I hear the same anxieties over and over again. Everything is too fast; everything is too precarious. We have more access than ever to the people we are trying to reach, thanks to social media and mobile technology, and more information than we know what to do with.
If I could throw my phone away, I would probably do it. It's always on silent, and I don't like when it rings and people are calling. We could live without those things in the past when we just had a phone on the street somewhere, on the corner or at the house. I have no interest in telling all the people what I do every day and where I am.
Almost everybody I know has this sense of overdosing on information and getting dizzy living at post-human speeds.
When I go into a theater, I'm very excited to turn off my phone. But then, of course, I get anxiety.
It's hard not to read the success of someone like Hilary Mantel as the product of a world that is too nervous, too crazy, and perhaps too interesting for some people.
There's something really terrible about having your BlackBerry next to your bed or having your laptop in the living room when you're talking to someone. The biggest source of stress in my life is the screen, the blogging.
I accept chaos. I am not sure whether it accepts me. I know some people are terrified of the bomb. But then some people are terrified to be seen carrying a modern screen magazine. Experience teaches us that silence terrifies people the most.
The computer, the noise of the computer feels like impatience. It's sort of the sound of impatience to me.
I and everyone else in this world live in what is probably the most difficult times that have ever been. We are facing total thermonuclear destruction; and, if you can make someone believe in a ghost or a demon or a vampire in the face of that, you are doing well. From my own personal point of view, I don't think just blood and guts is enough. At least, it isn't for me. Maybe it will turn someone's stomach; but, I'm not sure that is literature or even entertainment.
Is it possible that the collective global psyche of the world is like an overloaded modem and can no longer meaningfully communicate, comprehend, or listen to anything or anyone else?
Everything in horror film is about transgression, and the young audience wants to touch something that is forbidden and is, by function, anti-establishment. It is a way for young audiences to express rebellion and also to deal with very modern fear but in a very playful way, in a very symbolic way.
No technological achievements can mitigate the disappointment of modern man, his loneliness, his feeling of inferiority, and his fear of war, revolution and terror. Not only has our generation lost faith in Providence but also in man himself, in his institutions and often in those who are nearest to him.
Our attention span is shot. We've all got Attention Deficit Disorder or ADD or OCD or one of these disorders with three letters because we don't have the time or patience to pronounce the entire disorder. That should be a disorder right there, TBD - Too Busy Disorder.
In the modern world, there's a real genuine fear of loss of individuality, and I think the undead speak to that. I also think the idea of the dead coming back to life, and this unstoppable foe that just keeps coming and coming but rather slowly just chases you, is a real primal fear.
This is where our obsession with going fast and saving time leads. To road rage, air rage, shopping rage, relationship rage, office rage, vacation rage, gym rage. Thanks to speed, we live in the age of rage.
Scaring people, especially in our day and time, is one of the hardest things on earth, as far as I am concerned.
