Death or Birth?

In Sven Birkerts book “The Owl Has Flown” makes us “hopefully” look at several of the habits our culture in relation to reading. Sven attacks the fact that most skim the written word when they read, but also comes to their defense to say that the written word is everywhere. How can one help it? Can a person devote so much time to one book or article when there are so many amazing things to read? Or how do we know where to start when there is so much out there? How is this topical form of understanding affecting our culture or even our quality of life?
What is the equilibrium and how is it found is where Birkerts drives it home. Should we pour ourselves over a single book as to wring every last drop of knowledge and understanding out of it at the sacrifice of the opportunity for diversity in topic, or should we float from topic to topic like a butterfly only staying long enough to get what sustains us but not long enough to realize the beauty of the very thing giving us life? The paragraph I chose to reference talks about this very thing. The thought of microperspectives or the over abundance of information being as much of a hindrance as the lack of a larger perspective is an interesting one. How does one know if they are in the “sweet spot”? Sven speaks of a mix of information and context. But to what end? Depth, resonance, and wisdom (ideas put forth by Sven) are habits that one can use to bring themselves in touch more with their literature. Most of us today only look at the words, or even suck up the information, but don’t think about how it applies/affects our life. Digestion and contemplation are the tools here. Not just the ability to regurgitate information, but the ability to break it apart and put it back together with experience or opinions to come to another conclusion, a fuller understanding.
The fact that technology is growing is there to be seen even by the most sheltered of us. Does this threaten our ability to understand the depths of our passion and ultimately our ability to feel fulfilled in our life’s experiences? As seen before in the article “The New Literacy” by Clive Tompson we have assumptions on the direction that we are headed even in light of the way technology is changing things. With the proliferation of information and technology we may find that there are a vast amount of choices out there, but it is still up to us to make the decisions. I can only hope that though this ability to access all this information that our ability to make the right decisions grow, and our ability to connect with the raw passion and beauty that we all contain is achieved.