“Nowadays, encounters of the spirit must be scheduled long in advance, and even then the endless tide of deferred chores and anticipated engagements never ceases to break on our attention…
“In 1930, John Maynard Keynes predicted that in the future, as technology increased efficiency and production, a fifteen-hour work week would become the norm: ‘Thus for the first time since his creation man will be faced with his real, his permanent problem—how to use his freedom from pressing economic cares, how to occupy the leisure, which science and compound interest will have won for him, to live wisely and agreeably and well.’
“It hasn’t panned out.” — Giles Harvey, New Yorker