Distracted MassesVol. 1 Issue #2 Oct. 2014 | Page 7

November 2014 Vol. 1 Issue 2 DISTRACTED MASSES t h, g my tion in n i r o Expl d distrac rld. n wo on , a nder illusi media u t he SLOW IS SMOOTH, SMOOTH IS FAST Time is precious we’re told, so why be in such a rush all the time? Because, it seems, we can’t help it. With ADD, consumerism, addiction, adrenaline, and advertising it’s hard not to be in such a rush. The rush is addictive, but dangerous - shortened timeframes don’t allow for quality growth and development. Just channel watch, flip, flip, flip, watch. At what point should we say productivity and efficiency are more important than quality? With food? The tech industry? Housing? It’s admirable that some foundations and philanthropists take the time to use their money, which is earned off other people’s time, in order to provide resources to communities in need, but the majority of these communities are often broken because of the time they’re denied - the time they need to build quality family and community relationships and social development. Maria Konnikova tells us in her article “No Money, No Time” that, “Efficiency is always the more exhausting and demanding alternative. Attention is finite. For a while I may be more focused, but I can run on all cylinders for only so long. If I’m forced to operate under constraint all the time, my performance will suffer - and I may not even be capable of recognizing the deficit.” So what’s the lesson learned? Well, you know remember the tortoise and the hare story when you were growing up? Yeah, it’s simple - slow is smooth, smooth is fast. So for this issue we decided to slow it down a bit, and hopefully the result is of a higher quality. www.zazzle.com/ distractedmasses [7]