I have defended the tech industry (which has employed me, well, at times) and my chosen home to many a non-believer but this article, combined with several others lately, I fear is turning me cynical.

I hate being cynical. Cynicism means I'm lazily naysaying because to actually think the argument through makes me uncomfortable. Cynicism, to my mind, is for chumps. 

That said, I can't ignore that bad feeling in my stomach, that the unparalleled success and cultural dominance of technology is coming at the expense of something. And I'm not talking about video stores, or the Yellow Pages or answering machines. I have no nostalgia for a less efficient way of delivering information/art/culture. Instead I wonder if the values it extols are blinding us to others, others that run counter to ideas like efficiency, speed and "disruption." 

Put in a really, really dumb way: "What will your average successful software engineer/entrepreneur do when his best friend's mother dies of cancer?" I promise you the answer has nothing to do with speed, efficiency or disruption. It has to do with patience, uninterrupted time and giving someone you love hours upon days of your full attention as the world rolls on by without your participation for the time being. There's already been an app designed for this. It's called "Being Human." 

I only learned this with age and maturity so maybe it comes to all of us eventually. Nor do I think the values we practice at work must mirror those we practice at home (Andrew Carnegie sure treated his kids different than he treated his competitors). But I also doubt we can be totally compartmentalized forever. Much of life is simply not elegant, efficient, frictionless or well-designed. A lot of it could be better. But those probably aren't the standards by which we should be judging our human relationships, our psychological and spiritual development, our place in the continuum of the human story. All of that stuff is messy on purpose. The messy part is called "being human." 

Same dumb example: When the time comes, as it will for him, and for everyone, will Mark Zuckerberg and all who look up to him, know how to grieve, how to be present, how to sit with a sick person for hours at a time? Will they know how to comfort a scared kid during a thunderstorm? How to hold someone they love as they weep? Will they know how to be real instead of being better than?

Full attention is what makes us human. In this brave new world, Must we give ourselves time to learn that? Or do we no longer feel like we have to? 

Had a great lunch with agent on Friday. Still promoting Practical Classics but may be working on something new right soon!

My POV 15 minutes before I went on KQED's Forum, the most listened to public affairs program in the region. 

Afterward: Forgot to take a photo. Was craving the second half of that scone I did not finish. 

I think I did ok. But you tell me. 

 

Wow! Practical Classics has been out exactly two months. Thanks to a little bit of touring and a ton of support from you, sales are steady and continuing to climb. We've gotten some nice press in the LA Times, The Atlantic Wire, The Huffington Post and, eh, my first time on morning television. 

I've given myself until the beginning of June for this initial push which means there's still quite a bit of work left to go. Here's where else I'll be this spring.  

May 3-5: Boston (at the Muse & the Marketplace Writers Conference)

May 6: River Run Books (Portsmouth, NH. 45 minutes from Boston)

May 8:  Book Passage (Corte Madre, CA)

May 23rd:  Kepler's Books (Menlo Park, CA) 

See you on the road? In the meantime, you can get your copy of Practical Classics on Amazon, Barnes & Noble or at your favorite Independent Bookstore.