I don’t want to parse this too fine, but maybe the root problem is really that few people have the mental energy/drive to resist the distractions of our age. Call it a lack of individualism. Most of us are willing bell jar candidates. Still, that can be overcome at least to the limits of each person’s potential. Thank you for calling my humble column a wake-up call in that regard. The buck naked truth is that most people don’t want a wake-up call, but then they probably aren’t reading this article either. The kind of person who is reading this article is already aware of their dormancy, already wishing they could be more alive in every cell of their being, as you put it. So if any of the above inspires one of them or frees a few prisoners from bell jars, I’m saved from just whistling down the wind. And seriously, Carole, thanks for giving me some perspective on how all this comes across.

But all is not lost, thankfully. Not as long as there are people like you who are alive in every cell of their being and have the sense and the right words to point up what’s going on. And the birth of e-books and YouTube have revealed that there are many talented, gifted people out there. Yes, not everyone with an e-book has business selling books, and there are plenty of idiots on YouTube. But there is a boy who can play piano crazy-good while wearing a blindfold too. And there are filmmakers making films just for the pleasure of it that are amazing. And there are good writers sharing things that might never have been able to share before. And photographers sharing their work with the world.

The trouble is, there are still an awful lot of us who are taking it spoon-fed and this post serves as a wake-up call in every sense of the word. It’s not good for us to languish, and it’s making us fat and lazy. That’s not healthy for our bodies or our minds. I’ll end my little rant with my favorite new quote, which seems appropriate to the dazed state of affairs you’re talking about in this article…

Sitting is the new smoking.

OK, I know I kid a lot on your blog (http://delightfulrepast.com ) about eating unhealthy, but here’s the secret. You have to pre-burn all those calories before you are allowed to ingest them. By the time I scarf down the stuff I scarf down, my holy white bod is in dire need of calories by any name. E.g. up at first light but no calories until after I go out for about an hour between 8:15-9:15 AM – usually walking, biking or roller skiing in the neighborhood. Then it’s plain oatmeal with berries, flax and sage (don’t ask, it’s healthy). It’s different every day, but midweek I’m often out by noon or a little earlier for a hike miles and miles through soft sand (to avoid Lyme ticks). I go from one end of a wilderness park called Crow-Hassan main to a much smaller dog park across a highway and back again, and the soft sand effectively doubles the effort. THEN I rehydrate with melted Coffee Blast ice cream etc. Full disclosure: if I don’t burn a lot of calories, I stop eating. Also, I’m done eating usually by 6-7 PM because otherwise I won’t keep food down at night. Bon appetite!

Do tell me the masses will soon begin “resisting the wave of media-driven usurpation.” I think I could whip out a couple thousand words (or a respectable number of column inches) on my disg … Oh well, another time.

How do you do it? The Coffee Blast-TJ Cola, I mean. I would rapidly sicken and die, and look at you. You have far more energy than I. I don’t get it. Maybe I should try ingesting nothing but all the stuff I avoid and just see what happens!

Thanks much for the kind words, Amalgam. Year, OTR has its own channel on Sirius radio and I luv listening to same. Just heard “Tales of the Texas Rangers” driving home. Bet you’d love to hear X-9 or one of the many sci-fi series that used to run up until the 60s.

At the time, I was not conscious of the benefits gained by learning to fill in blanks and connect dots thanks to spectator interruptus. But that skill certainly added to others, both pre and post, to fill our creative, gray, memory banks.

Your comments about radio, as a story medium being largely gone now, and having acted as a promoter of imagination, again reminds me of a radio recording featuring a guy trying to convince another that radio could do even more than television. He told the other guy to imagine Lake Michigan filled with whipped cream and being overflown by every bomber in the US Air Force towing one gigantic Maraschino cherry (sound of airplanes). He then told him to imagine the cherry being cut loose, falling (whistling sound of falling cherry), and finally landing in the whipped cream (loud CUSH sound as the cherry hits the whipped cream). His last words were, “Let’s see you do that on TV.”

As always, your comments are apt and lingeringly instructive—as only those of The Sullivan can be. Thank you for all the thought food.
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Amalgam