The busy, speedy, cheerful life of the ship distracted from any sense of nature, loss and metaphysical wondering about who one is and why, as happens on those smaller ships while sitting on a deck chair staring at billowing Tiepolo clouds and listening to a shipmate chatter about the best deck on which to do laundry.
So begins Grace Paley's short story "An Interesting Life" – speedy, sardonic, condensed to the point of pungency.
The marvels you have given to humankind greatly extended life, speedy travel and communication around the globe, radioactive ants the size of school buses.
Only now, and only in certain pockets of society are we learning that a complex, speedy, materially oriented life may seem appealing, but actually commands our time and energy in such a way that it becomes a prison cell for the spirit.
Thinking of his brother, Grisha, who was deported, without warning, in the twenties, the father asks, "Why didn't we talk?" Life is "quick, speedy, like a winter day"; questions grow faster than the time you have to answer them.
Letters to potential patrons went unanswered, and he was penniless, starving and in despair, contemplating "a speedy end to a life so unpromisingly begun", when Edmund Burke came to the rescue.
Except when somebody's contract expired, necessitating an off-camera exit via brain tumor, "E.R.," "N.Y.P.D. Blue," "West Wing" and my other old favorites were satisfying because the formula guarantees speedy resolution of all life's problems.
Still, it is very speedy, has great battery life, all buttons are placed just right and of all the phones I've played with it's arguably the one that feels nicest to the touch.
GAs are powerful tools that can optimize overwhelmingly complex real-life problems, including speedy diagnoses of complex diseases.
