Supplementary Reading

Come on, admit it — you like living at breakneck speed.

Life in the Fast Lane1

                    James Gleick

We are in a rush. We are making haste. A compression of time characterizes many of our lives. As time-use researchers look around, they see a rushing and scurrying everywhere. Sometimes culture resembles "one big stomped anthill," say John P. Robinson and Geoffrey Godbey in their book Time for Life.

2     (1) Instantaneity rules. Pollsters use electronic devices during political speeches to measure opinions on the wing, before they have been fully formed; fast-food restaurants add express lanes. Even reading to children is under pressure. The volume One-Minute Bedtime Stories consists of traditional stories that can be read by a busy parent in only one minute.

3     There are places and objects that signify impatience. The door-close button in elevators, so often a placebo used to distract riders to whom ten seconds seems an eternity. Speed-dial buttons on telephones. Remote controls, which have caused an acceleration in the pace of films and television commercials.

4     Time is a gentle deity, said Sophocles2. Perhaps it was, for him. These days it cracks the whip. (2) We humans have chosen speed, and we thrive on it — more than we generally admit. Our ability to work and play fast gives us power. It thrills us.

5     And if haste is the accelerator pedal, multitasking is overdrive. These days it is possible to drive, eat, listen to a book and talk on the phone — all at once, if you dare. David Feldman, in New York, schedules his tooth flossing to coincide with his regular browsing of online discussion groups. He has learned to hit PageDown with his pinkie. Mike Holderness, in London, watches TV with captioning so that he can keep the sound off and listen to the unrelated music of his choice. An entire class of technologies is dedicated to the furtherance of multitasking. Car phones. Bookstands on exercise machines. Waterproof shower radios.

6     Not so long ago, for most people, listening to the radio was a single task activity. Now it is rare for a person to listen to the radio and do nothing else.

7     Even TV has lost its command of our foreground. In so many households the TV just stays on, like a noisy light bulb, while the life of the family passes back and forth in its shimmering glow.

8     (3) A sense of well-being comes with this saturation of parallel pathways in the brain. We choose mania over boredom every time. "Humans have never, ever, opted for slower,” points out the historian Stephen Kern.

9     We catch the fever —and the fever feels good. We live in the buzz. "It has gotten to the point where my days, crammed with all sorts of activities, feel like an Olympic endurance event: the everydayathon[1]," confesses Jay Walljasper in the Utne Reader[2].

10    All humanity has not succumbed equally, of course. (4) If you make haste, you probably make it in the technology-driven world. Sociologists have also found that increasing wealth and increasing education bring a       sense of tension about time. We believe that we possess too little of it. No wonder Ivan Seidenberg, an American telecommunications executive, jokes about the mythical DayDoubler program his customers seem to want: "Using sophisticated time-mapping and compression techniques, DayDoubler gives you access to 48 hours each and every day. At the higher numbers DayDoubler becomes less stable, and you run the risk of a temporal crash in which everything from the beginning of time to the present could crash down around you, sucking you into a suspended time zone."

11    Our culture views time as a thing to hoard and protect. Timesaving is the subject to scores of books with titles like Streamlining Your Life; Take Your Time; More Hours in My Day. Marketers anticipate our desire to save time, and respond with fast ovens, quick playback, quick freezing and fast credit.

12    We have all these ways to "save time," but what does that concept really mean? Does timesaving mean getting more done? If so, does talking on a cellular phone at the beach save time or waste it? If you can choose between a 30-minute train ride, during which you can read, and a 20-minute drive, during which you cannot, does the drive save ten minutes? Does it make sense to say that driving saves ten minutes from your travel budget while removing ten minutes from your reading budget?

13    These questions have no answer. They depend on a concept that is ill formed: the very idea of timesaving. Some of us say we want to save time when really we just want to do more —and faster. It might be simplest to recognise that there is time and we make choices about how to spend it, how to spare it, how to use it and how to fill it.

14    Time is not a thing we have lost. It is not a thing we ever had. It is what we live in.

(808 words)

1. Culture Notes

1.    Time-space compression

Time-space compression is a term used to describe processes that seem to accelerate the experience of time and reduce the significance of distance during a given historical moment. It represents an essential facet of contemporary life. Theorists generally identify two historical periods in which time-space compression occurred: the period from the mid-nineteenth century to the beginnings of the First World War, and the end of the twentieth century. In both of these time periods, “there occurred a radical restructuring in the nature and experience of both time and space . . . both periods saw a significant acceleration in the pace of life concomitant with a dissolution or collapse of traditional spatial co-ordinates”.

2.    Time use research

Time use research is a developing interdisciplinary field of study dedicated to knowing how people allocate their time during an average day. The comprehensive approach to time use research addresses a wide array of political, economic, social, and cultural issues through the use of time use surveys. Surveys provide geographic data and time diaries that volunteers record using GPS technology and time diaries. Time use research investigates human activity inside and outside the paid economy. It also looks at how these activities change over time.

Time-use researcher Dagfinn Aas classifies time into four meaningful categories: contracted time, committed time, necessary time, and free time. Contracted time refers to the time a person allocates toward an agreement to work or study. Committed time refers to the time allocated to maintain a home and family. Necessary time refers to the time required to maintain one’s self as it applies to activities such as eating, sleeping, and cleansing and to a large extent exercising. Free time refers to the remains of the day after the three other types of time have been subtracted from the 24 hour day.

3.    Sophocles

With Aeschylus and Euripides, Sophocles was one of Athens’ three great tragic playwrights. Sophocles was wealthy from birth, highly educated, noted for his grace and charm, on easy terms with the leading families, a personal friend of prominent statesmen, and in many ways fortunate to have died before the final surrender of Athens to Sparta in 404 BC. Sophocles won his first victory at the Dionysian dramatic festival in 468 BC, which began a career of unparalleled success and longevity. In total, Sophocles wrote 123 dramas for the festivals, Oedipus the King  being the best known one.

Sophocles’ major dramatic innovation was his introduction of a third actor into the dramatic performance which enabled the dramatist both to increase the number of his characters and widen the variety of their interactions. The typical Sophoclean drama presents a few characters, impressive in their determination and power and possessing a few strongly drawn qualities or faults that combine with a particular set of circumstances to lead them inevitably to a tragic fate.

4.    Stephen Kern

Stephen Kern taught at Northern Illinois University for 32 years, completing his tenure there as a Distinguished Research Professor. He came to Ohio State in 2002. He was appointed a Humanities Distinguished Professor at Ohio State in 2004. His area of specialization is modern European cultural and intellectual history, with particular interests in psychoanalysis, phenomenology, the body and sexuality, time and space, love, vision, causality, and narrative theory. His major publications are Anatomy and Destiny: A Cultural History of the Human Body, The Culture of Time and Space: 1880-1918, The Culture of Love: Victorians to Moderns, Eyes of Love: The Gaze in English and French Paintings and Novels, A Cultural History of Causality: Science, Murder Novels, and Systems of Thought.

5.    Utne Reader

Utne Reader is an American bimonthly magazine founded in 1984 by Eric Utne and Nina Rothschild Utne. The magazine collects and reprints articles on politics, culture, and the environment from generally alternative media sources, including journals, newsletters, weeklies, zines, music and DVDs. In addition, the magazine's writers and editors contribute books, film, and music reviews and original articles which tend to focus on emerging cultural trends. The magazine's website produces seven blogs covering politics, environment, media, spirituality, science and technology, great writing, and the arts.

2. Language Study

in a rush: very quickly, in a hurry

*In the mornings we all are in a rush to get to work, school and various other places.

解聘上一个教练后他们并不急于聘请新教练。

(=They are not in a rush to employ a new coach following the recent dismissal of the previous one.)

make haste: hurry or hasten

*If you don’t make haste, we will be late for the meeting.

明智的人会很快原谅别人。

(=A wise man will make haste to forgive.)

on the wing: in motion; in flight

*It was really fantastic: about three thousand birds were on the wing together in the sky.

他射中了正在游泳的鸭子。

(=He shot the duck on the wing.)

under pressure: influenced by urgency or compulsion; suffering stress

*Teachers are under increasing pressure to work longer hours.

对他好点儿—— 他最近面临很多压力。

(=Be nice to him — he's been under a lot of pressure recently.)

We humans have chosen speed, and we thrive on it — more than we generally admit. Our ability to work and play fast gives us power. It thrills us.

   Translate the sentence into Chinese.

   (=我们人类选择了速度，凭借着速度而繁荣兴旺——其程度超过人们所普遍承认的那样。我们快节奏工作、娱乐的本领赋予我们力量。我们为此兴奋不已。)

thrill: vt. excite greatly; delight

*Yao Ming thrilled the basketball world with his performance.

仅站在他旁边就让她激动不已。

(=Just standing next to him thrilled her.)

browse: v. look for information on a computer; read superficially or at random

*She browsed through some travel brochure looking for ideas.

我爷爷学会了如何浏览网页。

(=My grandfather learned how to browse the Internet.)

caption: n. brief description accompanying an illustration

*He prefers to see the Chinese films with English captions.

给卡通片配上有趣的文字说明真的很难。

(=It’s really hard to write a funny cartoon caption.)

dedicate: vt. give entirely (to a specific person, activity, or cause)

*Professor Coleman has dedicated his life to studying the climate.

这个节目旨在使同学们熟悉丰富的多文化艺术世界。

(=The program is dedicated to acquainting students with the rich world of multicultural art.)

waterproof: adj. that cannot be penetrated by water

*Canvas boots are all right but they're not as waterproof as leather.

该公司将推出防止墙壁渗水的新技术。

(=The company will come up with a new technique for waterproof wall.)

back and forth: moving from one place to another and back again

*Much of her childhood was spent being moved back and forth, living in different foster families and care homes.

前两周乐队在明尼苏达和密歇根之间来回奔波，然后花了整整一月游览密西根。

(=For the first two weeks the band travelled back and forth between Minnesota and Michigan, then spent a solid month touring Michigan.)

parallel: adj. having the same distance between each other at every point

*Draw a pair of parallel lines.

希尔路和米尔路两路平行。

(=Hill Road is parallel to Mill Road.)

opt: vi. decide to do sth.; choose

*John opted for early retirement.

他不参加健康保险计划。

(=He opted out of the health insurance plan.)

"It has gotten to the point where my days, crammed with all sorts of activities, feel like an Olympic endurance event: the everydayathon," confesses Jay Walljasper in the Utne Reader.

Translate the sentence into Chinese.

   (=“程度已经如此严重，我的生活排满了各种各样的活动，感觉就像是在进行奥运会耐力项目比赛：每日马拉松赛，”杰伊·沃加斯泼在《优涅读者》杂志上坦言。)

endurance: n. state or power of enduring

*Running a marathon is a test of human endurance.

疼痛难以忍受。

(=The pain was bad beyond endurance.)

confess: vi. acknowledge; admit

*I've got something to confess — I ate the pie.

基督教会的成员们向牧师忏悔那些他们曾经做过的错事，以便能洗刷他们的罪恶。

(=Members of some Christian churches confess to their priest about the things they have done wrong so that their guilt can be removed.)

If you make haste, you probably make it in the technology-driven world. Sociologists have also found that increasing wealth and increasing education bring a sense of tension about time. We believe that we possess too little of it.

   Paraphrase the sentence.

   (=If you save time and do things quickly, you are likely to succeed in the technology-driven world. According to sociologists, the increasing wealth and increasing education make us feel so time-pressed that we always think we have too little time to get things done. )

possess: vt. have or own (sth.)

*Ruth possesses great knowledge in her field and a pleasing personality.

他是位极有天赋的作家，具有用通俗的语言表达复杂概念的才能。

(=He is an extremely gifted writer who possesses the talent of turning difficult concepts into words that everyone can understand.)

no wonder: it is not surprising that

*No wonder you have got a headache, given the amount you drank last night.

“她没得到那份工作。”“难怪她有点举止失常。”

(="She didn't get the job." "No wonder she didn't behave like her usual self.")

run the risk of: be in a situation in which sth. bad could happen

*If you tell him the truth, you run the risk of hurting his feelings.

信任他你冒了极大的风险。

(=You’re running a big risk in trusting him.)

temporal: adj. of or denoting time

*We need both spatial and temporal dimensions to make sense of the universe we perceive.

越来越多的人依靠时间界限而非传统的空间界限来区分家庭与工作。

(=A growing number of people rely on temporal boundaries to make the distinction between home and work instead of the traditional use of space.)

crash down: fall noisily, heavily and often dangerously

*A portion of a bridge supporting a water pipe crashed down on a passing commuter train.

我还没来得及喘一口气，另一个巨浪重重地打在我身上。

(=Before I could gasp for air, another huge wave crashed down on me. )

suspend: vt. cause to stop for a period; render temporarily ineffective

*The ferry service has been suspended for the day because of bad weather.

建筑物的屋顶上用绳子悬挂着一个木平台，建筑工人在上面干活。

(=The builders worked on wooden platforms, suspended by ropes from the roof of the building.)

3. Comprehension Task

1.    Dialogue

People hold different attitudes towards living at breakneck speed in the technology-driven world. Now you are required to get a partner and make up a dialogue between Woolf, who believes that we should break the busy habit and pay more attention to our quality of life, and Anderson, who maintains that the leisure time at the beach on the sunny day brings him distress and sense of guilty instead of joy. The dialogue should cover the following aspects:

(1)    current situation of people’s pace of life;

(2)  the reasons why Woolf thinks it necessary to stop living mechanically and unconsciously and take time to relax;

(3)  the reasons why Anderson prefers a busy life to the leisure time;

(4)            conflicts between Woolf and Anderson;

(5)            the settlement of the conflicts

2.    Listening and discussion

Fill in the blanks.

Listen to the passage carefully and fill in the blanks.

1.    It has been said that the Americans are slaves to ___________ and many of them have a rather acute sense of ___________. (=nothing but the clock; the shortness of each lifetime)

2.    A foreigner's first impression of the U.S. is likely to be that ___________, ___________. (=everyone is in a rush; often under pressure)

3.    It’s no wonder to see others in public eating-places waiting for you to finish so they can ___________ within the time allowed. (=be served and get back to work)

4.    Americans value time highly and they resent ___________. (=someone else wasting it beyond a certain appropriate point)

Retell the story

Listen to the passage again and retell the story in class.

Discussion

Form groups of 4 students in each and have a discussion based on the following questions.

1.    Do you agree with Americans on the statement “If you not moving ahead, you are falling behind”? Why or why not?

2.    Can you list evidences to show that Americans save time carefully?

3.    Do you think the time-conscious Americans should slow down their pace of life? Why?

1 The text is taken from Faster: the Acceleration of Just about Everything (1999), published by Pantheon Books.

2 Sophocles (496 BCE-406 BC): one of the most influential tragic dramatists of Ancient Greece

[1] everydayathon: a blending of everyday and marathon. A coinage of the author of this text, the word conjures up a picture of modern people who, in much the same way as those who run the marathon, battle against each other by working untiringly to complete all the tasks they cram into their days.

[2] Utne Reader: a magazine which collects articles from over 2,000 alternative media sources, each issue of which delivers compelling unorthodox, thought-provoking perspectives on social change, environment, gender, society, politics, etc.