The Acceleration of Addictiveness, article.
How as technology progresses, everything becomes more engaging, and thus more addictive. With some interesting comments on the Internet as addiction. The author, who clearly is a powerful and productive man who has more self-discipline than most, still has to force himself on long walks without any gadgets (update: "force" is overstating it, OK), mainly to get away from the Internet so he can think more freely.
2 comments:
Metaphors are supposed to help us understand something by drawing a parallel with something already understood. Sometimes the metaphor takes on a life of it's own: in this case tempting the blogger to say, "...force himself on long walks" as though walking was like taking methadone or aversion therapy rather than a simple pleasure. Perhaps that represents the blogger's own experience of walking, but I prefer to think it is excess use of that metaphor.
Excess and addiction are related, but they are not synonymous. Walking may be excessive if it is merely a displacement activity for excessive something else, but few people would walk to an extent that it stopped being beneficial to their health.
It seems to me that the crux of Paul Graham's article lies in "...there's no word for something we like too much." English Teacher Melanie advises: "You can NOT like something too much. Too much is a negative expression."
http://tinyurl.com/266qyfq
That one will run and run in the amateur debating club I attend, aka The Pig & Whistle. However, if the article revolves around a linguistic contradiction in terms, perhaps we should stop now. So I will. However, the article did get me thinking, and believe me that is no mean achievement.
You're right, I over-simplified and over-stated it, in my eagerness to be brief.
I do think, though, that one can like something too much. For example, probably even a bit of liking for heroin is too much.
I guess something can't be "too good for you" though.
Post a Comment