A society of consumption and leisure

is characterized by a particular temporality.
Surplus time,
which is the result of a massive increase in productivity,
is filled with events and experiences
that are fleeting and short-lived.

As nothing binds time in a lasting fashion,
the impression is created that time is passing very quickly,
or that time is accelerating.

Consumption and duration contradict each other.
Consumer goods do not last.
They are marked by decay,
as their constitutive element,
and the cycles of appearance and decay become ever shorter.

The capitalist imperative of growth
means that things are produced and consumed with increasing speed.
The compulsion to consume is immanent to the system of production.
Economic growth depends upon the quick uptake and consumption of things.

As the economy is organized with growth in mind,
it would completely grind to a halt
if people suddenly began to take care of things,
to protect them against decay
and to make sure they endure.

In the consumer society, one forgets how to linger.
Consumer goods do not permit a contemplative lingering.

Excerpt, The scent of time by Byung-chul Han p. 93

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Tuesday morning early, and I do not think the sun is yet up.  Here in the lobby of the Holiday Inn I want to formulate some good words in response, to summarize what Byung-chul Han has written.  Han writes to capture our current situation here in the West.  Development, consumption, “more” is the rule of thumb for Americans.

The working class desire more because they do not have enough.  Desire for better education, shelter, health care, a stable job is natural in the day to day condition of precarity.  The system is rigged to ensure the working class remain indefinitely “working class.”  This morning the New York Times reports that “after Starbucks workers around Buffalo began a push to unionize, the company closed stores and brought in out-of-state managers.”

The well-to-do, not to speak of the uber rich, — desire more because they are bored, existentially “lost” in those intervals of quiet when they are not consuming, not purchasing, not amusing themselves.  They have more than enough.  Yet they speak and write of the 24/7 work expectations of the corporations within which they have employment.  Remote work-at-home covid conditions have offered no respite to the treadmill of work.

There is another way.

Consume less to savor time.  Do nothing.  Walk quietly to listen to the call of a song bird.  Examine a flower.  Listen to the laughter of children in the distance.  Remember how to linger.  Recall that it is natural to take enough time, to take care of things.