Liquid Life

“In skating over thin ice, our safety is in our speed.”  –Ralph Waldo Emerson, On Prudence.

“Liquid life” and “liquid modernity” are intimately connected.  “Liquid life” is a kind of life that tends to be lived in a liquid modern society.  “Liquid modern” is a society in which the conditions under which its members act change faster than it takes the ways of acting to consolidate into habits and routines.  Liquidity of life and that of society feed and reinvigorate each other.  Liquid life, just like liquid modern society, cannot keep its shape or stay on course for long.   . . .   In short: liquid life is a precarious life, lived under conditions of constant uncertainty.  The most acute and stubborn worries that haunt such a life are the fears of being caught napping, of failing to catch up with fast-moving events, of being left behind, of overlooking “use by” dates, of being saddled with possessions that are no longer desirable, of missing the moment that calls for a change of tack before crossing the point of no return.

Zygmunt Bauman, Liquid Life, pp. 1, 2.