"Allstate cuts 4000 jobs due to automation of customer operations via the internet and the phone."
More technology has not led to more leisure, for most people.
The more technically advanced a society, the more culturally shallow, the more un-civilized, the more greedy and hostile it becomes. In fact, the highly technological societies are no longer societies, they are conglomeration of hostile dividuals.
Division from the world does not mean integration in oneself. Rather, division from the world is symptomatic of division in oneself. (Hence, the phrase: conglomeration of dividuals.)
It is because technology affords one, more and more, to be an island unto oneself. More and more is the world seen as separate from oneself. Technology leads to a closet-ing of the ego, since it gives one power to deal with the world without having to deal with other egos. That way, the ego remains secure. Isn't that the reason why "nerds" and "geeks" are popularly perceived as shy and lost in themselves. And because there is no communion between entities, no understanding, no emotion, only optimization, human relationships too become an exercise in "personal growth" and gratification.
Technology makes one asleep as a human being. One longs to go back to one's computer (shell), and the world seems too unpredictable and beyond one's power.
Machines can be optimized. Humans can be optimized only at the expense of making them numbed entities. Holistic optimization of man remains as elusive as ever. Optimization of man as the worker disregards his totality.
And when the boundary between communication with machines and with human beings fades away, discrimination in application of /technique/ in dealing with the world becomes scarce. This idea was illustrated, among others, by Jacques Ellul in his book, The Technological Society.
We apply techniques even when dealing with creative entities (humans), and those entities, more often than not, respond positively to our "machinations". They remain creative no more, but have to be driven.
Techniques of manipulating and dealing with creative entities is respectably called "Management". To keep discontent and nausea with the world under cover is the aim of management.
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To wake up in the morning without having anything to do is a creative event. And how few seem to be able to do it?
More technology does not mean more leisure. It means a more efficient way to realize one's ambition. More efficient and more ruthless.
Unless ambition vanishes, technology cannot give man leisure.
Leisure is the absence of ambition. Nothing less, nothing more.
True culture is born of leisure. You cannot create art "in order to".
You can create art only for the sake of itself and the pleasure it provides by its very existence.
This kind of leisure is boredom for most people.
Technique leads to endless distractions, because ways to optimize are endless. The more the distractions, lesser the depth in one's realization of one's emptiness.
And as someone said, the prime object of optimization in today's world is Time. We plan our days and weeks and weekends for pleasure, and hurriedly consume the shallow pleasures, gasping for more, still thirsty as ever.
Ambition is endless. To die to ambition is the foremost challenge.
Ambition is the desire to fill up the emptiness within oneself.
What is boredom? This is an extremely important question.
What is boredom, after all?
Is it not a feeling of emptiness? A feeling of being lost? Of not having a direction?
"So, can you remain bored?" (Krishnamurti, Commentaries on Living)
So, we escape from directionlessness. We want to be mechanized, to be driven. We escape from Freedom.
It is considered a success to be able to fulfill one's ambition.
True success is not victory over "others"; that is a failure. For that victory is born of ignorance and illusion.
True patience is abiding in emptiness.