Plasticine People

I spend a disproportionate amount of my time surfing blogs and only 15 mins each morning flipping through yesterday's papers! Not a good habit I realised when people in the office start referring to the hottest news and all I can do is nod politely.

Read an interesting article on Monday where the author described "plasticine" young adults as "mostly white collared workers who are somewhat numb to life, have no dreams, interests or ideals, and do not feel much pain - or joy... Typically they work alone and for more than 50 hours a week. They feel as if they have expanded all their energy and all they get in return is a sense of emptiness".

The author cites doctors, bank employees, teachers, journalists, traffic policemen, civil servants, actors, taxi drivers as examples. No lawyers mentioned. Basically anybody can be a Plasticine, with people in solitary jobs more prone to being one. I understand what TR means when he mused about the importance of having peers in your job.

Thankfully, I don't think I'm qualified to be a Plasticine yet, not when I am capable of feeling pain and joy (sometimes I want to be numb!) or when all I want to do is travel, take photos, read and scrapbook. But I can think of a couple of people around me who seem to be in danger of being plasticined (I think it's a more negative than neutral phenomenon), hmmm maybe I should highlight this to them.