How To Avoid A Life Of Joyless Urgency!
Pulitzer prize-winning author Marilynne Robinson coined a phrase to describe our current culture that absolutely floored me. In The Givenness of Things , a collection of her essays, Robinson touched on the way in which our culture has become less and less about "equipping and refining thought," and more about "creating and mastering technologies." Then she said this: [T]he spirit of the times is one of joyless urgency..." That phrase-- joyless urgency-- struck me pretty hard. I have spent a great deal of time in airports of late, and have had an opportunity to do one of my favorite things at the airport: people watch. And I have to tell you, I have seen more than my fair share of joyless urgency. What I've noticed is that every single airport I've been to over the past year (some twenty-plus different ones, by my count) has a few things in common with almost every other airport. First, most of the people I saw were either anxiou...