Description
“Novelty has a tendency to make us philosophers.”
– Virginia Woolf
Constantly looking outwards, humans have crossed continents and oceans, invented technological wizardry, created and consumed artwork, even hurled ourselves into outer space. Our curiosity appears to have no limits. However, this seeking instinct means that it has always been difficult to focus on what’s in front of us, to not be drawn into the pull of ‘the new’ – forever seeking that which we haven’t previously seen or experienced.
Ancient philosophers from Cicero to Pliny the Elder wrote of our fondness for novelty and warned of the problems this caused for us. But if the Ancients, without the lure of incessant technological change and the chatter of the online world, found it tough, what chance do we have? Are we doomed to be stuck in an eternal return of purchasing objects and novelty-seeking online, searching for new information, new items, new technology, new news?
To be fair, seeking in of itself isn’t something to be avoided – in fact, it’s that very seeking that helps us grow, learn, change, and improve ourselves and our place in the world. Nor is the internet and all that it offers the cause of our ills; we’re blessed with a cornucopia of ideas and information that would have made an Enlightenment scholar weep with joy. The issue is that, when bundled with our seemingly insatiable desire for novelty, this abundance of information and ideas presents a problem: if we allow our curiosity to run rampant online, we’ll simply get very little else done.
If there’s no off button, if we don’t actively use restraint, then the novelty machine that is the internet will consume all our available free time.
Zan Boag, Editor-in-Chief
