Perhaps more controversially, Miedema suggests that digital books have not evolved into anything other than a sort of metadata for print books (that they exist “only for evaluative purposes before the reader seeks out the physical copy”) (p. 37). I think it’s too early to say that this is the case; while the statistics aren’t in yet, it seems likely that many adopters of reading via the Kindle or iPad may not go out and buy physical copies of all the books they purchase for those devices (on the other hand, the amount of money I’ve spent on print copies of Google Books titles makes Miedema’s point work in my specific case).

Many middle zones are cataclysmic, marking a dramatic change that leaves no question. Watch water change state into steam at the boiling point. A shoreline is an unequivocal marking between land and water. A shoreline is beautiful too, like a sunrise and a sunset, declaring without doubt the difference between night and day. Lights are turned on and off, splitting darkness and light. A door is opened then closed. A person is dressed or undressed, each state indicating a very different sort of evening. Crossing the painted middle line in traffic has tumultuous consequences. Perhaps no transitions are more cataclysmic than birth and death.

I am deliberating avoiding the phrase, “radical middle”. Too tired. I like the Buddhist term, “bardo”, the charged passage between two realities, including those after death, but I will avoid metaphysics here. The cataclysmic middle is practical and definitive. No oatmeal.

Sure, we have to wait with print resources too. If I am writing and need to look something up, it takes time to find it. The difference with print is that my mind will be busy finding something, actively engaged. With digital waiting, what is the brain doing? Often the wait is too little to think or do anything at all. Are we simply watching the hourglass spin?

Is digital waiting a bad thing? Perhaps we should collect all those bits of downtime and turn them into cognitive surplus, Shirky style, the way Richard Pryor’s character in Superman 3 turned fractions of pennies into millions of dollars. If we could eliminate the downtime, we could become uber-productive, mainlining information like refined sugar.

I don’t like waiting anymore than the next person. One reason I prefer reading in print is that I have no dead time waiting for pages to turn. But we often benefit from having waiting imposed on us. Maybe digital waiting gives us micro-Zen moments, milliseconds of mindlessness that enlighten. More likely, the wait time is simply an existential fact. Life takes time. Our body is healthier when we eat unrefined foods, taking the time and doing some work to process them. Maybe waiting makes our minds are healthier too.

Slow. It runs deeper.
Late, even, rather than timely and false.
Local, subjective, personalized, something my neighbour wrote, never found on a top-ten list.
Irrelevant, because it is selfless. This is the opposite of local, but we’re okay with contraditions.
Noisy, incoherent, like a teen rock band playing in the local library.
Uncertain. Raising questions.
Contradictory, inconsistent, conflicted, divergent, random, surprising, innovative, giving rise to new ideas.
Offline, because it is easier to concentrate on it.
Print, because it will survive an EM pulse attack. Call it a disaster recovery strategy.
Missing, forgotten, deleted. Better than information overload. Librarians call it weeding.
Lost, a prerequisite for being found.
Dark, the colour of the deep web.
Misleading. Digital is representation. It must have the capacity to misrepresent.
Boring, not sexy like advertising. Repetitive like a universal pattern.
Unprofitable, that is, generous.
Complex. Lengthy. Rich. Such is life.

Disorganized. You get my meaning.

Maybe you already do this. Many people read cookbooks in the kitchen, magazines in the bathroom, computer books while programming, or a bible or psalter in a church. Slow reading is as much about space as time. Putting thought into where you read is an expression of locality in reading. It doesn’t have to be near at hand. Why not a take a book trip? Pick a destination for reading. Read the Dubliners in Ireland. Some years ago I read a book about Dachau while visiting the concentration camp in Germany. What sort of books do you pick for road trips? How about On The Road by Kerouac or Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Pirsig? I save books on Buddhism for the end of day in bed. Maybe you read poetry in the woods. Do tell.

Economists have their own horizon, externalities. Given the BP environmental crisis, externalities are a timely subject. I recently heard Raj Patel speak. He is the author of The Value of Nothing. He tackles our obsession with price as a determinant of value, and the falsehood of consumerism as a generator of happiness. If anyone still doubts that socialism has a vital role in society, remember these four words: November Two Thousand Eight. Patel opens his book, quoting Alan Greenspan, former Federal Reserve chair, admitting that free market capitalism was flawed. What barely saved the economy was a massive bailout, nothing less than socialism. Patel points out a well known fact, that capitalism thrives on surplus value, getting more out of a resource than is deserved. According to economists in India, if we paid the full value of a hamburger, factoring in human and environmental costs, the price would top $200. These factors are called externalities, and they include all the damage in the Gulf.

One way to address externalities is to move toward full-cost economics, putting a full price tag on goods, with the new funds going to fixing the problems that consumerism creates. It is a kind of hyper-capitalism, putting a price on everything and I have often wondered why, in a market economy, environmentalists have not advocated for this approach. I asked Patel. He thinks this approach would cause injury to the most needy who cannot afford the higher prices. I replied, isn’t the point to redistribute cash to those in need? He gave an answer I have heard often from those knowledgeable in economics, that it is difficult to assess the full price. Yes, externalities are difficult to assess. They’re externalities, factors like the environment that only become apparent in the long run. You don’t know what you don’t know. If you never know about it, well, so what, then nobody cares. When it becomes a problem, you do know about it, then you can measure it and send a bill. I’ll concede to Patel that the price model is fundamentally flawed, and fighting fire with fire may not be the wisest approach.

Patel, Raj (2010). The Value of Nothing.

Lanier, Jaron (2010). You Are Not a Gadget. Knopf.
RSA. Jaron Lanier – You Are Not A Gadget. YouTube.