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Appendix 3 “The Rush to Get Things Done,” by João do Rio Everyone around the world is suffering from an unmistakable and painful illness:—the rush to get things done. Our grandparents never rushed. On the contrary, postponing and extending events was an utmost delight for them. In that distant age, clocks were not the marvels of precision that they are today, and so men measured their days with care and attention. On December 13,1 for instance, they would state that: Le jour croist le saut d’une puce2 And they would note, with pleasure, that the December days were becoming longer by observing the leaps and bounds of different animals. A la Saint Thomas le jour croist Le saut d’un chat A la Noel Le saut d’un baudet Au nouvel an Le pas d’un sergent.3 This would continue until January 17 when the days start to get longer —just like a friar’s dinner. Today none of us delight in observing the lengthening of the days, nor the nights. We are now in the middle of a month when nights become shorter, but no one has yet noted that from the 13th onwards our nights become longer or that our days seem to leap forward with the speed of jumping fleas, or that because of Saint Anthony our nights will be shorter and there will be less time for love and romance. Why is this? Because we are all in a rush to get things done. Yes! The strange rush to get things over and done with has become the symptom of the century 189 Appendix 3 everywhere. There are no longer definitive books or paintings that are destined to live forever, nor are there immortal ideas or romances like that of Philemon and Baucis. Everyone now works more, thinks more and loves more, without digesting and with no time to do things. In the past, time was an entity that men were fully aware of. Calculating the passing of time was as complicated as calculating the passing of the days. The time recorded by clocks left a vague impression, and it was S. Luiz, the King of France’s idea to keep a record of the passing of night-time hours by lighting candles. Time was confusing. Not today. Today we are all slaves to time, inexorable beings who never give up and who divide our days into the sad crumbs of minutes and seconds. Every hour is different for us; it is personal and has its own characteristic because it represents the accumulation of various things that we rush to complete. Clocks were once objects of luxury. Today even beggars have watches that keep track of hours, because they too are in a rush, a rush to get things over and done with. Who is not in a rush today? There is a chance that we may waste time—oh, how awful! The very idea that we may waste time . . . But time is wasted, just like life is—there is no cure for this, it’s fate. But what fury this causes us! Look at the businessman. This man could walk slowly. Yet he runs around the city, sweating and looking at his watch, trying to complete in four hours what would previously have taken him four months. Look at the journalist. He shoots through the streets in complete distress, trembling , in search of facts, from murders to political intrigues, and he is devoted exclusively to the rush to get things over and done with. Look at the theater spectator. As soon as he gets to the middle of the final act, he becomes nervous and is dying to leave. Why? Because he wants to get to the café quickly. Why this rush? Because he wants to get to the tram, where these feverish symptoms are also observed. Why? Because he is in a rush to go to sleep, in order to wake early. He is in a rush to go to sleep; he is in a rush in every little activity of his short life! “Give time some time.” This is a beautiful sentence and its full significance has been completely lost in the world. Nothing takes time anymore. Now everything is completed with little time. All of the discoveries from twenty years ago have speeded up the act of living. The car—that delight, and the phonograph, nuisances that have compressed spaces and recorded voices to save them from...

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