"The Owl Has Flown"

“Fact is that there is no public space available to individuals who profess the vertical awareness,” this is only one of many claims that Sven Birkerts has in his article, “The Owl Has Flown.” Birkerts is simply stating that society in the Twenty-first century doesn’t have room for the truly wise people. Wisdom is not viewed as socially “cool.” Birkerts also refers to, “a therapist’s office is a parenthetic enclosure,” and that people won’t share their true thoughts with someone passing them on the street not even their closest friends. Although not saying so directly, Birkerts apparently assumes society will run to a therapist every time they have something personally important (intellectually) to get off their chests. Assuming that we only feel safe to share not only our feelings, but also our intellectual ideas inside a small room with the door closed sitting on a couch not even looking at the person in whom we are confiding. Birkerts is implying that this idea of the therapist’s office is the only society approved way of communicating our deepest thoughts because there is no room in our lives to listen, truly listen, when another is trying to reach beyond the everyday horizontal way of thinking and share those thoughts with just a friend or even the world.