Michael Chabon:

Childhood is a branch of cartography.

James Akerman:

The "Gospel Temperance Railroad Map" is an example of an allegorical map.

Joseph Epstein:

Children have gone from background to foreground figures in domestic life, with more and more attention centered on them, their upbringing, their small accomplishments, their right relationship with parents and grandparents. For the past 30 years at least, we have been lavishing vast expense and anxiety on our children in ways that are unprecedented in American and in perhaps any other national life. Such has been the weight of all this concern about children that it has exercised a subtle but pervasive tyranny of its own.

Alan Kay:

If the children are being instructed in the pink plane, can we teach them to think in the blue plane and live in a pink-plane society?

Michael Chabon:

The thing that strikes me now when I think about the Wilderness of Childhood is the incredible degree of freedom my parents gave me to adventure there. A very grave, very significant shift in our idea of childhood has occurred since then. The Wilderness of Childhood is gone; the days of adventure are past.

Decius:

I've gotten old enough that I now understand why adults seek to escape reality. Paradoxically, I think I was better at escaping reality when I was younger.

From the archive:

Rewilding: the process of creating a lifestyle that is independent of the domestication of civilization.

Michael Chabon:

Once something is fetishized, capitalism steps in and finds a way to sell it.

Jeff Goldblum, in Jurassic Park:

You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could and before you even knew what you had you patented it and packaged it and slapped it on a plastic lunchbox, and now you're selling it, you want to sell it!

Ginia Bellafante:

There used to be a time if you didn't have money to buy something, you just didn't buy it.

Matthew Crawford:

One of the hottest things at the shopping mall right now is a store called Build-a-Bear, where children are said to make their own teddy bears. I went into one of these stores, and it turns out that what the kid actually does is select the features and clothes for the bear on a computer screen, then the bear is made for ... [ Read More (0.2k in body) ]

The Wilderness of Childhood

Penelope Trunk:

Only losers say they don’t have time to read blogs.

The reality is that you have time to read everything.

Stop talking about time like you need to save it. You just need to use it better.

From the archive:

The reality is that, despite fears that our children are "pumped full of chemicals" everything is made of chemicals, down to the proteins, hormones and genetic materials in our cells.

Stefan Klein:

We are not stressed because we have no time, but rather, we have no time because we are stressed.

Judith Warner:

We're all losers now. There's no pleasure to it.

Scott Sandage:

Nobody is born to lose, and yet failure embodies our worst fears.

How to feel like you have time to read everything

Pico Iyer:

It seems that happiness, like peace or passion, comes most freely when it isn’t pursued.

I have no bicycle, no car, no television I can understand, no media — and the days seem to stretch into eternities, and I can’t think of a single thing I lack.

I remember how, in the corporate world, I always knew there was some higher position I could attain, which meant that, like Zeno’s arrow, I was guaranteed never to arrive and always to remain dissatisfied.

If you’re the kind of person who prefers freedom to security, who feels more comfortable in a small room than a large one and who finds that happiness comes from matching your wants to your needs, then running to stand still isn’t where your joy lies.

Winifred Gallagher:

Even as a kid, I enjoyed focusing. I took a lot of pleasure in concentrating on things. You can’t be happy all the time, but you can pretty much focus all the time. That’s about as good as it gets.

Sterling Hayden:

Which shall it be: bankruptcy of purse or bankruptcy of life?

Alain de Botton:

It isn’t that love and work are invariably incapable of delivering fulfillment—only that they almost never do for too long.

Stefan Klein:

We are not stressed because we have no time, but rather, we have no time because we are stressed.

Ashby Jones:

Happiness exists just around the corner, it’s just a matter of figuring out how to get there.

Samantha Power:

There are great benefits to connectedness, but we haven't wrapped our minds around the costs.

Benjamin Kunkel:

I would rather raise a few eyebrows, curse the occasional payphone, and miss out on some parties than to spoil my necessary concentration and even boredom with phone calls I know I couldn't resist fielding or placing.

Carolyn Johnson:

As cures for boredom have proliferated, people do not seem to feel less bored; they simply flee it with more energy.

The Joy of Less

Alain de Botton:

For the last 200 years, despite occasional shocks, the Western world has been dominated by a belief in progress, based on its extraordinary scientific and entrepreneurial achievements. But from a broader historical perspective, this optimism is an anomaly.

We find ourselves divided between a plausible expectation that tomorrow will be much like today and the possibility that we will meet with an appalling event after which nothing will ever be the same.

It isn’t that love and work are invariably incapable of delivering fulfillment—only that they almost never do for too long.

Recently:

It seems very important as an adult to have a good relationship to your own envy.

Also:

The strangest thing about the world of work is the widespread expectation that our work should make us happy.

Eric G. Wilson:

What drives this rage for complacency, this desperate contentment?

Are some people lying, or are they simply afraid to be honest in a culture in which the status quo is nothing short of manic bliss?

From the archive:

This is a paradox common to technological existence: everything gets a little easier and a little less real.

Peter Schiff:

I think things are going to get very bad.

The Consolations of Pessimism

Scott Boms:

Unless our work and personal lives are carefully balanced, the physical and mental effects of an "always on" life can be debilitating.

Ultimately, burnout results from a lack of equilibrium. When you lose your balance, physically, you fall over. Burnout is very similar, except that once you’re down, it can be a real challenge to get back up.

Ask yourself: Have you set sufficient boundaries between your job and your life outside of work? Are you guarding those boundaries?

Samantha Power:

The French film director Jean Renoir once said, "The foundation of all great civilizations is loitering." But we have all stopped loitering. I don't mean we aren't lazy at times. I mean that no moment goes unoccupied.

Have you seen "Revolutionary Road"?

Hopeless emptiness. Now you've said it. Plenty of people are onto the emptiness, but it takes real guts to see the hopelessness.

Paul Romer:

A crisis is a terrible thing to waste.

Martha Beck:

We desperately want to take a break from our hectic, overscheduled lives -- but not right now.

Stefan Klein:

We are not stressed because we have no time, but rather, we have no time because we are stressed.

Neil Postman:

In a world populated by people who believe that through more and more information, paradise is attainable, the computer scientist is king. But I maintain that all of this is a monumental and dangerous waste of human talent and energy.

Paul Graham:

It will always suck to work for large organizations, and the larger the organization, the more it will suck.

Richard Sennett:

The evidence suggests that from an executive perspective, the most desirable employees may no longer necessarily be those with proven ability and judgment, but those who can be counted on to follow orders and be good "team players."

Sterling Hayden:

To be truly challenging, a voyage, like a life, must rest on a firm foundation of financial unrest. Otherwise you are doomed to a routine traverse, the kind known to yachtsmen, who play with their boats at sea--"cruising", it is called.

Burnout

Maggie Jackson:

When your times of reflection are always punctured, it's hard to go deeply into problem-solving, into relating, into thinking.

These are the problems of attention in our new world. Gadgets and technologies give us extraordinary opportunities, the potential to connect and to learn. At the same time, we've created a culture, and are making choices, that undermine our powers of attention.

In our country, stillness and reflection are not especially valued in the workplace. The image of success is the frenetic multitasker who doesn't have time and is constantly interrupted. By striving towards this model of inattention, we're doing ourselves a tremendous injustice.

Neal Stephenson:

There's a gap emerging between the kind of thinking that requires long, uninterrupted, serious concentration on something and superficial surfing behaviour.

Mark Bittman:

I believe that there has to be a way to regularly impose some thoughtfulness, or at least calm, into modern life.

William Deresiewicz:

There’s been much talk of late about the loss of privacy, but equally calamitous is its corollary, the loss of solitude.

Samantha Power:

There are great benefits to connectedness, but we haven't wrapped our minds around the costs.

Digital Overload Is Frying Our Brains

Bloated, depressed, hooked on empty optimism. Will anyone finally escape this floating slaughterhouse? Do you even care?

Dissolving bodies is gaining increasing popularity ... They are mostly in pieces, stored in stacked plastic boxes marked with phrases like "One Eye" or "Mouths With Teeth."

"If you don't measure it, you can't improve it." She laughs. "It sounds more awful than it is."

There's got to be a pony in there someplace.

They Call Her One Eye

Re: FBG, here's Amy Ozols:

People say that obesity is an epidemic in America, but I’m determined not to become part of the problem. My foolproof system involves just nine easy steps.

Step 3: Get rid of your “fat clothes.” Keeping your closet stocked with unflattering garments will only distract you from your quest for a slender body. To complete this step, shred or burn everything in your closet, including any hangers or shelving that a fat person may have touched. Refrain from donating anything to charity, as this could cause underprivileged people to become obese, which would be unsavory and possibly even illegal.

From the archive:

He wore a crisp dress shirt the color of mint ice cream and a color-coordinated tie, which made him look like an insurance claims adjustor.

Also, two on foolproofing:

“I am trying to design a foolproof plan to prevent any negative externalities,” she said.

Unfortunately, these so-called experts wash out as soon as times change because their foolproof strategies crash and burn.

Looking Your Best

George Orwell, in an essay which appears in the new collection, Facing Unpleasant Facts:

Gazelles are almost the only animals that look good to eat when they are still alive, in fact, one can hardly look at their hindquarters without thinking of mint sauce.

From the archive, about a Ron Paul supporter:

He wore a crisp dress shirt the color of mint ice cream and a color-coordinated tie, which made him look like an insurance claims adjustor.

From an online chat between Bernd-Jürgen Brandes (cator99) and Armin Meiwes (antrophagus):

cator99: I’m in telecommunications

antrophagus: Oh, that sounds interesting

cator99: I believe you

...

antrophagus: It’s only a few days until March 9

cator99: Still, I would have rather met you yesterday and felt your teeth

antrophagus: One can’t have everything. There’s still some time before you really feel my teeth.

Nathan Myhrvold:

I was describing this to a friend over lunch in Palo Alto. As I was describing this the waiter came up behind me to take our order. I was in the middle of saying "it's very hard to enter the rectum, but once you do things move much faster", only to hear the waiter gasp.

Whoops.

I tried to explain saying "well, this is about" but with a horrified look he said "I do NOT want to know what this is about!" Some people are just not interested in natural history, I guess.

Marrakech

"You Westerners have your watches," the leader observed. "But we Taliban have time."

Doing a job properly takes the time it takes.

There used to be a time if you didn't have money to buy something, you just didn't buy it.

In an increasingly transitory world, the cellphone is becoming the one fixed piece of our identity.

Citizenship requires a commitment of time and attention, a commitment people cannot make if they are lost to themselves in an ever-accelerating cycle of work and consumption.

There are great benefits to connectedness, but we haven't wrapped our minds around the costs.

Being in the water alone, surfing, sharpens a particular kind of concentration, an ability to agree with the ocean, to react with a force that is larger than you are.

One of the greatest compliments I have ever given anyone I dated is that being with him was like being alone.

Each additional happy friend increases a person's probability of being happy by about 9%.

The symphony of Manhattan Island is the kind of music people would pay good money to be able to silence, if only there were a switch.

"This place is really nice and tranquil."

For too long, the conventional wisdom has been that social conservatives are the upholders of family values, whereas liberals are the proponents of a polymorphous selfishness. This isn't true, and, every once in a while, liberals might point that out.

We are most human when we feel dull. Lolling around in a state of restlessness is one of life's greatest luxuries.

We are not stressed because we have no time, but rather, we have no time because we are stressed.

Staring blankly at the seat back in front of you for the entire flight is no longer permitted on my airline. If you have brought nothing to read, a book will be provided for your use, at a charge of fifty dollars.

Bookshelves are not for displaying books you've read.

Time and Solititude | Another Noteworthy Year