Enjoying the view from Limbo
Downtown at night.— I do not want what they are drinking. I do not want to hear what they are saying. I am repulsed by the thought of what they are thinking. My mind blacks out at the general noise, the mindlessly giddy laughter, the time-killing and cocksure banter, the publicly displayed “intimacies,” and the roiling sea of unmemorable faces in the artificial...
Smartphones, personal screens permanently before our eyes, offering continuous and virtually infinite varieties of stimulation, are the fulfillment and vindication of our slightly clunky old metaphor for internet use, “web-surfing.” To surf is to ride the ocean’s surface, to skim excitingly along on transient and ever-changing waves which, in their momentary violence and extreme proximity, foster illusions of ultimate importance. Meanwhile, the ocean’s...
Follow: