Bleeding Ink

Did you know that the modern-day commuter makes more death-avoiding decisions on their way to work than an age-old agrarian farmer made in an entire year? Sound stressful? It is. No wonder we seek hits of serotonin and dopamine from entertainment. Sugary Delights A firehose of sugar water is pointed at you. Look around. Count the number of distractions vying for your attention. Social media? Work? Email? News? Video games? The next bestseller? The latest viral video? Blog posts? Shopping? A glass of wine? Ahem—this podcast? The list grows in inverse proportion to our societal demands. Go to work—go to happy hour. Help the kids with homework—binge-watch hours of Netflix. Do something difficult—do something enjoyable. Where attention equates to dollars there is an attention economy, a marketplace that fosters an influx of candied products to delight, to offer a respite over challenge, to numb rather than invigorate. It leads to “peak content,” where products are engineered to strip away pain—much like heroin