Why the Solutions to Save Our Nervous Planet Fail
Ironically, we may need a bigger problem
It’s 8:30 a.m. already, and I’m stuck in traffic. Again. My class starts in 15 minutes. I just called my colleagues to inform them that I am running late.
I can see unhappy, irritated, and impatient faces in the cars around me. It seems nobody is enjoying today’s sunny Monday morning.
When did things become so messed up? Was it always like this, and I was just too busy to notice? Or have things taken an unexpected turn for the worse?
I take a mental note to myself. Leave earlier next week. Even though it means I must set off two hours before the start of my lecture. But I don’t want to blame traffic again. I remember that it would only take twenty-five minutes ten years ago.
Radio Heads
Life has simply become much more complicated over the last few years.
We are always in a hurry, chasing time that is taken away from us by other people and situations beyond our control. And that feeling — of an unfree life lived at the margins of our control — is no place for living.
To kill the time, I turn on the radio. Talk radio. Hardly conducive to calming my mood. Talking heads. Culture wars. Tribal identity politics.
