents lives in their pre-industrialized society. The idea that chores were generally a joyful activity sounds like rose-colored glasses to me. And the idea of the housewife is much, much older than industrialization.
  - incongruity 12y ago
peteretep 12y ago
I was going to say "must not have kids", but I like your version better.
incongruity 12y ago
> The whimsy of Vonnegut betrays the truth that too many of us suffer from too little time in the day to create genuine, shareable moments with one another. Except that so many of those genuine moments can't be created with any sort of precision. They happen exactly because they are outside of what was planned. We suffer from a lack of time because we have too much crap planned or demanded of us. Abstracting away all the small things sounds wonderful, but it's exactly that pursuit of efficiency above all else that is killing us.

DJEchoes 12y ago

"The whimsy of Vonnegut betrays the truth that too many of us suffer from too little time in the day to create genuine, shareable moments with one another." - Is this an absolute truth? Maybe the point is that we should work towards having more of this whimsical time, instead of submitting to the unnatural bustle of modern life and pressing buttons for more fucking laundry detergent.

ChikkaChiChi 12y ago
No existential truth is absolute. Vonnegut's position of privilege at the time of the writing certainly provided him with a better ability to revel in the finer things life has to offer. Not everyone in this world of ours is lucky enough to have this luxury. I disagree that modern life is somehow unnatural or participating in it requires some form of submission. Providing for our needs in a more convenient fashion is one of the pillars of civilization.
- DJEchoes 12y ago
  So according to your logic, a person requires a level of success approximately on par with a Vonnegut to appreciate an errand to the post office? Anyone significantly less successful than him can't consider the possibility of a leisurely stroll? I understand that not everyone in this world has the luxury of free time, but if one has the ability to shop on Amazon, making time away from work and the internet is almost definitely an option. It's thinking like that which will hurtle us towards an Idiocracy-like reality.

evanlivingston 12y ago

Why don't we have more free time? It is precisely the post-industrialized culture of consumption, and economy of progress that is robbing individuals of our free time. When did laundry and cooking and doing work at home cease to be a social function and instead move into the sphere of "work"? http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_affluent_society http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_affluent_society

kristofferR 12y ago
> When did laundry and cooking and doing work at home cease to be a social function and instead move into the sphere of "work"? Do you realize that you're basically implying that housewifes were chilling at home while their husbands were doing the real work? Home work has always been real work, but us men didn't really feel it before we had to do more of it due to gender equality.
- evanlivingston 12y ago
  I didn't mean to communicate this. housework is indeed real work, real labor. But post-industrialized societies have worked to strip joy from all chores. The idea of of a housewife is a good example of this — A woman alone in a house cooking for another person, cleaning a vast amount of things that endlessly collect dirt. So long as we don't reach the singularity there will be chores to do, mouths to feed and things to clean. Is it easier to spend all our waking hours devising "technologies" to "simplify" life or is it easier to re-evaluate what a simple life is and embrace that labor is a part of life.
  - icebraining 12y ago
    Definitively devising technologies. I don't envy my great-grandparents lives in their pre-industrialized society. The idea that chores were generally a joyful activity sounds like rose-colored glasses to me. And the idea of the housewife is much, much older than industrialization.
- incongruity 12y ago

peteretep 12y ago

I was going to say "must not have kids", but I like your version better.

incongruity 12y ago

> The whimsy of Vonnegut betrays the truth that too many of us suffer from too little time in the day to create genuine, shareable moments with one another. Except that so many of those genuine moments can't be created with any sort of precision. They happen exactly because they are outside of what was planned. We suffer from a lack of time because we have too much crap planned or demanded of us. Abstracting away all the small things sounds wonderful, but it's exactly that pursuit of efficiency above all else that is killing us.