In his book The End Of Absence, Michael Harris laments the everpresence of digital technology. He writes stylishly and gracefully, but he struggles to get a grip on the argument he wants to make. I feel his yearning for mindfulness and relate to his distrust for apps and devices that leech on our attention for profit, but I balk at his dismay at seeing a toddler attempt to zoom in on the cover of a magazine as if it were an iPad screen.

This observation’s lack of consequence hints at the lack of clarity in the author’s critique of digital technology. Most frustrating is his lack of self-awareness when recounting past technology alarmists. He tells us of Hieronimo Squarciafico, who in the 1400s decried the printing press for making too many books available, and of Socrates before that, who warned that writing was bad for one’s memory.

Harris seems to recognize these two as cynical luddites, but then refuses to acknowledge them as his forerunners. Instead, he sidesteps into a discussion about how tools reshape the psychologies of their wielders. It’s a real shame, because a serious take on the role of digital technology in our lives cannot ignore either its usefulness or its permanence.

It is clear that this technological revolution like all others cannot be evaded without exit from society and that it will continue to transform us. The question is: how do we incorporate these new technologies into our lives? How do we retain their usefulness while minimizing the harm they might do to us?

There are signs, earlier in the book, that the author won’t really be trying to sort out this knot and will content himself merely with perusing and picking at it. He mourns the “end of absence”, but never makes it clear where his concept of “absence” even begins. His vignettes hint at some possible meanings – time without digital technology, time alone out in nature, time to think. Is that all? These goals seem perfectly achievable with a little time management. Has he tried the Pomodoro Technique? Why ring the alarm bell when a simple kitchen timer will do?

Missing Japan, losing weight, experimenting with daily routines, & more.

We just got back from Japan. I would love to live there for a while someday, although I think it unlikely, even though they offer a six month Digital Nomad visa. Z’s work is not remote and she wants to develop her career, so teaching English or something of the sort is not particularly useful to her. Regardless, I am sure we will visit again.

I am twenty pounds lighter than I was a year and a half ago. I still want to lose another twenty. I am trying to eat very consciously and exercise everyday. I feel optimistic.

For the last few days I have woken up early and immediately gone out on a walk with my coffee. It’s a lovely way to warm up for the day and start by accomplishing my daily task of exercising. Walking is useful for me given that I am a homebody with a remote computer job and a reliance on soccer for exercise. After returning from my morning walks I’ve spent some time reading before getting on with my day. An aspiration I’ve set for myself is to do each of these everyday: exercise, read, write, work, enjoy, socialize, discuss, grow, & plan. I realize they might sound cheesy, but they are distillations of more specific intentions I have for 2025.

In December I received my expected promotion to Senior Software Engineer. It’s a milestone in my career. The pay bump was nice if modest for industry standards, but the biggest perk is the deference I am already getting as part of the increase in my responsibilities. I have strong opinions on how certain things should be done and I feel already a boost in persuasive power generated from my new title. To summarize, I feel like I have more agency, and I welcome it.

Matthew B. Crawford’s The World Beyond Your Head has provoked in me a lot of reflection about what things consume my attention and how environments dictate that.

I recently read Molloy by Samuel Beckett and I intend to continue with the second book in the trilogy.

I also resumed reading and marveling at the prose in Blood Meridian. I think it appropriate to take my time with what Harold Bloom called “the major esthetic achievement of any living American writer.” Of course, McCarthy has since died and his legacy has begun morphing due to recent news of a very inappropriate relationship he had with a teenage girl named Augusta Britt.

Last year as soon as the weather started cooling and days darkening early I started watching movies. In the last few months I’ve watched The Substance, Woman of the Hour, We Live In Time, The Godfather and The Godfather Part 2, The Power of the Dog, Killers of the Flower Moon, Anora, A Real Pain, Perfect Days, Gladiator II, and Punch-Drunk Love. Reviews and ratings for these are or will be on my letterboxd account. Tomorrow I’m going to watch The Brutalist.

Following the English Premier League is so interesting because the competition is so fierce and sophisticated. It is so difficult for teams to win. It is so difficult for fans or pundits to predict what will happen. New players arrive, old ones fall away, young ones rise into prominence. It’s a lucrative business but it is also genuine, gripping drama.

The year 2025 is a blank canvas. We don’t have any specific plans. Of course, it is predictable in some ways. But perhaps more so, it is open ended.

I begin the year with several intentions. Do big things at work. Get fitter. Lose twenty pounds. Have more discussions with friends. Read copiously. Keep writing for and developing this site. Nurture friendships. Heal and grow. Enjoy our DINK status. Ruminate on longterm plans.

I round the corner of another year with the intention to change my life. Change it not majorly, but minorly. I intend to live in the same place, work the same job, drink the same coffee. But I want to sharpen my focus. I intend to withhold my attention a bit more and marshall it with more discipline towards things that matter. That doesn’t mean I will scold myself if I waste time, or spend it on unimportant things. But I want to try everyday to dedicate more attention to things that matter, to things that will accumulate rather than disappear into the void like jewelry into the drain.

I will continue resisting idealistic aspirations towards abstract virtue, but will try to submit myself to disciplines that I trust will render concrete results. Spending more time reading. Waking earlier. Avoiding cheap distractions that undermine opportunities to spend time meaningfully. I’m not so interested in deeming time spent scrolling on instagram or passively consuming recommended YouTube videos as immoral. It is not bad to produce nothing or learn nothing for a few minutes on a random day, but it is costly to let it become a habit. Costly in time and in opportunity. I don’t believe I’m particularly special but I do think there is a version of me at eightysomething years old that looks back with some sastifaction at his life’s work. I want to do something meaningful and I know the steady progress of minutes hours and days can lead to things that irregular bouts of inspiration can imagine but never produce.

There are many different ways to sum up a year. Here are some.

In 2024, for the seventh year in a row, I kept a journal playlist, to which I added throughout the year songs that I listened to repeatedly. It’s fun to let time pass and then listen back to these lists. Music is like aroma, an instantly nostalgic medium.

The first song in my 2024 playlist is by Mark Lanegan, whose memoir Sing Backwards and Weep was the first book I finished in 2024. Books offer an incredible way to access worlds that we will never see in the flesh. As other great memoirs like Educated have done for me, Lanegan’s installed in my psyche a bank of artificial memories and secondhand experiences that enrich my understanding of the world and even inform my own life decisions. The written word is a tremendously efficient medium for conjuring these pseudoexperiences. And to think I can absorb it as audio while I perform menial tasks like driving on the highway or cooking lunch!

Books are of course also an incredible way to encounter new ideas. In The End of Absence I encountered Michael Harris’s thoughtprovoking but ultimately underwhelming ideas regarding the intersecting topics of technology and attention. Later in the year I picked up Matthew B. Crawford’s The World Beyond Your Head after seeing Tom MacWright’s glowing review of it and with this book I was not disappointed. As I said in my most recent /now update, Crawford’s book provoked in me a lot of reflection about what things consume my attention and how environments dictate that.

I posted four entries in 2024:

I tried to post more often but it was difficult to do so considering the level of detail I put in each one.