Saving Time

Résumé du livre

Jenny Odell is an artist and writer based in Oakland, California. She teaches at Stanford University and has been an artist-in-residence at Facebook, the Internet Archive, the San Francisco Planning Department, and the San Francisco garbage dump. Her art has been exhibited in galleries around the world.

Odell’s discovery of a 1970s fairytale about a boy who wasted his life by pulling a magical golden thread to skip time sets the stage for a deeper exploration of how we perceive and manage time. While productivity strategies promise efficiency, they often heighten our awareness of time’s scarcity, a fear exploited by industries selling longevity as a purchasable commodity—ignoring inequalities like health, wealth, and privilege. Odell challenges this mindset, advocating for living fully in the present rather than obsessing over extending life. Drawing on concepts like the Greek *kairos* (seizing the moment) and Henri Bergson’s idea of time as a dynamic flow, she critiques modern timekeeping’s roots in colonialism and capitalism, which commodify time and reinforce power imbalances. From the pandemic’s disorienting impact on time perception to the inequities of “hustle culture” and invasive workplace monitoring, Odell underscores how time is deeply tied to privilege and control. She calls for a more inclusive understanding of time that values shared experiences and challenges systemic inequalities, urging us to rethink how time is managed and valued in our lives.

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