The limit of human felicity

I’ve been listening to the wonderful new podcast Everyday Abundance (no affiliation!) by Virginia Postrel and Charles Mann, based on Dylan’s recommendation two weeks ago. Each episode looks at the history of some aspect of modern life, which we tend to take as just part of the background now. The last episode I listened to was about listening to music, and featured this quote from Edward Bellamy, writing in 1888:

[I]f we could have devised an arrangement for providing everybody with music in their homes, perfect in quality, unlimited in quantity, suited to every mood, and beginning and ceasing at will, we should have considered the limit of human felicity already attained.

I estimate I spent about 16% of my waking hours in 2024 listening to music.