Ambitious essay. I’m a little surprised Simone Weil didn’t get a mention, however. If you haven’t read her I wouldn’t be surprised if she ends up in your pantheon once you do.
Bravo. I appreciate every word of this. And I have not read any mention of Maurice Merleau-Ponty in over ten years. ;)
An anecdote of personal experience, I moved to France three years ago (French husband), and I am somewhat embarrassed to say that I feel obligated to document and photograph my life here. Everyone is doing it, right?
The really sad thing is, when I whip out my phone at Monet's Gardens or Mont Saint-Michel it takes me away from those beautiful places.
At this point, I prefer to throw my phone into the water from Mont Saint-Michel.
Why, why, why can't we just savor experiences and capture memories in our hearts and minds?
Anyway, I too, worry about how our online life takes us away from the beauty of every day.
No matter where you look away from electronic distractions, no matter how far you travel to escape from the internet, no matter how much you "put down your phone" (old people logic), what will be a guarantee, and absolute truth is there will always be an exhausting amount of abrahamic evangelists whom go through great lengths to sell you their god weirdly similar to an intruding friend from high-school reaching out to you from the past's abyss who turns out to be a part of a mediocre multi-level marketing scheme which they reveal over lunch at Luby's
The irony of reading this in bed in my phone! Illness showed me the truth of these words-that mind body and soul are connected and the mind isn’t higher in the hierarchy, and “I “ do not reside in my mind. However, the equating the Internet with satan lost me, as did all the references to Christianity when it became judgy and hell fire and brimstone. I tried to keep reading though, and enjoyed the quotes and chosen poetry.
Interesting piece—I had seen both books and hadn’t read them, so I appreciate your glosses. My question with your piece and ones like it are the specifics. Yes, we are distracted. But distracted from what? Our bodies, yes, as you suggest. But then what? More sex? Sure. But what else? Implicit in some of the Lawrence’s language is a much darker political project, and you rightfully avoid that. But what instead? Pessimistically, I sometimes see phones as the greatest gift because they are a distraction from distraction—splinters in our eyes so that we do not have to face the void of a disenchanted life.
This is a truly beautiful work that mirrors my own experience. Through a love of the romantics, in particular Goethe and Novalis, along with a surrender to the forests of the Santa Cruz mountains that involved the immersion of nature beings as well as the total annihilation of the forest via wildfire, I too find myself returned to the Catholic faith of body and blood. As a computer scientist and early Internet adopter turned author and mother, I also find myself defending the body and the senses as the soil of the soul, and much like the recovery of the land after wildfire involved a rebuilding of the soil, so too do our souls need the soil of the body to be renewed for our incarnation to be fruitful and green again.
Great essay! Something sad I've noticed lately being around a lot of people who are dying or very sick is that even on the deathbed the phone is too captivating to put down, and many people are scrolling away their last hours online looking at nonsensical garbage.
Thank you, your essay gave me a new impetus, in my desperate search for how to communicate more effectively, amidst this liquid modernity and abolution imagined era.
We should not have to retreat in fear of the digital jaggernaut but instead, seek how we can conquer it, thereby indirectly saving humanity, through the sacred reconnection with our souls and our bodies.
Many thanks to the metropolitan review for giving so much space to this perspective. A toast to supernatural literary criticism.
Ambitious essay. I’m a little surprised Simone Weil didn’t get a mention, however. If you haven’t read her I wouldn’t be surprised if she ends up in your pantheon once you do.
Bravo. I appreciate every word of this. And I have not read any mention of Maurice Merleau-Ponty in over ten years. ;)
An anecdote of personal experience, I moved to France three years ago (French husband), and I am somewhat embarrassed to say that I feel obligated to document and photograph my life here. Everyone is doing it, right?
The really sad thing is, when I whip out my phone at Monet's Gardens or Mont Saint-Michel it takes me away from those beautiful places.
At this point, I prefer to throw my phone into the water from Mont Saint-Michel.
Why, why, why can't we just savor experiences and capture memories in our hearts and minds?
Anyway, I too, worry about how our online life takes us away from the beauty of every day.
No matter where you look away from electronic distractions, no matter how far you travel to escape from the internet, no matter how much you "put down your phone" (old people logic), what will be a guarantee, and absolute truth is there will always be an exhausting amount of abrahamic evangelists whom go through great lengths to sell you their god weirdly similar to an intruding friend from high-school reaching out to you from the past's abyss who turns out to be a part of a mediocre multi-level marketing scheme which they reveal over lunch at Luby's
"Amount" pertains to continuous quantities so it is misused with "evangelists." You probably wanted "number."
"Similar" is modifying the verb sell, so you want "weirdly similarly" as an adverb there.
Misuse of "whom" in this comment.
You will not defeat us Abrahamic evangelists unless you tighten up the grammar.
Crikey! Don’t look at my Substack. I’ve no idea what you’re saying but I’m impressed anyway.
The irony of reading this in bed in my phone! Illness showed me the truth of these words-that mind body and soul are connected and the mind isn’t higher in the hierarchy, and “I “ do not reside in my mind. However, the equating the Internet with satan lost me, as did all the references to Christianity when it became judgy and hell fire and brimstone. I tried to keep reading though, and enjoyed the quotes and chosen poetry.
Interesting piece—I had seen both books and hadn’t read them, so I appreciate your glosses. My question with your piece and ones like it are the specifics. Yes, we are distracted. But distracted from what? Our bodies, yes, as you suggest. But then what? More sex? Sure. But what else? Implicit in some of the Lawrence’s language is a much darker political project, and you rightfully avoid that. But what instead? Pessimistically, I sometimes see phones as the greatest gift because they are a distraction from distraction—splinters in our eyes so that we do not have to face the void of a disenchanted life.
Great article...about the rising tide of mobile phones and their use...
How quickly we all forget what we were doing before the Puter and phone arrived...
When we were children at play did we stop to gaze at LCD screens?!
This is a truly beautiful work that mirrors my own experience. Through a love of the romantics, in particular Goethe and Novalis, along with a surrender to the forests of the Santa Cruz mountains that involved the immersion of nature beings as well as the total annihilation of the forest via wildfire, I too find myself returned to the Catholic faith of body and blood. As a computer scientist and early Internet adopter turned author and mother, I also find myself defending the body and the senses as the soil of the soul, and much like the recovery of the land after wildfire involved a rebuilding of the soil, so too do our souls need the soil of the body to be renewed for our incarnation to be fruitful and green again.
Great essay! Something sad I've noticed lately being around a lot of people who are dying or very sick is that even on the deathbed the phone is too captivating to put down, and many people are scrolling away their last hours online looking at nonsensical garbage.
Dear Emma,
Thank you, your essay gave me a new impetus, in my desperate search for how to communicate more effectively, amidst this liquid modernity and abolution imagined era.
We should not have to retreat in fear of the digital jaggernaut but instead, seek how we can conquer it, thereby indirectly saving humanity, through the sacred reconnection with our souls and our bodies.
Sincerely,
Horseman
Great piece Emma - beautifully written and thought-provoking.
I just want to supplement it with a quote by photographer Yousuf Karsh (frequently, if mistakenly, attributed to Jung).
'Character, like a photograph, develops in darkness'.