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474864a
|
"Now, 75 years [after ], in an abundant society where people have laptops, cell phones, iPods, and minds like empty rooms, I still plod along with books.
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|
reading
vacuity
modern-life
superficiality
critical-thinking
computers
communication
|
Harper Lee |
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876bca2
|
My biggest problem with modernity may lie in the growing separation of the ethical and the legal
|
|
court-system
courts
ethical-behaviour
governement
modern-society
the-supreme-court
modern-life
modernity-is-a-sickness
law-and-order
corruption
lawyers
law
ethics
government
modernity
|
Nassim Nicholas Taleb |
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16a7e10
|
What organized dating sites fail to understand is that the people are far more interesting in what they don't say about themselves.
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|
dating-advice
modern-life
men-and-women
dating
internet
modernity
|
Nassim Nicholas Taleb |
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51c09dc
|
The classical man's worst fear was inglorious death; the modern man's worst fear is just death
|
|
fear
religion
modern
modern-life
modernity-is-sickness
modern-values
evangelism
narcissism
modernity
values
|
Nassim Nicholas Taleb |
|
994e7a0
|
The multiplication of technologies in the name of efficiency is actually eradicating free time by making it possible to maximize the time and place for production and minimize the unstructured travel time in between...Too, the rhetoric of efficiency around these technologies suggests that what cannot be quantified cannot be valued-that that vast array of pleasures which fall into the category of doing nothing in particular, of woolgathering, cloud-gazing, wandering, window-shopping, are nothing but voids to be filled by something more definite, more production, or faster-paced...I like walking because it is slow, and I suspect that the mind, like the feet, works at about three miles an hour. If this is so, then modern life is moving faster than the speed of thought or thoughtfulness.
|
|
modern-life
walking
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Rebecca Solnit |
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124c568
|
There is a danger of developing a blanket distaste for modern life which could have its attractions but lack the all-important images to help us identify them.
|
|
modern-life
|
Alain de Botton |
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35b0e0f
|
"In our consumer culture, we always want the next best thing: the latest, the newest, the youngest. Failing that, we at least want more: more intensity, more variety, more stimulation. We seek instant gratification and are increasingly intolerant of any frustration. Nowhere are we encouraged to be satisfied with what we have, to think, "this is good. This is enough."
|
|
more
modern-life
|
Esther Perel |
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e745e4e
|
There's a hardness I'm seeing in modern people. Those little moments of goofiness that used to make the day pass seem to have gone. Life's so serious now. Maybe it's just because I'm with an older gang now.[...]I mean nobody even has hobbies these days. Not that I can see. Husbands and wives both work. Kids are farmed out to schools and video games. Nobody seems able to endure simply being themselves, either - but at the same time they're isolated. People work much more, only go home and surf the Internet and send e-mail rather than calling or writing a note or visiting each other. They work, watch TV, and sleep. I see these things. The world is only about work: work work work get get get...racing ahead...getting sacked from work...going online...knowing computer languages...winning contracts. I mean, it's just not what I would have imagined the world might be if you'd asked me seventeen years ago. People are frazzled and angry, desperate about money, and, at best, indifferent to the future.
|
|
future
work
modern-life
today
|
Douglas Coupland |
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df3776a
|
"People with Books. What, in 2007, could be more incongruous than that? It makes me want to laugh." [ ]"
|
|
reading
books
modern-society
modern-life
|
Michael Chabon |
|
bb3faec
|
Modern life is a centrifuge; it throws people in every direction.
|
|
rootlessness
migration
modern-life
modernity
|
Paul Murray |
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7a2a722
|
Y lo que, por el contrario, me sucede a mi en las raras horas de placer, lo que para mi es delicia, suceso, elevacion y extasis, eso no lo conoce, ni lo ama, ni lo busca el mundo mas que si acaso en las novelas; en la vida, lo considera una locura. Y en efecto, si el mundo tiene razon, si esta musica de los cafes, estas diversiones en masa, estos hombres americanos contentos con tan poco tienen razon, entonces soy yo el que no la tiene, entonces es verdad que estoy loco, entonces soy efectivamente el lobo estepario que tantas veces me he llamado, la bestia descarriada en un mundo que le es extrano e incomprensible, que ya no encuentra ni su hogar, ni su ambiente, ni su alimento.
|
|
life
lobo-estepario
vida-moderna
existencialismo
lobo
hesse
modern-life
existentialism
|
Hermann Hesse |
|
6fd4db3
|
The stories we read in books, what's presented to us as being interesting - they have very little to do with real life as it's lived today. I'm not talking about straight-up escapism, your vampires, serial killers, codes hidden in paintings, and so on. I mean so-called serious literature. A boy goes hunting with his emotionally volatile father, a bereaved woman befriends an asylum seeker, a composer with a rare neurological disorder walks around New York, thinking about the nature of art. People looking back over their lives, people having revelations, people discovering meaning. Meaning, that's the big thing. The way these books have it, you trip over a rock you'll find some hidden meaning waiting there. Everyone's constantly on the verge of some soul-shaking transformation. And it's - if you'll forgive my language - it's bullshit. Modern people live in a state of distraction. They go from one distraction to the next, and that's how they like it. They don't transform, they don't stop to smell the roses, they don't sit around recollecting long passages of their childhood - Jesus, I can hardly remember what I was doing two days ago. My point is, people aren't waiting to be restored to some ineffable moment. They're not looking for meaning. That whole idea of the novel - that's finished.
|
|
literature
meaning
modern-life
novels
modernity
|
Paul Murray |
|
5889583
|
I felt like I wasn't living thoroughly enough -- I was distracted in ways I wouldn't be if I'd been born in 1929.
|
|
distractions
modern-life
mindfulness
|
Miranda July |
|
6fb043b
|
A diet of solely mental work is suffocating.
|
|
depression
modern-life
|
Tom Hodgkinson |
|
ee6619c
|
Tech made all things possible, and therefore mandatory. Not to mention the fact that carrying around all this smartphone in your purse or pocket had become such a fantastic drag. Cranial implant was so much easier. Now they could be in touch with the hive 24/7 and have their hands free for whatever. Their cars drove them everywhere, too. Also left them free to, you know, do whatever.
|
|
science
science-fiction-comedy
snarky-humor
modern-life
technology
sarcasm
|
Stanley Bing |