This puts into words something I’ve been thinking about for a while. | by Max Tatton-Brown | Medium

Absence is not a hole to be filled; it’s an opportunity to experience the worth of our relationships, an opportunity to give ourselves, not as local presences, but as persons. Absence allows us to be intentional in our self-manifestation, not merely appearing or showing up, but actively crafting an expression of our interior lives in the letter or the gift. Distance allows us to reinsert work into our communication, and our works reveal us with greater clarity than the clearest of webcams could. Despite the ease of constant presence, Sartre and Yannaras allow us to imagine radically different tactics in the fight against a lonely age: letters, sketches, songs, and poems; the embrace of absence; the art of being alone.
Sartre and Yannaras Against Skyping Your Parents
1.8K
14
Marc Barnes
Max Tatton-Brown
·Follow
1 min read·
Jul 11, 2017
--
This puts into words something I’ve been thinking about for a while.
By making communication effortless, it can rob it of the investment from either party and therefore remove the thing that feels nice about a friend contacting you to catch up. Or a thoughtful postcard from your other half on a work trip (vs a FB Messenger message.)
Deciding who you want to stay in touch with, how and why is all part of what makes relationships feel valuable.
Furthermore, getting older, I realise that some friends drift away for a while but sometimes return to your life for certain phases. Staying in touch passively doesn’t change that. And tech has made it far enough in that you can almost always easily find someone again if you need to, regardless of if you are Facebook friends.
--
--
Written by Max Tatton-Brown1.4K Followers
·935 Following
Good ideas, bad ideas + question marks. Write eg @Sifted @techcrunch. Founded @AugurComms to fix tech PR. Interim Head of Marketing @Creandum
No responses yet
Help
Status
About
Careers
Press
Blog
Privacy
Terms
Text to speech
Teams