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Lily's avatar

I feel this very deeply. Sometimes, for all its flaws, I find myself longing for the days of pre-ubiquitous internet, for the types of human interactions I had as a child that feel harder to find now, having struggle to find the same sort of depth and complexity, and the feeling of not being watched, rated, recorded, analyzed. The way that lack of permanance and importance and feeling that the gaze of society was always on you made people freer with their words, sometimes for ill I do remember, but often just in a more open way. I don’t know if this is just the nostalgia we get when we are older or if we’re missing something about how we communicate now. I don’t think I have the complete backward looking nostaligia, I know some things are better now. But still I miss something about the freeflowing conversations with so much less worry about being judged that had so many more shades of a person’s individuality in them.

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Steven's avatar

This is a flat-out wonderful piece of cultural criticism, witty and smart and ironic and propulsive. I love the comparison of the speculative fiction and the trash can. I love how artfully you allow us to get to know aspects of your life without this becoming memoir-y or overly intimate. When I first read down the list of "subscriber writing" on FdB's blog, my heart sank. Everyone, it seems, thinks he or she is a writer, I thought. But I took a chance on this, and, boy, am I glad I did. You ARE a writer, an excellent one. Many thanks for this. (And blessings on your mother.)

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