What is the world’s biggest problem? Perhaps it is our inability to keep up with it. The world, I mean.
Inventions are often touted as a means to save time. Conveyor belts in factories drive assembly lines, while escalators and elevators transport people up and down.
Inventors built cars, trains, and planes to make life easier. With what result?
Our bonus miles earn airport security evaluations, baggage checks, and a trudge to the gate. Fellow frustrated travelers become obstacles — things not human — as if intended to disrupt everyone’s pace.
Within our intimidating cities, rush hour now covers much of the day. The distance from your town to downtown has increased. Overflow traffic creates more opportunities for gawkers, rubbernecking, and those who simply gape.
Lanes get added, and more drivers fill them. Highway restoration due to overuse is ongoing. Choose your season: winter or road-repair?
Do we save time? We have more books, computerized PDFs, blogs, and essays; more announcers, critics, podcasts, and talking heads. Everyone has something to say.
How does one determine what is worth reading and which voices reward attention? How do we distinguish the essential from the inessential, truth from fiction?
The wealth of medical information is ever-expanding. Physicians are often hospital employees on their own treadmill of high-speed patient appointments.
To our benefit, they are experts in various categories of practice, including dermatology, radiology, cardiology, gastroenterology, and urology, among others.
For the sick person, however, an appointment becomes the first step in a slow-motion relay race to multiple practitioners, before reaching the right destination.
Way back, doctors used a chalkboard for patients to sign in and wait. They were admitted to the office in the order of their arrival.
Telephones, Zoom, email, and texting enable employees to be available and respond to communications at all times and from any location, whether at home or away.
The days of cow bells or buzzers to signal the start and end of the workday are long past. Sunrise and sunset suggest the time, but not your work schedule.
The machines drive us, the calls and messages haunt us, and spam inundates us. The speed of change, the slippery ground, and the madness of kings create our Age of Uncertainty.
Should seeking balance unbalance us? One begins with required tasks, but who can tell us what matters and predict the future we need to fashion a plan?
Houses of worship, parents, scientists, and teachers carry down-sized authority. The competitor chooses the tune and the boss leads the dance. The government sells a witch’s brew of domination, newly manufactured each day.
Many people are held hostage by their phones, drawn by the camera or a person on a call rather than the people nearby.
Does anyone treat selfie addicts? Life has become like a walk through Alice’s looking glass, then the next, then the next, as we search for ourselves and the days ahead.
Do we “lay waste to our powers,” as William Wordsworth wrote around 1802? Doubtless, we find new ways these days.
What do we miss?
Thinking, reading, and studying were typical on the ocean liners and railroad transportation of times past. Teachers required memorization of poetry by their public school students into the mid-20th century.
An ease of life not dominated by on-time performance was the human experience before clocks and trains made timeliness possible.
Personal expectation of clocked efficiency has become a stick for self-flagellation.
Reading old books allows one to learn something new with each reading, provided the material is well-chosen and relevant. Making music was once a common practice at home. Telling stories enriches both the speaker and the listener.
Not each acquaintance should be considered part of your network or the kind of person who will promote your future success.
Success, I repeat, or call it wage-slavery, as you wish. Evaluate its importance and the cost in human terms, and the gain or loss in joy.
Talking to and getting to know neighbors on hot nights outdoors would be novel. Everyone cheered the arrival of air-conditioned coolness, but such conversations disappeared.
The gated, guarded communities of today keep us further apart.
We must search beyond ourselves and see into the depths of another’s sadness, past what he cannot utter. Embrace this stranger, as Leviticus 19:34 of the Hebrew Bible reminds us.
Beware the much-needed, self-imposed distraction as a substitute for reinventing your life. Meditate, too—every day.
Take up sewing if it’s a new craft for you. Build something with your hands.
Eliminate tasks. Slow down. Say no. Learn more. Stand up. Beat back your fear. Do not try to please everyone.
Maintain old friendships and make new ones. Write cards or letters in cursive. Play chess.
Hug the people and animals you love. Speak of love with those you cannot live without. Speak of it with everyone.
Pray for them, too.
I don’t do all of these, and I’ve listed too many.
Escape the grasp of our mechanized, categorized, bullet-sprayed world.
The Chinese proverb tells us, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”
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The first image is that of A Nepalese Grandmother Preparing Food inside a Traditional Kitchen. This is an edited version of Mithun Kunwa’s work, as adapted by Radomianin and sourced from Wikimedia Commons.
The following item is Metropolis, 1917, a painting by the German artist George Grosz. Finally, Elephant at Sunset in Amboseli, Early November 2024, by the photographic artist Laura Hedien, with her kind permission, Laura Hedien Official Website.
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I think this may be a new favorite essay from you, Dr. Stein. Especially this poignancy as you concluded the piece. Every word conveys meaning…capturing where my head and heart need to be these days:
“Eliminate tasks. Slow down. Say no. Learn more. Stand up. Beat back your fear. Do not try to please everyone.
Maintain old friendships and make new ones. Write cards or letters in cursive. Play chess.
Hug the people and animals you love. Speak of love with those you cannot live without. Speak of it with everyone.
Pray for them, too.”
Many thanks to you for sharing with us. 💝
Much appreciated, Vicki. In our complicated times we each need to find the person within ourselves who is fit for the times.
Thank you for the encouragement to do so! ❤️
Exactly how I feel this morning. It’s Sunday and it is always a busy day in my house, especially during the school year. Planning for the week, taking care of myself. Being a part of a family, doing outside household chores. The list is endless. Sometimes it is difficult to choose the best among so many good things.
I am glad they are all good, Clay, and you appreciate the goodness in them. You sound like a lucky man, and a wise one, too. Thank you.
I’m with Vicki. This post was spot-on, Dr. Stein. This was one of the most potent lessons that emerged from years of illness: when physically and cognitively incapable of doing anything, our bodies and mind crave the slow and steady engagement of poetry, walks, a good conversation, or a needle and thread. Not social media, CNN, nor performative business. I think most, if not all human, crave the meaningful moments of a slow, thoughtful, and intentional life, in all the small nuanced ways you suggest.
You have been given a terrifying lesson in the meaning of life, Erin. If someone offered it to me, “I will give you unimaginable pain and loss for many years, without certainty of remission, in return for wisdom,” I’d have walked away from it.
What is extraordinary about you, is that you survived and learned from it in a way that many do not. Because of your wisdom and perspective, your words mean a great deal to me. Thank you.
Yes, you understand. It’s interesting being in litigation trying to put a value on the loss. There is no number high enough. While I’m grateful for the lessons learned, I would not choose the path by my own volition.
I’m lucky that I had read (and re-read) many books on Holocaust survivors, memoirs on terminal illness and dying, and philosophical and spiritual reflections prior to getting ill (e.g., Man’s Search for Meaning, Enjoy Every Sandwich: Living Each Day as If It Were Your Last, The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle). It was the wisdom of those that came before and shared so graciously that guided me on my own journey. Nonetheless, thank you for your kind words. 💗
[…] air is always refreshing, and I was ready for the day. I was a reading a few blogs and I came read Dr. Gerald Stein’s post – Our Questionable Progress, and I thought how appropriate it was as I was feeling overloaded starting the day. Sunday is […]
Dr. Stein, it’s so true about the myriad ways in which modern progress has made our lives more complicated and with less time for ourselves and our loved ones. There’s just too much to grab and steal our attention. I miss the simple pleasure of sitting and chatting outdoors with my neighbors, once a part of my former life in Brazil. Thanks for your suggestions for re-connecting with ourselves and with others.
Thank you, Rosaliene. I the speed of change, even apart from our political problems, interfere with what was normal human life. With AI being a present complication, it is very hard to know where the world of work is headed. I am glad you are around to help make our way through it.
It’s crazy, Dr. Stein! By the way, my copy of Goliath’s Curse has arrived. I look forward to reading it.
Until “Embrace this stranger”, caro dottor Stein, how depressing the world you describe, alas, our world…
Won’t comment.
But, ssshhhht, will disclose two magic moments that just happened to me:
I met a baby fox for the first time in my forest by down, how tender, how fragile how fast…
I met a salamander in my forest by night (not first time, happens often with rain), how fragile, how afraid, how slow…
Our technical, cold, spiritually empty world disappeared: magic!
I am glad you entered the forest and met it’s creatures, Micaela. As I write, I am listening to Beethoven’s Second Symphony conducted by the great German, Hans Rosbaud.
Yes, there is beauty in the world and much else. I do not know that one necessarily compensates for the other. I suppose that depends on both the circumstances and the individual, as well as the place and the moment in history. Be well.
What a powerful piece, Dr. Stein. Not only did you highlight so many important issues we are facing and their causes, but you also provided solutions. This part is spot on: “Eliminate tasks. Slow down. Say no. Learn more. Stand up. Beat back your fear. Do not try to please everyone.”
I’m afraid we are creating more problems through our obsession with improving our lives. Now we need to figure out how to increase electricity supply to support warehouses full of computers built to solve a problem that was never really a problem.
Thank you, Edward. It sounds like you have targeted AI and the reportedly enormous cost of supplying it with energy. I don’t recall any discussion of this that would have allowed the people to hear of the costs and have a voice in the decision to open the expensive door to it. Does it amount to taxation without representation? Perhaps we should consult the signers of the Declaration of Independence.
You’re welcome, and definitely no discussion is occurring at the community level, at least not in my area. Meta (Facebook) just signed a 20-year agreement with the nuclear plant in our area to provide energy (or at least credits) for their data centers. I’m sure we are going to pay more, either through taxes, worsening of our environment, or maybe both.
hello dr stein. i found my way to the concept of an RSS feed this week and discovered i could add blog posts. i knew i wanted to be able to read you again. and, as usual, this touched me. i have thought similar things as you have wriiten about, but i was moving so fast, i didn’t have (take) the time to write thoughtfully.
i have been resting, recovering, and seeing a NARM therapist since right before I stopped posting at the end of May. i can’t believe how burned out i was and how hard i pushed myself forever. i appreciate your words and am glad i have found you again, especially without the extra noise on wordpress.
so many choices. so many demands for attention. some simple practices that provide a counter to the busy lives so many of us lead.
I am delighted to hear from you, Susan! I do recall some of the challenges you described on your own posts and am glad you are feeling better and seeing a therapist. It sounds like you are on the right track.
Your writing has always been thoughtful, in my book. Best to you, your husband, and Kepler.
“The competitor chooses the tune and the boss leads the dance. The government sells a witch’s brew of domination, newly manufactured each day.” – wow, wow, wow. That encapsulates so much. I love your suggestions for ways to slow down and reconnect. Beautiful, Dr. Stein.
Thank you, Wynne. The demands of living have been growing for a while, as has the diminution of civility and the concern for our fellow man. I have no perfect solutions, but I do appreciate that you find the ones I have cited as a place to start. Be well.
[…] Make a cup of tea or coffee. Find a quiet spot and take 10 minutes to slowly read Dr. Stein’s brilliant post and let the words sink in. Then, think about how you can use this information in your […]