Thursday, February 21, 2008

Slow Down Follow-Up

I was humming Simon & Garfunkel's "59th Bridge Street Song" and Googling the lyrics, after writing about them yesterday, when I stumbled upon Joanna Young's post about slowing down. I really liked her reference to the Quirkology experiment which studied the pace in the world's largest cities. Fortunately for me, she also saved me time by including the lyrics I was looking for.


Also, here is a link to get some sweet puzzles on Amazon. And, if you've got a few minutes to kill now, here is a an online jigsaw puzzle. Don't get caught doing it at work though.

I was thinking about where our culture is heading now that the information age is getting into it's 30s, now that we have "crackberrys" and drive-through Bucks. Our productivity has not increased with the widespread use of computers. Steve Rubel and others point to various causes, but I would argue that our culture has a unhealthy relationship to work.

The concept of Sabbath is central to the Jewish and Christian faiths. One of the themes behind it is it's supposed to be a day of both fast and feast. You fast from desire, from greed, and from work. You feast on the things you have, your family and friends, and on God. This is not something I'm particularly good at, and our culture definitely sucks at it. Until we learn to rest, though, I don't think we'll ever find peace in our work.