I just put onto the bookshelf in my office the old Encyclopedia Britannica from my childhood. My mom moved out of her house, and I asked if I could have them.
The set is older than I am, and it contains all sorts of great historical facts about countries that no longer exist, and cutting edge technologies from long ago that nobody thinks about anymore.
I realize that much of the knowledge in these volumes is available on the Web, with interactive illustrations, proper hyperlinking and automatic updates. But it’s just not the same.
Picking up and opening one of these books gives me a delicious and visceral sense of history that I can’t get from looking at a computer screen. Besides, I suspect that much of the information about long-gone people, places and things is not really available on-line.
It is a treasure, and I treasure it.
Ah, it reminds me of the japanese’s concept of Wabi-sabi (and Kintsugi in a way too).
What is History but what is left behind, and will we enter post-History once everything will be subsumed in the engineered eternity and qualia-sameness of the Network ?
It is almost like a cultural token is the product of its epoch (and production mode) more than the reduction of its content. In its decaying bits stories unfold.
Perhaps this is why rituals are more gratifying than optimized commodifications, why popping an LP on our old record player might be more enjoyable than pushing play on an infinite Spotify playlist, or french pressing coffee somewhat more rewarding than using a Nespresso machine. We trade time for interactions.
If not streamlined, it seems we care more about the relationship we shared with this meta-objects than their optimal efficiency, what it tells about us and where we came from.
Perhaps life is about the gradients, the fractal cracks that shed us lights.