reading, watching & listening to

While there are arguments for and against the impact of the individual – Carlyle vs. Tolstoy – we all benefit from taking an optimistic view of this question and acting as if individuals can make a very big difference.

The idea that we could have so much community with so little effort was an illusion. We are digitally connected to more people than ever and terribly lonely nevertheless. Closeness requires time, and time has not fallen in cost or risen in quantity.

I do not blame anyone but myself for this. This is not something the corporations did to me. This is something I did to myself. But I am looking now for software that insists I make choices rather than whispers that none are needed. I don’t want my digital life to be one shame closet after another. A new metaphor has taken hold for me: I want it to be a garden I tend, snipping back the weeds and nourishing the plants.

He’ll be like: ‘Why is that? Why? What’s the purpose? What’s the intention and what’s the purpose?’”