Since I stopped having one, I have become very curious about other people's daily schedules. Whatever can they be working at from the moment they wake up? How can they spin round all day long like fluid in the washbasin, until they reach the orifice of sleep? They tap away at the touch screens of their own lives, on which is perpectually displayed a hysterical daily round, and, from time to time, the ecstatic daily round of empty time.
Those whose time is gobbled up by useless activities cannot even conceive that you have nothing to do. You have to keep up their belief in this ilusion, for they then accord you the same artificial respect as they have for their own all-consuming activity. By contrast with the other hysteria - that of slowness and boredom - the uninterrupted dynamism of business is merely the hysteria of dead time.
Modern activities have the same subtle function as scavengers in the desert: by devouring dead time, they leave pure time at our disposal. By putting an end to free time, they deliver us from the anguish of full time.
Jean Baudrillard
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