Andrew Sullivan muses about how he used to be a human being before the Internet frazzled his brain. “I tried reading books, but that skill now began to elude me. After a couple of pages, my fingers twitched for a keyboard. I tried meditation, but my mind bucked and bridled as I tried to still it…. So much of the technology was irreversible, as I also knew. But I’d begun to fear that this new way of living was actually becoming a way of not-living.”
On the other hand, technology can also assist in the corporal works of mercy, as Holly Hartman discovered after downloading an app that turned her into a dispatcher for grassroots Harvey rescue efforts. “A couple of other women… who had been taking calls from victims and logging in the information came on the line around 12:30 and said they had to sign off so they could get to bed. They asked if there was anyone who could work through the night to keep taking rescue requests and log them. I sat up and turned on my light. I timidly pushed the ‘talk’ button and said, ‘I can.’”
British novelist Zadie Smith has a few good insights into the spiritual ambitions of the late David Foster Wallace. “The most impassioned book recommendation he ever gave me was for Catholics by Brian Moore, a novella about a priest who, after forty years in a monastery, finds he still isn’t capable of prayer. Anyone who thinks Dave primarily an ironist should note that choice. His is a serious kind of satire, if by satire we mean ‘the indirect praise of good things’.”
