Time & Perspective Quote by Theodore White

White is describing freedom not as a banner, but as a bodily sensation: the moment you stop moving on someone else’s schedule and start inhabiting your own hours. The first jolt in the line is his choice of “bodies” - men reduced to labor, units, manpower. That word strips away dignity and individuality, making “other men’s command” sound less like leadership than possession. Then he pivots to the real drug: time. Not money, not fame, not even ideology - time as the currency of selfhood.

The subtext is complicated, and very mid-century: the “pack” evokes organizations that promise belonging (corporations, parties, newsrooms, armies) while quietly training people to speak in approved tones. “Lucky enough” is the tell; White isn’t pretending merit alone liberates anyone. Escape is partly talent, partly timing, partly who opens which door. That realism is journalist’s realism: he has watched careers get made by accidents that later get rewritten as destiny.

Context matters too. White covered power at close range, especially in American politics, where voice and authority are both personal and manufactured. The line hints at how rare it is to “learn” your voice in a world designed to hand you one - talking points, institutional language, the fear of falling out of line. The intoxication he names is less rebellion than ownership: autonomy as the right to set your pace, speak in your register, and accept the consequences without asking permission.