I notice this frequently, how each new event feels not entirely new, how the emerging present carries a familiar flavor, an oblique nostalgia, the covert recurrence of a prior moment from both yesterday and decades ago—neither memory nor déjà vu but something in between. But the awareness of this familiarity is fleeting. Western civilization’s insistence that time is linear, consumerist society’s obsession with newness, and the relentless intrusion of corporate-crafted distraction prevent it from sinking in, from reaching the maturity of full conscious expression. And so the present moment passes with both the source and the nature of its not-quite novelty left unanalyzed. Continue reading “Progress is a virus”