Pandemic lockdown bright sides? No.

So has my Muse fled the scene forever, or is she merely suffering pandemic burnout?

Psychologists are reporting a rise in “pandemic burnout” as many people find the current phase of lockdowns harder, with an increasing number feeling worn out and unable to cope.

The Guardian

So here I’ve parked, this past year, largely confined to home with computers and ideas for books on all sides, shielded from such distractions as a social life. Liberally supplied with food, water, tea … Read more

101 ways social isolation can be good for you

#1: Recover the pleasure of sinking into a long novel. 

learn to out-focus a goldfish 

Recover an attention span longer than that of a goldfish – your average digitally connected human has the lesser attention span – the way evolution intended. Be less a victim of the myriad modern distractions that grab our minds and then scatter them across what currently pass for our realities. 

compose the script of your own existence

Reclaiming your attention span means also reclaiming a … Read more

Zombie nation: Shutting down

In my previous post I suggested that persons and cultures, our very realities, are narrative in structure. What happens when you interrupt such narratives? Many of us are finding out, thanks to our increasingly ubiquitous and much-beloved digital communication technologies. There follow two especially obvious ways this is happening.

Applying a cell phone to the side of one’s head in public has the effect of disconnecting the brain. In this condition, cellphone users show characteristic signs of aimlessness, milling about … Read more