12 Comments

Definitely agree that it is getting frustrating how short some people's attention span is, and how frustrating it is that judges are getting more and more inept, and that symbolism is ignored and that the old classics are ignored, scorned and that they generate blank 'whys' and looks. What I find so fascinating is that when making references of that sort in some circles when you go directly to the readers they like it.

Especially those critics and readers I've met from France, Quebec, Japan and Kenya and even Nigeria catch onto it and love these little references.

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Good to hear there's hope. I just need to reach the right audience.

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Which is hard to get to, it feels.

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Extremely difficult indeed. But I keep trying.

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Same

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Jan 31Liked by A.C. Cargill, Author

Lots of great information here!

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The worst thing is how impatient readers have become. Sigh.

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Feb 2Liked by A.C. Cargill, Author

You are right, and the lack of philosophy and mythology being taught in school will come back to bite us. In the novel I'm working on, two characters had a three-page discussion on the difference between courage and cowardice, and I'm almost sure that most people will just gloss over those three pages and not catch the nuance.

People don't take the time to read anymore, and it shows.

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As one commenter pointed out, part of it is a time factor, but I still see education as the key. People don't learn critical thinking. Sigh. Thanks for commenting!

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I’m of the mind that people’s short attention spans these days is a direct consequence of information overload. We have been trained by our devices to only skim the surface of primary sources, and honestly for a bad but justifiable reason. There’s just way too much available on the information superhighway to be able to read and absorb with any detail the subtleties of any one topic. The pace of the conversations are just too fast.

By the time someone has read, researched, analyzed, absorbed the data and finally returned to the original conversation, it’s so far behind the narrative created by the skimmers who Didn’t do a deep dive, that the opinion becomes absolutely buried in a flood of low-information opinions and reactions. Making it largely irrelevant to the current state of the conversation.

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Well said and I agree. That certainly accounts for missing subtleties, but not for missing symbolism. People can have all the time in the world these days, but if they don't have the knowlege --- phweet! --- right over the top of their heads. Sigh.

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Feb 1Liked by A.C. Cargill, Author

This is true, and that boils down to education, both in the classical sense and in learning how to perform critical thinking. Most education these days is mere regurgitation...

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