Modern fragmented experience makes life race at both ends.
Evidence
It is conceivable that everyday experience in contemporary society increasingly produces this temporal pattern because the episodes of experience that densely follow one another display a tendency toward decontextualization: lived experiences that are short, stimulation-rich, but remain isolated from each other, i.e., without any internal connection, and replace each other in rapid transitions such that time begins to race in a certain way “at both ends,” that is, it elapses very fast during the activities, which are felt to be brief (and often stressful), but at the same time it seems in hindsight to “shrink” so that days and years hurry by as if in flight. In the end we have the feeling that we have hardly lived, although we may be old in years. Thus we lived, so to speak longer (objectively), and shorter (subjectively) at the same time. — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration, 405
Categorization
- recurring: this claim recurs 2 times within its source
- XREF: connects to: Time-saving technology coexists with unprecedented felt time scarcity; Rich experiences feel short while passing but long in memory. — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration: A New Theory of…, 399; Postmodern fragmentation results from acceleration forcing nonintegrated parallel processing past a critical threshold — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration: A New Theory of…, 593 (+2 more)
Broader Connections
- Modern life erodes integrated experience, replacing narration with information and shocks
#expands(0.90) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 623 - The constant rush through life leads to anxiety and dissatisfaction.
#expands(0.80) — Dan Harris, 10 percent Happier, 279