Sub-title: Essays on Superman, Public Benches, and other Obsessions
I found this book through the author's Youtube site "The Nerdwriter". He reviews movies and books and discusses issues in what is described as "video essays". For me his channel provides a perspective on the thinking and ideas of a younger generation (he's 34 years old). I was repeatedly struck by my lack of familiarity with his references from his childhood and life today because I am a different generation and have not been around people his age very much. I did connect, however, with his analysis of today's digital, virtual, internet world and its destructive impact on our lives.
Quotes:
"From Emerson [Ralph Waldo Emerson] I learned two fundamental truths: first that we learn by expressing, not by thinking, which is to say that knowledge doesn't really exist until you can write it down."
"The modern world obliterates restraint. The internet obliterates the time between experiences....'we [streaming services] are really competing with sleep on the margin'".
"The internet of today, designed to make you a permanent input, does more than just steal time from you; it erodes your agency and substitutes internet-awareness for self-awareness. Those are the three things--time, agency, and self-awareness--that we use to construct our identities. Without them, sense of self weakens, identity destabilizes, and the result is what we see in the research and feel in ourselves: stress, anxiety, or worse."
"To feel that someone really wants to understand and help you is a gift, and once you have it, you can't help but pass it on."
" A big undertaking, whether it's writing a novel, starting a business, or nurturing a relationship, requires emotional stability. But our emotions aren't stable, so the best we can do is cultivate a bird's-eye view on ourselves to remind us of the colored lens [feeling] we're seeing through."
Published: 2022 Read: January 2023 Genre: Essay
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