Daniela Gonzalez

We may believe that all this text somehow captures reality. But as the words engulf us, the world recedes ever more from our grasp.

Peter Thorpe argued in Why Literature Is Bad for You that the negative effects of reading outweigh the positive: “If we become too involved in the beautiful imitation, we can begin to lose touch with the real thing.”

but whether parasocial content is desirable or not, it points to a growing crisis on the internet: So much of what we encounter online just doesn’t matter , and even worse, offers no mechanism for us to start caring about it. The average human living today sees more things they don’t care about in one week than a medieval peasant did in their entir... See more

My beginnings are not beginnings; I just start. Sometimes I have to write the beginning after the book is done. Well, that seems like a natural thing, but many people don't go forward because the beginning isn't right; they just leave it until they get it right. I write what's there, what I know is there. If I have to rewrite it or change it, I'm n... See more

“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

― Maya Angelou

We increasingly try to fit all our experience into a digital spreadsheet, and written words can be logged, searched, counted, isolated, and edited or deleted far more easily than anything else. They allow us to construct a simplified parallel reality alongside the unbearably ineffable one.