The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence. Thomas Merton
In the opening chapter of Milan Kundera`s novella La Lenteur (Slowness) he describes in philosophic detail the ecstasy of driving a car:
In the opening chapter of Milan Kundera`s novella La Lenteur (Slowness) he describes in philosophic detail the ecstasy of driving a car:
"I am driving, and in the rearview mirror I notice a car behind me. The small left light is blinking, and the whole car emits waves of impatience. The driver is watching for the chance to pass me; he is watching for the moment the way a hawk watches for a sparrow... he is caught in a fragment of time cut off from both the past and the future; he is wrenched from the continuity of time; he is outside time; in other words he is in a state of ecstasy. In that state he is unaware of his age, his wife, his children, his worries, and so he has no fear, because the source of fear is in the future, and a person freed of the future has nothing to fear. Speed is the form of ecstasy the technical revolution has bestowed upon man... Why has the pleasure of slowness disappeared? Ah, where have they gone, the amblers of yesteryear?"
and the agony.
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