What You Get Is the World

As Iris Murdoch puts it, “reality” is “that which is revealed to the patient eye of love.” Or, elsewhere, “Attention is rewarded by a knowledge of reality.”

“In place of occasional experiences of depth that renew and satisfy us,” I observed, “we are simply given an infinite surface upon which to skim indefinitely.”

We are depleted by the pace and structure of contemporary life, particularly by how spatial and temporal boundaries that provided modest respites from the demands others could place on us have been eroded by the capacities of digital technology. Now we are always on and always available, our freneticism masquerading as flexibility. We are also depl... See more

As I used to observe with some frequency, the arc of digital culture bends toward exhaustion.

What I mean by this is simple: when we think of the way our days are structured, the kinds of activities most readily on offer, the mode of relating to the world we are encouraged to adopt, etc.—in each case we are more likely to find ourselves spent rathe... See more