To live in interesting times used to be a young person’s joyful expectation, or an ancient and veiled curse, wished ironically upon one’s enemies – the turbulence of uncertainty and risk and violence could be both antidote to and punishment for a quiet, boring, and peaceful life.
The excitement of all things improbable continues to haunt both the young and the belligerent but has now scaled up and around to consume broader demographics. Each pulse of the network is a potentially life-changing moment, each notification panel an inviting tunnel to emergency mode. Speed and depth pull our attention in opposite directions, and yet sometimes blend in an exhilarating cocktail of collective delight.
There has never been a time like this one, especially when we now know so much about all the other times that felt like this – in unbelievable and simulated detail, with intimate scope and global legitimate access. Ours is the age of miracles and abominations, of love and dread, of shattered empires and their gilded splinters.