Andrew Sullivan
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear.”
-- Henry David Thoreau
Andrew Sullivan, the erstwhile king of bloggers, writes a long article on quitting the game and seeking relief at a meditation center. It's the argument about how the Internet is sucking our life into an e-vortex and we need to do a better job of establishing a balance between our online lives and our real lives. The excerpt below is largely a quote from the comic Louis C. K. on why he does not allow his children to have smart-phones.
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“You need to build an ability to just be yourself and not be doing something. That’s what the phones are taking away,” he [Louis C. K.] said. “Underneath in your life there’s that thing … that forever empty … that knowledge that it’s all for nothing and you’re alone … That’s why we text and drive … because we don’t want to be alone for a second.”
He recalled a moment driving his car when a Bruce Springsteen song came on the radio. It triggered a sudden, unexpected surge of sadness. He instinctively went to pick up his phone and text as many friends as possible. Then he changed his mind, left his phone where it was, and pulled over to the side of the road to weep. He allowed himself for once to be alone with his feelings, to be overwhelmed by them, to experience them with no instant distraction, no digital assist. And then he was able to discover, in a manner now remote from most of us, the relief of crawling out of the hole of misery by himself. For if there is no dark night of the soul anymore that isn’t lit with the flicker of the screen, then there is no morning of hopefulness either. As he said of the distracted modern world we now live in: “You never feel completely sad or completely happy, you just feel … kinda satisfied with your products. And then you die. So that’s why I don’t want to get a phone for my kids.”
-- Andrew Sullivan at New York Magazine
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I really do miss his old blog, though. I was a steadfast follower. I got a lot of my best stuff and quotes from him.
-- Henry David Thoreau
Andrew Sullivan, the erstwhile king of bloggers, writes a long article on quitting the game and seeking relief at a meditation center. It's the argument about how the Internet is sucking our life into an e-vortex and we need to do a better job of establishing a balance between our online lives and our real lives. The excerpt below is largely a quote from the comic Louis C. K. on why he does not allow his children to have smart-phones.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
“You need to build an ability to just be yourself and not be doing something. That’s what the phones are taking away,” he [Louis C. K.] said. “Underneath in your life there’s that thing … that forever empty … that knowledge that it’s all for nothing and you’re alone … That’s why we text and drive … because we don’t want to be alone for a second.”
He recalled a moment driving his car when a Bruce Springsteen song came on the radio. It triggered a sudden, unexpected surge of sadness. He instinctively went to pick up his phone and text as many friends as possible. Then he changed his mind, left his phone where it was, and pulled over to the side of the road to weep. He allowed himself for once to be alone with his feelings, to be overwhelmed by them, to experience them with no instant distraction, no digital assist. And then he was able to discover, in a manner now remote from most of us, the relief of crawling out of the hole of misery by himself. For if there is no dark night of the soul anymore that isn’t lit with the flicker of the screen, then there is no morning of hopefulness either. As he said of the distracted modern world we now live in: “You never feel completely sad or completely happy, you just feel … kinda satisfied with your products. And then you die. So that’s why I don’t want to get a phone for my kids.”
-- Andrew Sullivan at New York Magazine
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I really do miss his old blog, though. I was a steadfast follower. I got a lot of my best stuff and quotes from him.