17 December

One of the reasons I think the modern world seems a disaster to people is that they’re used to things being scripted. Real life seems too messy, so they retreat to stories. People are increasingly obsessed with the universes their favourite stories create, they inhabit fantasy worlds and those worlds are increasingly overlapping with the real world. Some might say it’s just a bit of fun. But it seems more like we retreat to fantasy when we don’t have the stomach for actual reality. The US elected a president who was selling pure fantasies. This stuff matters.