As I absorbed so many of man's most extraordinary cultural achievements (Michelangelo's Moses, Bernini's sculptures at Villa Borghese, a dozen breathtaking church ceilings), and overate, and wandered with Italians down the center of broad streets at 1 a.m. ... I wondered.
China expands its global muscle by the day, or hour. India surges. Yet Italy, Germany, and France—the fools, per me—have turned their back on progress. On the one hand I "know" my message about the intensity of competition and the need for an incredibly vigorous response is "right."
And yet ...
Isn't it okay to take a week and glory in the glories of Rome?
To overeat?
To extend a lunch hour into two?
To laugh?
To cry?
To read crappy thrillers that add not an ounce to one's intellectual muscle mass?
Though my message is technically "right" ... and urgency is high ("If you don't like change you're going to like irrelevance even less") ... and "we ain't seen nothin' yet" (life sciences, etc.) ... isn't it okay to have slightly more than a one-dimensional life pre-occupied with China and India and Brand You and the Accumulation of Intellectual Capitol 24-hours-a-frigging-day ("24/7")?
The Italians and French and Germans are missing a beat, no doubt. "Three billion new capitalists" want my job, too.
But surely there is more to life?