In the middle of the 19th century, Ralph Waldo Emerson registered a lyric complaint about the oppressive force of material goods: "Web to weave and corn to grind; Things are in the saddle and ride mankind."
Talk about your sensitive poets. If Emerson found such modest machinery as corn grinders dehumanizing, how would he handle the end of this century? Today we are more than ever slaves of technology, tethered to computers and cell phones and beepers. Meanwhile, we have to cope with unprecedented change. Things are riding us faster and faster.
And the more tethered we become, the faster things...
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