Via Tim Davis: If you are serious about toast and it is, perhaps, the only thing you should be serious about, grilling it is the only option. The subtext of using a toaster, is this: “I am busy and important. My precious time is worth far more than good toast.” By not using a grill, you are buying into the pernicious myth that, as human beings, we can only assert our own agency by working and spending in such a blur of activity that we allow ourselves no time to perfect life’s simple pleasures. To do so feels frivolous. It is only toast. Yet, our consequent lack of enjoyment in the end-product, poor toast, not to mention the process of preparing it – and you could so say this about hundreds of activities – is why Western society, for all its choices, distractions and artisan breads, is gripped by a low-level, gnawing dissatisfaction. We consume but we do not enjoy. That is the paradoxical tumour at the heart of 21st century capitalism. Either that, or you use a toaster because youve got kids. One or the other.
Posted on: Wed, 10 Dec 2014 01:45:18 +0000