Jacques Barzun

I recently bought From Dawn to Decadence for some light evening reading. The following two articles are about Barzun. (read) and (read)

One Blog Away from Death

Why do I spend so much time reading different blogs? Christian blogs, philosophy blogs, theology blogs, atheist blogs, political blogs, book blogs, friends’ blogs, church blogs, famous people’s blogs, etc. I’m one step away from spending the bulk of my time watching lame videos on YouTube. (I did watch one called something like What if George Lucas directed the Lord of the Rings – mildly funny). Is there something in me that tends towards voyeurism? Do I need to know what’s happening in the lives or minds of other people? Just because someone has written something somewhat interesting must I read it? I’m spending way too much time in front of a computer screen and not enough time reading, or listening to Bach, or doing daily chores. There’s simply the soft whitish-blue glow of a flat screen monitor, pounding me with its extremely low frequency radiation. There’s the sound of the computer fan humming away oblivious to my near addiction.

I often think what it would be like living in a monastery. I wonder if Protestants have anything like monasteries. My picture is of a group of people spending time studying the Bible and other great books, growing their own food, making wine, discoursing on the great questions of life, spending time in contemplative prayer and meditation, performing music. Perhaps this sort of life is too insular. Don’t Christians need to be out in the world sharing the gospel? I guess that could be one of the core activities. Anyway, my inner luddite is showing himself. I’m already technologically incompetent. May I should just go with the e-flow and hope I don’t end up face down in a silicone sludge.

The computer has replaced the television as my primary time waster. Before, at least, there would eventually be nothing interesting showing on my 30 (or so) channels, so that, by dint of boredom, I’d turn the thing off. Not so with the computer. At least, not so with one that has a broadband internet connection. The paradox here is this: there is so much interesting stuff on the web that I could not possibly read it all. Thus I’m relegated to simply skimming along the surface in a futile attempt to read as much of it as possible. The end result is that I retain very little of what I read. And this can take hours upon hours of time. Springsteen complained about 57 channels with nothing on? Try myriad upon myriad of cyber sites with too much on and no way to absorb it all. I open multiple windows with different bits of information only to see a blur. I long for the days when all we had were books. Even if you read more than one, there was at least a physical limit. And you could only read one at a time (for the most part).

So my point? Nothing. Just a clump of electrons lighting up your life.

Around cyberspace

It's time again for another of my regular, infrequent posts which consists only of links to other sites.

Doug Groothuis on being literate

An interview with Rosalind Picard

John Stackhouse on Santa Claus

Praise for C.S. Lewis

A Cumulative Case for the Resurrection of Jesus