Racing Against Time

Text and images by Chen Chi-Hsiang. Modern life is a race against time, emphasizing speed. From upgrades in mobile phones or the internet to the convenience of material goods and fashionable consumption, who can afford to lose the starting point? Relentless development and consumption compress time in this age of convenience, squeezing it into trivial matters, making life suffocating like headless flies. This is most evident in virtual social networking, where everyone becomes a "slider" or an expert at clicking meaningless "likes," busy beyond belief. With one device in hand, information is searched quickly and conveniently across various virtual platforms, leading to self-forgetting wandering that implies alienation from real life. The speed of consumption is unimaginable; shrunken memories reduce everything to shallow impressions, herd mentality, knowing only the superficial or nothing at all, continuing the endless game of racing against time, even being startled awake in dreams. In this space-time of racing against time, why are we so busy? Why do we live? This deserves serious reflection. A fulfilling life is possible; whether to race is up to you. Russian artists Ilya Kabakov and Emilia Kabakov stated: "The world changes so rapidly that people forget the feeling of life itself," or "Great progress, science, and noble human sights lead people to the brink of disaster."