Temporal loops are being compressed. The gap between generations was generally accepted as being a few decades. Now, two siblings born five years apart are raised amidst radically different social and cultural norms. Technology adoption curves are shrinking too. Yes, entrenched technologies are harder to shift, but once they began to crumble, they do so at previously unforeseen rates. The rise and fall of markets has also sped up. As has the job market—gone are the days of lifetime employment. Now, it’s unusual for someone to remain in the same job for more than a decade, or even a few years. Digital shaming mobs go through the cycle of acquiring a target, spewing hatred and forgetting the target faster than ever. The banners of various ideologies and philosophies are raised as standards and quickly trampled into the ground. Public figures rise like meteorites and crash like them too.
We are in the midst of a Great Quickening.
I suspect this is mostly due to technological advancement and its consequent effects, but that is an uneducated guess. But what is not an uneducated guess is the observation that those who cannot adjust to the new tempo will feel more and more dislocated by the times they are trying and failing to live in.
When a society shifts into a higher gear and makes more rapid turns the only way its passengers can survive is to buckle up and make repeated efforts to calibrate their actions and perceptions to the new normal.
Swell & Cut 