Here We Go. Aspire to Greatness. Ready 1-2-3.

I lost my ability to concentrate on most novels around 93, for complex reasons.

Partially having to do with me, partially having to do with novels.

Is there any other art form that demands so much attention and offers so little reward? Crackers.

But this is what gives me pause. Filtration. Immediacy. Impermanence. Glut. Pipelines. Hyperlinks. Buzz and static.

Maybe, just maybe, such mindframes are more necessary now, even more than in the past. This is what has me thinking. Maybe the problem of being able to sit alone in a room is old, old, old. And maybe we now have a solution, not quite obvious, that has been from us since just after Gutenberg.

At one time, we imagined, language as the house of being. Or we had it imagined for us.

And all that we saw resolved to language, however tentative, however fragile. Even our psychological architecture. Even our architecture. Even the way we cooked our fish.

Now? Ones and zeros. Zeros and ones.

We can't be faulted for at least considering where the escape routes might lie.

I mean.

Can we?