Listen!
PAUSE ON THE ROAD IN CUMBERLAND GAP TENNESSEE It was speed, the technology of rapidity, that made the nation pos- sible: the movement from roads and rivers to rail, then wires, a highway system, the air, etc., until we have nearly arrived at the point where what we wish to get done in a day can be accomplished instantly. Does it stop here, or do we continue to accelerate? Possibly yes. And as with the other modes of movement, perhaps we do this first in imagination, without realizing what is happening to us. Thus we begin to experience everything as though it had already happened, a lifetime of deja vu. This would explain our instantan- eous boredom, our despair, our cynicism--we've already seen how it will come out. The despair is worse than facing death. Death brings grief, a sense of loss which implies that there were people, places, things to which we were attached. This other moves us forward into a life where we never were, where we are irrelevant and nothing that is can matter to us, who are unconsciously consumed by our obsolescent birth. A detachment not balanced by having experienced attachment.