At the time of writing this blog entry, the year is 2018 and, for those of us born in the second half of the past century, it is a moment filled with excitement, fear, wonder, and uncertainty. And those emotions are ignited from a bubbling global political climate, where plots, intrigues, and schemes are layered with false information and true facts. There is also fuel for anxiety being pumped from new discoveries in Mars, climate change on Earth, the promise of and threat from artificial intelligence, seas of plastic, and the promise of longer life-spans rooted in new studies around cellular regeneration.
And using my memory as an imperfect source of reference, I recall my grandparents and their strenuous routine, their disciplined and committed work ethic, how their lives seemed to revolve around work, how they worked to live. Moving one generation forward, my parents and their peers were clocking fifty-hours-plus of work every week, time of their lives needed to compensate for economical upheavals and the military junta-de-jour so common in some parts of South America during the 1960s, 70s, and even in the "modern" 80's.
It is again 2018 and this is the United Kingdom. I have the privilege of working for a consultancy firm that has gathered many accolades that acknowledge its excellence in the very competitive industry of information technology. Although working and living conditions are far from similar to those found in the copper mines of the Atacama desert or the perilous roads of rural Ecuador, the balance between time spent working and enjoying life does not have the gentle swing of a hammock facing the Ecuadorian beach during sunset. And my question lingers on, where is progress? why is it possible to access monstrous amounts of information almost instantly and it is not possible to find time for a much needed siesta?
TU811 - Introduction to the System of Interest
And using my memory as an imperfect source of reference, I recall my grandparents and their strenuous routine, their disciplined and committed work ethic, how their lives seemed to revolve around work, how they worked to live. Moving one generation forward, my parents and their peers were clocking fifty-hours-plus of work every week, time of their lives needed to compensate for economical upheavals and the military junta-de-jour so common in some parts of South America during the 1960s, 70s, and even in the "modern" 80's.
It is again 2018 and this is the United Kingdom. I have the privilege of working for a consultancy firm that has gathered many accolades that acknowledge its excellence in the very competitive industry of information technology. Although working and living conditions are far from similar to those found in the copper mines of the Atacama desert or the perilous roads of rural Ecuador, the balance between time spent working and enjoying life does not have the gentle swing of a hammock facing the Ecuadorian beach during sunset. And my question lingers on, where is progress? why is it possible to access monstrous amounts of information almost instantly and it is not possible to find time for a much needed siesta?
-> The need to work less is a matter of life and death