For at least the past four years, there has almost never been a time when I am engaged in doing X, and I don't feel a pang of guilt for not doing Y. Even if X is mandatory, Y is also mandatory. So is Z. There seems to be an inexhaustible array of things to do or to pay attention to, and I feel there are consequences for slackening too much. I used to think perhaps this was just fatherhood. But increasingly it might simply be that the gaps are being engineered out of existence. I recently read of people describing a "second self"; there is a self that is active and a second self that is constantly monitoring the first self. Perhaps having two selves is exhausting and leaves no room for flights of fancy.
For at least the past four years, there has almost never been a time when I am engaged in doing X, and I don't feel a pang of guilt for not doing Y. Even if X is mandatory, Y is also mandatory. So is Z. There seems to be an inexhaustible array of things to do or to pay attention to, and I feel there are consequences for slackening too much. I used to think perhaps this was just fatherhood. But increasingly it might simply be that the gaps are being engineered out of existence. I recently read of people describing a "second self"; there is a self that is active and a second self that is constantly monitoring the first self. Perhaps having two selves is exhausting and leaves no room for flights of fancy.