[reader_x]

The book Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke imagined a world where technological advances allowed more free time — and for a few centuries humans became artists, poets, etc.

The book fascinated me as a kid; as an adult I notice I tend to keep working when I objectively know I could log off and sculpt or paint instead. On a personal level, it’s hard to switch mental gears. Inertia happens in society too.

I suspect we generally undervalue our finite actual and potential free time. Unlike in Childhood’s End, though, long term stability is not yet assured for us. It would probably take centuries (as Clarke implied) of stable abundance for societies to adjust and establish new norms based on it.