This article by Carlos Javier González Serrano explores how today's society has moved away from the present and from deep reflection, plunging into an incessant search for a promising future that never comes. Based on Carl Gustav Jung's ideas expressed in Memories, Dreams, Reflections, the author points out that this uprooting generates growing dissatisfaction and unease.

The analysis extends to how companies, media and political parties exploit this longing, keeping us in a state of constant restlessness, chasing one desire after another. It highlights the irony that, as we experience an increase in emotional upheaval, self-help gurus urge us to be “resilient” and accept unacceptable situations. Richard Sennett complements this idea by describing a society oriented to short-termism, where reflection is discarded in favor of the urgency of the “now”.

The text also argues that this dynamic nullifies dissidence, labeling any opposition as “stupid” or ‘ridiculous’, under the premise that “if you change the way you think about the world, the world will change”. This view contrasts with that of Paulo Freire, who in Pedagogy of the Oppressed affirms that freedom is a conquest, not a gift, and with that of Maria Zambrano, who emphasizes that human beings are “living problems”, not predetermined.

As early as 1957, Jung predicted that “progressive improvements” and ‘gadgets’ would not increase well-being, but would accelerate the “tempo” of life, leaving us with less time than before (citing omnis festinatio ex parte diaboli est - all haste comes from the devil). This haste manifests itself today in the difficulty of concentration, as Gloria Mark points out in Attention Span, where she explains that the ability to sustain attention has been drastically reduced. The author criticizes the current trap of associating happiness with productivity or utility.

Finally, González Serrano's article emphasizes that the impossibility of pause and reflection is not a personal failure, but a result of a cultural and techno-economic framework. True emancipation does not lie in “recovering the balance” (accepting the terms imposed by the system), but in imagining other ways of being and existing.

Imagination has been “hijacked” for productivist purposes, limiting our ability to conceive alternative scenarios and making us afraid to step outside the performance criteria. It is concluded that defending our time for “skholé” (leisure dedicated to knowledge and virtue, from which the word “school” comes), and not simply being employed or exploited, is crucial for deliberative democracy and for intellectual and emotional liberation. Free imagination is ultimately a political tool that allows us to create new realities and not repeat those imposed by others.