We have met the Devil of Information Overload and his impish underlings, the computer virus, the busy signal, the dead link, and the PowerPoint presentation.
James GleickRead
Neither technology nor efficiency can acquire more time for you, because time is not a thing you have lost. It is not a thing you ever had.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that time is not something we possess or can regain; rather, it is a fundamental aspect of existence that we experience.
James Gleick's quote emphasizes the elusive nature of time, highlighting that despite our desire to manage or optimize it through technology and efficiency, we cannot actually 'acquire' more time. It posits that time is not a resource to be hoarded or lost but a continuous experience that shapes our lives, implying that accepting this reality can lead to a more meaningful engagement with the present.
In practice
Using this quote in a presentation about time management.
We have met the Devil of Information Overload and his impish underlings, the computer virus, the busy signal, the dead link, and the PowerPoint presentation.
A good part of 'The Information' is about the transition from an oral to a literary culture. Books effected such a great transformation in the way we think about the world, our history, our logic, mathematics, you name it. I think we would be greatly diminished as a people and as a culture if the book became obsolete.
I'm trying to look at many, many things in modern life that I believe are going faster, and I'm trying to look at why they're going faster and what effect they have on us. We all know about FedEx and instant pudding, but it doesn't mean we've looked at all the consequences of our desire for speed.
Everything we care about lies somewhere in the middle, where pattern and randomness interlace.
Every time a new technology comes along, we feel we're about to break through to a place where we will not be able to recover. The advent of broadcast radio confused people. It delighted people, of course, but it also changed the world.
"Half genius and half buffoon," Freeman Dyson ... wrote. ... [Richard] Feynman struck him as uproariously American-unbuttoned and burning with physical energy. It took him a while to realize how obsessively his new friend was tunneling into the very bedrock of modern science.
Compassion literally means to feel with, to suffer with. Everyone is capable of compassion, and yet everyone tends to avoid it because it's uncomfortable. And the avoidance produces psychic numbing - resistance to experiencing our pain for the world and other beings.
Mind is nothing but dreams and dreams - dreams of the past, dreams of the future, dreams of how things should be, dreams of great ambitions, achievements. Dreams and desires, that is the stuff mind is made of. But it surrounds you like a China Wall. And because of it the fish remains unaware of the ocean.
Man's ultimate concern must be expressed symbolically, because symbolic language alone is able to express the ultimate.
Much violence is based on the illusion that life is a property to be defended and not to be shared.
It's hard for a Jew of my generation, an American Jew, who is philo-Zionistic, not to romanticize Israel.
In short, is American life of the future to be characterized by freedom or by servitude, strength or weakness? The answer must be clear and unequivocal if we are to avoid the pitfalls toward which we are now heading with such certainty. In many respects it is not to be found in any dogma of political philosophy but in those immutable precepts which underlie the Ten Commandments.
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