Connecting

Heard the news about Ray Bradbury’s passing last night, via Twitter. I couldn’t sleep so picked up the iPad. So sad.

Today I am rereading Fahrenheit 451. I don’t remember when I last read it. I don’t remember the writing being so good.

This passage, a conversation between the fireman Guy Montag and Clarisse McClellan. Clarisse is talking about the emptiness in the interactions of the people around her:

“People don’t talk about anything.”

“Oh, they must!”

“No, not anything. They name a lot of cars or clothes or swimming-pools mostly and say how swell! But they all say the same things and nobody says anything different from anybody else. And most of the time in the cafes they have the jokeboxes on and the same jokes most of the time, or the musical wall lit and all the coloured patterns running up and down, but it’s only colour and all abstract. And at the museums, have you ever been? All abstract. That’s all there is now.My uncle says it was different once. A long time back sometimes pictures said things or even showed people.”

I was thinking about this in the context of manners, and whether or not all this technology is really helping us connect with people. Because there is so much of it, it can be overwhelming. Is the format encouraging us to  keep it superficial or trivial? I guess it depends on how we use it.

Bianca Hewes says she’s going to quit social media, to give herself space to think and do. I don’t know if I’m ready to quit holus-bolus, but I find that a break every now and again is definitely good. Be good to spend more time reading and ruminating too. Give myself time to get reacquainted with Ray Bradbury’s work.

So far the unexpected outcome of all this blogging is that I seem to be thinking more. This could be why I couldn’t sleep last night.