Short Reframings

I believe that art is not a luxury. art is not just nice aesthetics that you buy to make rooms look less depressing. it is not home decor. it is not the third dessert. it is the main course — that creative source which feeds our lives. art is direct access to truth and beauty — a way of seeing that makes life worth living in this difficult, complic... See more

So much of our training as women tells us that we are objects of desire rather than desiring subjects. We know this. . . . As girls we were often expected to please others, and as women we fear being called selfish. We put others’ needs first, we stifle our own desires, or, worse, we forget we even have them. I’m talking here about sexual desires, ... See more

The role of metaphor and narrative, as opposed to new theories or experiments, is too little recognised in discussions of the historian of science Thomas Kuhn’s paradigm shifts, supposed (and contested) moments of dramatic change in science. All scientists know how to go about scrutinising a theory: you use it to formulate some testable hypothesis,... See more

"The key to thriving in our high-tech world, they’ve learned, is to spend much less time using technology." (Cal Newport, Digital Minimalism)

“The problem with social media platforms is not just that they seek to hook us on their products, it’s also that they offer themselves as the answer to profound human desires, which they are ultimately unable to satisfy.”

L. M. Sacasas

Desire, Dopamine, and the Internet

Social media intensify this kind of communication without community. You cannot forge a public sphere out of influencers and followers. Digital communities have the form of commodities; ultimately, they are commodities.

The world we live in today is not just the one created by the likes of Tiberius of Rome, or even Emperor Wu of Han. Until surprisingly recent times, spaces of human freedom existed across large parts of our planet. Millions lived in them. We don’t know their names, as they didn’t carve them in stone, but we know that many lived lives in which one c... See more

Schopenhauer once said that humanity is defined by our tendency to restlessly strive , but I think he was only partially right. Striving is in our nature, but it doesn’t mean that it’s restless.

Instantaneous access to everything obviously comes at a cost. The cost being that we all behave like demented Roman emperors, at once bored and deranged, summoning whatever we want at any time.