Thursday, October 31, 2024

Nineteen Eighty-Four




One Hundred Years of Solitude
is the famous Marquez novel but it's an almost biblical expression of an age of interiority. Now there is little privacy and still less quiet. Social media forces one's hand and identities are stolen as ubiquitously as gold in the Wild West. You may read about Chinese hackers getting into phones but consciousness itself is no longer sacrosanct. Claudius is almost murdered in prayer but thought itself is no longer sacrosanct. Tik Tok hath murdered sleep. Big Brother is the famous invocation from 1984, but the frightening truth is that today's Winston Smiths 
exhaust all possible escapes when the mind no longer provides a safe harbor.

"God Bless Pig Latin America" by Francis Levy, The East Hampton Star

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