So little faith do we have in people’s ability to use their time wisely, we assume that the mere fact people like it makes it less unproductive
The swimmer Michael Phelps is the most decorated Olympian of all time, with twenty-eight medals, twenty-three of them gold. He is a former world record holder in the 200m freestyle, 100m butterfly, 200m butterfly, 200m individual medley and 400m individual medley.
But let’s just analyze his world-record time for the 200m freestyle — an amazing one minute and 42.96 seconds. Amazing, that is, until you do the math. Over 200 meters I make that 4.34mph. Here’s my problem. I am a fat fifty-eight-year-old man, and I can run faster than that. In boots. In Alabama there…