Modern Times

Why, though our modern lives are longer, do they seem briefer? Are they too illuminated? Does the harsh white light of hospital corridors reveal every moment in antiseptic relief, and render them featureless, without surprise, like a vast plain?

Think of fairy tales, books, The Painted Bird. Dense, rich, dark, interleaved, full of symbols. They're stories, not lives, of course, but they map onto lives. The hero doesn't know how it will end. The giant may win and gnaw his bones. We don't know, or pretend, intend not to know.

When we hear the story again, even a fifth time, we hold our breath. We suspend our knowledge. We need to think the hero can fail, or it's a dull certainty. Can we suspend belief or knowledge when the entire genome is mapped? When we know that we will die of a terrible disease before 50? That 30% of our friends will die during a dirty bomb attack?

Is it knowing the facts, or knowing only the facts?