I sincerely hope that this David Brooks column signals the beginning of the apocalypse:
But at this year’s TED conference, which was held here in Vancouver, British Columbia, the rock star Sting got onstage and gave a presentation that had a different feel. He talked about his rise to stardom and then about a period in middle age when he was unable to write any new songs. The muse abandoned him, he said — for days, then weeks, then months, then years.
But then he went back and started thinking about his childhood in the north of England. He’d lived on a street that led down to a shipyard where some of the world’s largest ocean-going vessels were built.
Most of us have an urge, maybe more as we age, to circle back to the past and touch the places and things of childhood. When Sting did this, his creativity was reborn. Songs exploded from his head.
Maybe there’s a way for the NSA to hack into the all the internets and destroy this article so that future historians never get a chance to see it. I still have some pride, some attachment to what humans have accomplished in this so-called civilization. I don’t want us to be remembered for this.