I can’t lay claim to the term.  As near as I can tell the term “The Quickening” was coined by late night radio great Art Bell.  Having nothing to do with the term from “The Highlander” ilk, in Art’s version it talked about the appearance of accelerating time. It is debatable how humans perceive time as they get older, as each day that passes represents a smaller fraction of your life than the day before. Nevertheless we all feel a huge burden on our shoulders, we run out of time and are pressed every second of our lives.  As preppers we focus on survival yet we can’t seem to achieve our goals and desires. Our days end in exhaustion.  How is this possible when we more free time than ever before in history?

If I had to toss a dart to try and hit bulls eye, it all starts with the industrial revolution.  Manufactured goods become commonplace and inventive entrepreneurs searching for fortune discover how to purchase time.  Not in the literal sense but in the unburdening from menial tasks for simple survival.  Age old chores requiring back breaking labor are overcome with the application of steam and electricity.  Survival is no longer dependent on what you do, but what you have to do it with.  It is arguable that this is a good thing; it leaves folks of the late 19^th century with choices.  Leisure becomes part of the everyman’s lexicon but opportunity also explodes.  The industrial revolution offers upward social mobilization like no other time in history.

In my opinion this period of time must have been the golden age for mental acuity.  Work was hard won and information earned.  The introduction of leisure allowed reflection on ones accomplishments.  It is during this time period that the human race arguably makes its greatest strides.  This run on prosperity continues on through the middle of the next century.

People today take for granted the allotment for entertainment in their budgets.  Could you imagine for a second being in a position where every task you undertake is done so to keep you alive?  Imagine the liberation experienced in society when this was no longer the case.   Ingenuity and invention focused on methods to buy time.  Electricity, steam and the combustion engine fostered the light bulb, the train, the car and airplane, with the light bulb alone society bought the night.

It is arguable that one single invention begins the downward spiral to where we are today; radio.  The ability to transmit information wirelessly shrunk the world in one transmission.   Radio in its rawest form isn’t to blame for the quickening nor is it the sole suspect, but it is the architect.  It is in front of the warm glow of the vacuum tube that society begins to slide.

By the mid 1920’s the radio set begins to appear in American households.  Whereas leisure is limited in the previous decades to rest and reflect, by the roaring twenties leisure proliferates to the point people begin to pursue methods to “spend” their time.  While some choose jazz clubs and others enjoy baseball under the summer sun it is radio that becomes the common denominator of society.  No longer is it used solely for the transmission for critical information, radio begins the first form of modern entertainment, right in your living room.

At least with radio you had to think..a bit.  Clothes Irons, refrigerators, toasters, washing machines, and dishwashers free even more time.  Radio gives way to television in the 1950’s as the preferred choice of in home entertainment.  Gone are images, painted in the minds of millions, of the Lone Ranger.  Replaced are pictures, with the only missing information being color.  Sponsored by the likes of General Electric and Westinghouse peddled the latest time saving gadget, saving you time to watch more television advertisements to buy more stuff, to save more time.

Before the industrial revolution work was sun up to sun down usually 6 days a week with Sunday being a day of rest.  In post war America that time had been reduced to 40 hours a week spread over 5 days, special compensation is given to workers who labor “over-time”.   Less than 25% of the average American’s week is spent working yet production soars.  More goods and wealth are produced in the latter half of the twentieth century that all of history combined.

Closing the twentieth century the Internet is the last great invention, bridging humanity to a new millennium.  Information is at the behest of every individual in the western world in an instant.  The proliferation of the internet promises an enlightening of more significance than the printing press, even so something strange begins to occur.

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