So it's our Tuesday night class. Welcome. Thanks for showing up. All the counseling and teaching

ideas entirely supported by donation. That's the deal of actually becoming a Buddhist pastor

in the Taravadan tradition. You do everything without charge by donation. So whatever you can give keeps me going

and the teaching and the counseling. So the way it's done is by Venmo, Dharma Punk's with an

X NYC or on the Dharma Punk's NYC website, there's a PayPal and also there's a Patreon.

So that's about it.

Tonight's going to be on acceleration.

And what is that?

Some of the most important books in social theory came out around the year 2009, 2010,

Burnout Society, and then in around 2012 Acceleration, Social Acceleration by Hartmut Rosa.

These books kind of noted the challenges and diminishments in modern life,

the role of our achievement society and our society that's based on self-optimization.

Also, the theme of acceleration, the rapidity of life. And that's tonight's topic.

So if you think of what is our modern life, and we think of instant messaging,

push notifications, news feeds, fast food options, online shopping, immediate delivery,

multitasking, time saving, optimizing apps, ADHD medications,

jumping on Zoom meetings, what do they have all in common?

This optimizing high-speed life, acceleration is one that profoundly impacts our psyches, our stress levels,

and our overall well-being. And so tonight's talk I'm going to try to cover some of the

ever-shifting demands that are placed upon our attention spans, our cognitive capacities,

our emotional bandwidth, as it were, to engage with the world in ways that the world asks of us

and is kind of built in to the expectations of our culture.

...