The mass quantification of data, projected onto offline activity, takes away one of the great mysteries of literature. It had nothing to do with how many people actually read the damn book.
You could not quantify influence, maybe you still can’t––but perception is two-thirds of reality.
Technology has become, if not a god, something trusted way too much. And feared––fear has always been the basis of a good religion. “God is a DJ” was no accidental formulation.
We are all in this together. We all gang up on the same bright minds. We sap their energy and imagine we are immortal. To the furnace, you and I….
Shed my smartphone like the snake it is––leave it to know-it-all nothings, hack amateurs, and trolls. I want to experience what real knowing is again. To not hashtag and geolocate adventures… if no one knows, mystery is preserved. If the formula is buried… seldom shared… people start digging and begin replicating the cicada patterns of only arriving when they are ready.
Literary tie-in: Staying one or two cycles ahead of the current state-of-the-algorithm.* Obscurity a bargain among those who want to speak and never quite be found. To out-Pynchon the best, to stay one step ahead of the thunder.
Delivered, bundled, transmitted, and discretely logged. And amidst all that basic confusion. If we know everything why is the earth insistently telling us we know very little? The bogeyman is… you guessed it….**
** Pogo, circa 1968.
#endwriter