Busyness as a product of modernity. Technology Essay

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Busyness as a product of modernity
Developments around the world have greatly changed and shaped the way individuals view and live their lives. Rapid innovations and technological developments have revolutionized towns and cities’ giving them what has been adjudged to be a “modern outlook”. As a result, most individuals residing in these cities strive very hard to keep up with the demanding lifestyles. They are forced to take up more responsibilities such as taking up more shifts at work or engaging in business side hustles in order to get extra funds to finance their expenditures. In the end they get so caught up in the hustles and bustles of chasing after luxurious lifestyles that they end up with little or no time for themselves or their families and friends. Adam Gopnik in his novel “Bumping into Mr. Ravioli” alludes to the fact that modernity has changed the world to one that individuals are extremely busy. The essay therefore purports to examine busyness as an invention of modernity from Adam Gopnik’s perspective in “Bumping into Mr. Ravioli”.
Adam vividly identifies that the term “busyness” was not present before the 19th Century and that as much as individuals were engaged in their daily lives they never referred to their states as being busy (Gopnik 156). Before the 19th Century, individuals were very industrious and hardworking and were happy at having more responsibilities to do as opposed to being stressed. Adam notes “Ben Franklin, a half century later, boasts of his industriousness, but he too never complains about being busy, and always has time to publish a newspaper or come up with a maxim or swim the ocean or invent the lightening rod” (Gopnik 156). The bourgeois people during that period despite being involved in the building and development of bourgeois lifestyles and institutions always managed to find time for themselves and for their loved ones away from their busy schedules. Busyness was never an issue with the bourgeois people and their major affliction and predicament was boredom which they tried to escape by building social life facilities such as cafes. However, all that changed in the latter stages of the 19th Century when the cities and towns had greatly developed and people started migrating from the rural to the urban areas in search of greener pastures. Telegram and railroads opened up the communication and transport networks hence ending isolation and in the process creating complications in social obligations. Further developments only worsened the situation and over time individuals have ended up being too busy for their own good.
Modernity and the desire to fit in to the developed modern world have complicated many aspects of individual lives especially for the people residing in metropolitan cities such as New York City. The modern world is too demanding and too expensive compared to the traditional one or in comparison to life in the rural areas. Individuals in these metropolitan areas are faced with many bills and expenditures in their efforts to survive and to take care of their loved ones. They are challenged with high rent payments, high food prices, school fees and mortg...