In exchange for the privilege of life, individuals in the modern world put up with ceaseless clamor. Not only noises but images, smells, tastes, perhaps even the warmth of others . . . all of it rushing at them in a mad free-for-all, each bit screaming its presence. And society, still unsatisfied, crammed in yet more, until one’s very sense of time was destroyed. It was unbearable, human exhaustion. Surely this was a historic, decisive change, wasn’t it? From now on, people would forevermore be creatures of exhaustion, distinguished from other animals by their continual state of fatigue.
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