住在快车道上

生活在快车道上，本文主要内容关键词为：快车道论文，此文献不代表本站观点，内容供学术参考，文章仅供参考阅读下载。

我们生活在一片匆忙中，整天忙来忙去，满脑子想着如何挤出时间来。研究时间使用的人环顾四周，只见到处都是忙忙碌碌，步履匆匆的人们。约翰P.罗宾逊和杰弗里·古德贝在《生活的时间》一书中说：“有时，美国文化好似一个被重踏的大蚁冢。”

瞬时性法则。在有关党派的意见还未完全形成之前，民意调查者就在政治演说中使用电子设备分析这些意见；快餐店增设了直达快道。甚至连给孩子朗读故事也是在压力之下进行的。在一本名为《一分钟睡前故事》的书中，所有的传统故事均可由忙碌的父母在一分钟内读完。

随处可见象征着不耐烦的东西，像电梯的关门按钮，它常常被乘客当做分散注意力的安慰剂，对这些人而言，10秒钟好似无限漫长；像电话上的快拨按钮，还有遥控器——它已导致电影和电视广告频率加快。

索菲克尔说时间是温柔的女神。或许对于他而言的确如此。然而，这些日子以来，时间把鞭子抽得啪啪响，催赶着人们。我们人类选择了速度，并靠速度繁荣起来，尽管这一点我们大体上不予认同。快速工作和玩乐的能力赋予我们力量，使我们激动万分。

如果匆忙是油门踏板的话，那么同时执行多项任务就是超速转动了。现如今，开车、吃饭、听书和电话聊天这些事完全可以同时进行，只要你敢这么做。纽约的大卫·弗尔德曼就是这样安排的：一边用洁牙线剔牙齿，一边浏览网上的讨论小组，他也很好地掌握了用小指头按“下一页”的技巧。伦敦的迈克·侯德尼斯看电视时关掉电视的声音，边看字幕边听与电视无关的自己所选的音乐。整个技术阶层致力于促进多任务的发展；轿车电话、健身器上的阅览架、防水浴室收音机。

不久以前，对于大多数人来说，听收音机只是一项单任务的活动。现在，如果一个人听收音机的同时不做其他任何事，那简直是少见。

甚至连电视也不能完全占据我们的视线。在很多家庭中，电视仅只是摆在那儿，像一只吵闹发亮的电灯泡，而家庭成员们则在它的陪衬下干着各自的事情。

生活得不错的感觉是伴随着大脑中并行路线的饱和而获得的。每一次我们都选择了疯狂而非厌烦无趣。历史学家史蒂芬·科恩指出：“人类从未，也未曾选择过缓慢。”我们发了热——发热的感觉不错。我们生活在闹哄哄中。正如杰·沃杰斯帕所说：“我现在已到了这种地步，每天都挤满了各种各样的活动，感觉就像一项奥运耐力项目——天天马拉松。”

忙碌有可能使你在以技术为驱动力的西方世界获得成功。社会学家发现，越来越多的财富和教育导致了一种时间紧迫感。我们认为自己拥有的时间太少了。难怪大西洋贝尔公司的首席执行官伊凡·西登堡就顾客希望得到的神话般的“双倍日”程序开玩笑说：“运用复杂的时间筹划和技术压缩，‘双倍日’程序能使你每天获得48个小时。这个数字越大，‘双倍日’就会变得越稳定，因而你会冒暂时的危险——所有从开头进行到现在的事会在你周围崩溃，将你吸入一个悬空的时间状态。”

我们的文化把时间看做是一个需要贮藏和保护的东西。节约时间是诸如名为《合理化生活》、《把握时间》、《每天多几小时》等几十种书的主题。市场营销人员由于预测到人们节约时间的愿望，而推出快速烤炉、快速音像设备和快速冷冻设备与之相应。

我们拥有所有这些“节约时间”的方法，但“节约时间”这个概念真正意味着什么？意味着做更多的事吗？如果是这样的话，那么在海滩上用手机打电话是节约了时间还是浪费了时间呢？假设你就此作个选择：30分钟的火车旅行，其间你能看书；20分钟的驾车，其间不能看书，那么驾车是否节约了10分钟呢？驾车能从旅行预算中节约10分钟，却从阅读预算中减去了10分钟，这样说有道理吗？

这些问题都没有答案。它们都取决于一个概念——对节约时间本身的看法。我们中的一些人说我们想节约时间，事实上我们只是想做得更多更快。或许这样去想更为简单：时间还是有的，我们只要就如何消耗、节约、使用和充实时间作出选择就可以了。

时间不是我们已失去的，也不是我们曾拥有过的。时间是我们生活的空间，我们生活在时间中。

Come on,admit it—you like living at breakneck 1 speed

We are in a rush.We are making hasfe.A compression 2 of time characterizes our lives.As timeuse researchers look around,they see a rushing and scurrying 3 everywhere."Sometimes American culture resembles one big stomped 4 anthill 5,"say John P.Robinson and Geoffrey Godbey in their book Time for Life.

Instantaneify 6 rules.Pollsters use electronic devices during political speeches to measure opinions on the wing,before they have been fully formed;fast-food restaurants add express lanes.Even reading to children is under pressure.The volume One-Minutte Bedtime Stories consists of traditional stories that can be read by a busy parent in only one minute.

There are places and objects that signify impatience.The door-close button in elevators,so often a placebo 7 used to distract riders to whom ten seconds seems an etrnity.Speed-dial buttons on telephones.Remote controls,which have caused an acceleration 8 in the pace of films and television commercials.

Time is a gentle deity,said Sophocles.Perhaps it was,for him.These days it cracks the whip.We humans have chosen speed,and we thrive on it—more than we generally admit.Our ability to work fast and play fast gives us power.It thrills us.

And if haste is the gas pedal,multitasking 9 is overdrive.These days it is possible to drive,eat,listen to a book and talk on the phone—all at once,if you,dare.David Feldman,in New York,schedules his tooth flossing to coincide with his regular browsing of online discussion groups.He has learned to hit Page Down with his pinkie 10.Mike Holderness,in London,watches television with closed captioning 11 so that he can keep the sound off and listen to the unrelated music of his choice.An entire class of technologies is dedicated to the furterance 12 of multitasking.Car phones.Bookstands on exercise machines.Waterproof shower radios.

Not long ago,for most people,listening to the radio was a single-task activity.Now it is rare for a person to listen to the radio and do nothing else.

Even television has lost its command of our foreground 13.In so many households the TV just stays on,like a noisy light bulb,while the life of the family passes back and forth in its shimmering 14 glow.

A sense of well-being comes with this saturation 15 of parallel pathways in the brain.We choose mania over boredom every time."Humans have never,ever opted for slower,"points out the historian Stephen Kern.We catch the fever—and the fever feels good.We live in the buzz."It has gotten to the point where my days,crammed with all sorts of activities,feel like an Olympic endurance event:the everydayathon,"confesses Jay Walljasper in the Utne Reader.

If you make haste,you probably make it in the technology-driven Western world.Sociologists have also found that increasing wealth and increasing educa tion bring a sense of tension about time.We believe that we possess too little of it.No wonder lvan Seidenberg,CEO of Bell Atlantic,jokes about themythical DayDoubler program his customers seem to want:"Using sophisticated time-mapping and compression techniquse,DayDoubler gives you access to 48 hours each and every day.At the higher numbers DayDoubler becomes less stable,and you run the risk of a temporal crash in which everything from the beginning of time to the present could crash down around you,sucking you into a suspended 16 time zone."

Our culture views time as a thing to hoard and protect.Timesaving is the subject of scores of books with titles like Streamlining 17 Your Life;Take Your Time;More Hours in My Day.Marketers anticipate our desire to save time,and respond with fast ovens,quick palyback and quick freezing.

We have all these ways to"save time,"but what does that concept really mean?Does timesaving mean getting more done?If so,does talking on a cellular phone at the beach save time or waste it?If you can choose between a 30-minute train ride,during which you can read,and a 20-minute drive,during which you cannot,does the drive save ten minutes?Does it make sense to say that driving saves ten minutes from your travel budget while removing ten minutes from your reading budget?

These questions have no answer.They depend on a concept that is ill formed:the very idea of timesaving.Some of us say we want to save time when really,we just want to do more—and faster.It might be simplest to recognize that there is time and we make choices about how to spend it,how to spare it,how to use it and how to fill it.

Time is not a thing we have lost.It is not a thing we ever had.It is what we live in.

1.breakneck a.非常快的，极危险的