The Diminishing Returns of Calendar Culture

"Monochronic cultures [one thing at a time] may be more ‘efficient’ in their use of time, but in their treatment of time as a commodity, they lose the richness that comes with allowing tasks, conversations, and interactions to move forward at a more natural and sustainable pace."

"[And] because rapid-growth capitalism favors a monochronic understand

... See more

Like our other troubles with time, our loss of synchrony obviously can’t be solved exclusively at the level of the individual or the family. (Good luck persuading everyone in your neighborhood to take the same day off work each week.) But we do each get to decide whether to collaborate with the ethos of individual time sovereignty or to resist it. ... See more

The more monetized society is, the more anxious and hurried its citizens. In parts of the world that are still somewhat outside the money economy, where subsistence farming still exists and where neighbors help each other, the pace of life is slower, less hurried. In rural Mexico, everything is done mañana. A Ladakhi peasant woman interviewed

... See more