Rachel

“nervous hive mentality; it reminds us the self is no monster after all.”
― Michael Harris, Solitude: In Pursuit of a Singular Life in a Crowded World

“The daydreamer is like the tree in which she crouches, oblivious to the red-faced plans of industry. It’s understood that if someone were to come along and put her mind “to use,” she would gain little from the interruption.”
― Michael Harris, Solitude: In Pursuit of a Singular Life in a Crowded World

“We cannot compound the ideas of others into a singular meaning for ourselves unless we’re given a private mental workshop in which to hammer at them. (Will I ever be able to write my book, I worry, if I can’t build such a workshop for myself?) Without daydreams our minds are only parrots—or, worse, computers. Daydreams are the engineers of new worlds.”
― Michael Harris, Solitude: In Pursuit of a Singular Life in a Crowded World

“Perhaps future generations will hack the system, move at will between storytelling technologies. As for me, I was retreating from the social option. I began taking myself to the water’s edge in order to read—away from the phone and the terrible Cyclops eye of my modem. On the seawall, bundled against wind and propped up with a sweater for a seat, I rediscovered a frame of mind that I was in danger of forgetting—real, trance-like reading that obliterated my anxieties, my fussing daily life.”
― Michael Harris, Solitude: In Pursuit of a Singular Life in a Crowded World