Beautifully Broken Issue #32: The Delight & Power Of The Analog

IDEAS, ART & WISDOM TO REPAIR OUR BEAUTIFUL WORLD

Happy Saturday! Welcome to Beautifully Broken Issue #32: The Delight & Power Of The Analog. Each week's issue will be reserved for paid subscribers first (but you can obtain a free preview of an issue as a free subscriber). After a month the issue will become free and can be found in the archive.

---

IDEAS:  The Delight & Power Of The Analog

Analog is the new luxury. Here are 20th century things that are now difficult to obtain without some willpower and effort, and that will become increasingly more so as we move forward into the 21st century: distraction-free time and privacy.

The ability to sit, ponder and think for long periods without being bothered, the ability to act without reacting, the freedom of undisturbed mental space where new ideas can emerge. All of these are on the ‘endangered human experience’ list. 

You will have to be wealthy or very poor to enjoy these two rights that should be enjoyed by every human being. The poor because the price of digital convenience and virtual reality will become increasingly more expensive as we become more reliant upon it to complete every task; and the rich because they will have the resources to be able to use people and AI to take care of things so they can enjoy the privilege of just existing as a human being.

If you're over 50 years of age and reading this then you've spent enough of your life in the analog 20th century that what I'm writing might seem nonsensical. Maybe you can take or leave digital life, maybe you already have a mostly analog life because you looked at what was on offer from the digital and walked away. 

Author Ann Patchett wrote in the New York Times this week about her regret for switching onto email in the 90s and giving up letter writing (excerpt below).

It's not too late for you. Cling to the analog for your physical and mental health, to connect to the past experience of humanity in the physical world, to a mind-body connection that unifies internal experience with external physicality.