Does it feel like time has been stuck for the past two years? Like your memories are hard to define, like the days have coagulated into a shapeless blob? You’re not alone – here’s how it happened.
I lived through a hurricane. Two weeks without electricity. Everything pitch dark. The horizon: total blackness. My friend's house — and her entire town — obliterated. (She was out of state at the time.) Weeks later I tried to travel to the site of her former house, where she now lived in a rented RV — but I could not tell where I was.
All stores and restaurants had been turned into twisted bows of metal. You couldn't even tell what they used to be. No street signs. Her daughter - in the car with me - helped me find the way. The entire neighborhood was nothing but crushed Spanish tile.
Point is: if you remove the waymarkers — the shape and definition of things, the 'anchors,' and if you destroy the familiar & comforting things — people become disoriented, lost.
I'm reminded that King Nebuchadnezzar changed Daniel's name to Belteshazzar: the same for his friends. The goal was, apparently, to get them to forget their true identities and values -- to make them malleable, to serve another purpose.
I read this article about a week ago after Laura Dodsworth tweeted it into my timeline. I've thought about it a lot since and I want to say thank you. It's made me realise why I'm struggling with some things and given me ideas about how to move forward. Thanks.
An excellent analysis on where we are. After reading The Shallows I realised my own issues with reading deeply and have made efforts to address the problem. Took awhile but getting there.
I lived through a hurricane. Two weeks without electricity. Everything pitch dark. The horizon: total blackness. My friend's house — and her entire town — obliterated. (She was out of state at the time.) Weeks later I tried to travel to the site of her former house, where she now lived in a rented RV — but I could not tell where I was.
All stores and restaurants had been turned into twisted bows of metal. You couldn't even tell what they used to be. No street signs. Her daughter - in the car with me - helped me find the way. The entire neighborhood was nothing but crushed Spanish tile.
Point is: if you remove the waymarkers — the shape and definition of things, the 'anchors,' and if you destroy the familiar & comforting things — people become disoriented, lost.
I'm reminded that King Nebuchadnezzar changed Daniel's name to Belteshazzar: the same for his friends. The goal was, apparently, to get them to forget their true identities and values -- to make them malleable, to serve another purpose.
I read this article about a week ago after Laura Dodsworth tweeted it into my timeline. I've thought about it a lot since and I want to say thank you. It's made me realise why I'm struggling with some things and given me ideas about how to move forward. Thanks.
An excellent analysis on where we are. After reading The Shallows I realised my own issues with reading deeply and have made efforts to address the problem. Took awhile but getting there.