In his philosophical reflections on the art of lingering, acclaimed
cultural theorist Byung-Chul Han argues that the value we attach today
to the vita activa is producing a crisis in our sense of time. Our
attachment to the vita activa creates an imperative to work which
degrades the human being into a labouring animal, an animal laborans.
At the same time, the hyperactivity which characterizes our daily
routines robs human beings of the capacity to linger and the faculty of
contemplation. It therefore becomes impossible to experience time as
fulfilling.
Drawing on a range of thinkers including Heidegger, Nietzsche and
Arendt, Han argues that we can overcome this temporal crisis only by
revitalizing the vita contemplativa and relearning the art of
lingering. For what distinguishes humans from other animals is the
capacity for reflection and contemplation, and when life regains this
capacity, this art of lingering, it gains in time and space, in duration
and vastness.