Michael Banovsky

“–but he never tried to write thoughts,—no, he could not tell what to put first, it would kill him, and then there was spelling to be attended to at the same time!” — Thoreau, Walden

Lately I’ve been trying to think. Well, think then write. I say things all the time, but writing—writing in the best sense—is far more difficult than it once was.

I used to believe that self imposed solitude spawned genuine thought, in turn spurring written words. A writer: who I think I want to be. Maybe an apartment with white, unadorned walls and a hope of furniture isn’t the best place to think-therefore-write, because I ended up catching insomnia and discontent over the Internet.

Result: I hate the term social media, because it’s most endearing when you’re alone. We crave the echo, and when solitude waves over we’re disposed to log in and cry out. There’s information, sure. Tabs, and tabs, and tabs, and–… But when you want to think, as I do, it’s the worst environment man has ever created.

Making money—hell, being successful—on the web is about capturing attention. Snatching eyes. Grabbing fingers. Plugging potential motion leaks so our selves can focus on a screen. Virtual paralysis. Caged. Just like squirrels lured into a trap by a wipe of peanut butter, we’re snared by the mere hint of a meme. The Internet: it puts the sat in satisfaction. Attention is not thought.

Aren’t we foolish?

We’ve created an ecosystem for the smartest things we know (our brains) and it does nothing to sustain them. Humanity is at present looking without acknowledging, reading without considering. Clicking without correlating. How could we? How the fuck could we find a morsel of mental freedom in a hyperlinked thicket? Data is not thought.

Problem: just as industrial progress sucks oil and spits sodden glaciers, the information age feasts electricity and slurs grey matter.

Result: The last one to log out will find original thought has been dodoized, our endless search for meaning and understanding completed in time for the power to go out and the earth to swallow us back into her chest. Terra bites.

So when I go to think, I leave screens behind. The mind creates its own aura, one that is not—and can not—be seen over the glow of a screen. New thought is rare. Always has been. Maybe thinking is—and writing by extension—difficult because it’s an anomaly on this planet. Coincidentally, really, the thoughts of men and have always been detrimental to nature. How can anyone grasp, harness—entertain—perpetuity? How can we say the earth is better off since we started felling trees and printing the New York Times?

Trying to think-therefore-write now seems silly. Maybe I should be seeing, touching, tasting, smelling, and hearing. Being.