Love in the Time of Numbness; Or, Doctor Chekhov, Writer

newyorker.com

40 points·Hooke··4 comments

"Anger, like false news, is cheap and easily digestible; it is the fast food of the indignant."

and

"Today, and especially today, as the threat of desensitization—and the accompanying seductions of detachment, outrage, revulsion, indignation, piety, and narcissism—looms over all our lives, we might need to ask ourselves the question that Chekhov asked himself in the spring of 1890: What will move me beyond this state of anesthesia? How will I counteract the lassitude that creeps over my soul?"

At first I was "withdrawing from engagement altogether," but now I find myself with more compassion and an urge to help myself and others move forward.

I've come to see the desire for positivity in the face of overwhelming reasons for a negative outlook to often be accompanied by an implicit co-attribution of blame on to those who hold a negative outlook. I'm starting to perceive this misattribution of blame as part of the whole post truth machinery -- an attempt to dissipate the will to topple the worst actors. Let the rulers pillage, they try to say, and some of us will be better off.

I'm coming to see it for what it is: cowardice.

"What will move me beyond this state of anesthesia? How will I counteract the lassitude that creeps over my soul?"

What a great set of reflections. I've paused on this for the past 15 minutes and will continue to ponder it the rest of this evening.

Chekhov's short stories are one of the great accomplishments of any human being ever.

His plays also began the modern theatre.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com