The emerging critique of time pressure
Part 2 of 3 | Part 1
When Tim Kreider tries to distinguish between people who have time pressures forced on them
and people who choose to put that stress on themselves, he has already lost the
means to make sense of why his essay resonated with so many people. If it was
just a matter of a few neurotic or self-important people who, against their own
best interests, load themselves down with things to do, his critique wouldn’t
have been relevant on such a broad scale. But Kreider himself writes, “Almost everyone I know is busy.” When a
particular kind of behavior or experience becomes socially general, we can be sure
it’s not because of personal idiosyncrasy on a mass scale—which is an
oxymoron. Rather, something about society itself is causing that behavior to
proliferate.
Today time stress is not simply widespread—it’s hegemonic. It is the
normal way of being for everyone in mainstream society. Whether you’re the
janitor working three jobs to stave off your family’s hunger, the entrepreneur
constantly casting about for capital to fund your project, the college student
going to two student group meetings tonight even though you have a 20-page
paper due tomorrow, the bodega owner who minds the counter all day long and
then does inventory after closing, the corporate lawyer cramming in final
preparations to win impunity for the big client, the artist furiously networking
at all the parties, the logistics worker forced to move more and more freight
every day, the politician making the hundredth call today asking a rich person
for money, the food prep worker always coping with short staff—that is,
whether on the surface it seems that you have chosen your fate or had it forced
upon you—we are all completely overwhelmed.
