J on Nostr: “Along the way, the West began employing technology in an effort to flatten every ...

“Along the way, the West began employing technology in an effort to flatten every physical manifestation of the natural cycle. With artificial light, we believe we can defeat the sleep-wake cycle; with climate control, the seasonal cycle; with refrigeration, the agricultural cycle; and with high-tech medicine, the rest-recovery cycle.

Triumphal linearism has shaped the very style of Western and (especially) American civilization. Before, when cyclical time reigned, people valued patience, ritual, the relatedness of parts to the whole, and the healing power of time within nature. Today, we value haste, iconoclasm, the disintegration of the whole into parts, and the analytic power of time outside nature.”