Rogue Robots, Bad Job Markets and Choosing Your Own Reality
Koan #50
I once subscribed to The New Yorker for a year or two. When the first issue arrived, I spent a Sunday afternoon reading through each story. I liked some of the stories but also read the ones I didn’t like. I guess I felt like I had paid for it and needed to consume it.
The next week, the second issue arrived. I don’t think I realized the publishing schedule for The New Yorker is weekly and not monthly. So, on a quiet Sunday the following week, I sat down and began to work my way through it. I never read it all the way through and sat it aside in pursuit of other tasks that day.
You know this story. Before long, I had stacks of issues to read. I eventually ended up tossing them all, but only after they had sat for many months, the growing stack gathering dust and beckoning guilt. The free book bag they sent me with the subscription had to go too. It was nice, but a painful reminder of my failure to appreciate great magazine literature — a failure to finish what I started but could not hope to finish.
As I sit here penning this article, I have a stack of Wired magazines on the shelf in front of me — many of them from more than 5years ago. I have an inbox full of articles I once thought would be interesting and some still do spark a little interest…
