Brain Enema

In a recent Op Ed ("Longing for An Internet Cleanse,"NYT, 3/28/19), David Brooks quotes from the Jewish scholar Abraham Joshua Heschel’s The Sabbath thusly, “The seventh day is a palace in time which we build. It is made of soul, of joy and reticence. In its atmosphere, a discipline is a reminder of adjacency to eternity. Indeed the splendor of the day is expressed in terms of abstentions.” Brooks’ piece is a meditation on timeless things. He mentions the Greek concept of Kairos time “which is not quantitative like our normal conception of time but qualitative,” 300-400 year old Japanese Kintsugi bowls and the work of the abstract artist Makoto Fujimura. But of course Keats’ “Grecian Urn” would qualify. The opening line of the poem “Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness…” is a notion that's more likely to be memorized in this age of rapid fire texting and Tweets than totally understood. In order to handle datification and the juggernaut of information that attacks the senses from social media, the average person has depend on short hand that reduces objects to flash preconceptions which are quickly encapsulated and categorized. There's no time to stop as in the chemical bath of an old-fashioned darkroom where a photo slowly and magically develops. Polaroids gave way to digital. It’s like Moore’s law. Expeditiousness is a byproduct of progress and consciousness is like philanderer who enjoys a promiscuous relationship with the parade of U.S.D.A stamped premium information.