Dark Enough Now

[unresponsive 7-11 clerk in Hong Kong on 4/21/26]

Socrates didn’t care for writing or painting, since neither can engage you in dialogs. Imposing their views in silence, they can’t elaborate themselves, correct their mistakes or refute your challenges. Worse, they’re narcissistic, for they demand to be admired, just like their creators, often worthless. (That last sentence is my interjection, in dialog with Socrates.)

Though face to face conversations are ideal for us humans to understand each other, obviously, we in 2026 avoid real faces as much as possible. Instead, we gorge on virtual or distant ones, preferably tiny. Fleshy ones with blinking eyes, tongue and teeth demand attentive interaction. They can even hint, promise or threaten you, yes, you, directly, without making a sound. Who can put up with such tyranny?

By the mid-19^th century, Paris had gas lights and straightened, widened streets, thus birthing the flaneur, a fancy word for a curious, attentive idler or nosey bum. (The camera was still too crude, heavy, slow and expensive for street photography.) Wandering around leisurely, he ogles. Even at night, he could do this, without fear of getting lost or assaulted. (Paris wasn’t like a 20^th or 21^st century American city.) Our insatiable voyeurism, that is, our appetite for looking at hundreds if not thousands of strangers daily without engaging them, can be traced to mid-19^th century Paris.