Antonio Gallo's Blog: MEDIUM - Posts Tagged "aeon-conversations"

What do you like most about reading paper books and e-books?

Once upon a time bones, bronze ware, stones, bamboo, silk and paper were used to be the ingredients for pages of traditional books. Nowadays, papers have become the common ingredient for reading around the world. With the fast development of Information Technology, traditional print-on-paper books are being challenged by the growing popularity of online reading.


What is more enjoyable, reading a traditional book or scanning pages on the Internet? Experts and readers have different opinions. I believe that online reading, or e-reading, will become a major trend but it will not destroy the old book. Digital reading includes online reading of news, blogs, Twitter messages, e-books and e-zines. In addition to words and pictures, digital reading also enriches content with audio and video features, making reading more entertaining.

What’s more, digital devices can be quicker to obtain and use. To find a traditional book involves spending time and money buying it in a bookstore, or ordering it online and waiting for its arrival by traditional delivery services. For digital reading material, just type in the search engine words for the title, author or other related information about the book to find it in minutes on the Internet. Sometimes one can even read the full content of an e-book free of charge and instantly discuss the book in an online forum.

Nowadays, people spend more time sitting in front of computers, but less time reading books. Also, since the price of traditional books is increasing, digital reading often is the cheapest alternative for readers. Reading on the Internet, one can rapidly scan or carefully read the contents, and a lot of information such as explanations of terms, book reviews, and audios and videos can be easily obtained on the Internet to help you read thoroughly.

I believe people will still benefit from the vast array of traditional reading choices. Many of the latest published books and academic books usually can’t be found on the Internet because of the protection of intellectual property right. Thus, the books you really need might not be available in digital formats. But the Internet also has some limitations for users. For example, older people have difficulty learning about and using computers and children sometimes are restricted from using the Internet to stop them from accessing adult content. In remote and impoverished regions, computers and the Internet are less popular, making online reading less available.

Another drawback of online reading is that people reading on the Internet might not have the patience to immerse themselves if they easily distracted by videos, audios and pictures. When so much information floods the eyes and ears, a reader might lose focus on the text and just scan pages, instead. There are always two sides to what people like and don’t like. As a quick, convenient reference tool, online reading is considered useful. To deeply appreciate a poem or a novel, the traditional reading of printed books might be the better choice.

When you read a beautifully designed and bound traditional book, you can feel the softness of the paper and smell the fragrance of the printing ink, which is a pleasurable experience not possible with digital reading. I don’t think reading traditional books will be replaced by online reading. I believe the paper book and the “bits & bytes” book will proceed side by side towards a new way of thinking and living.

I am a 76 year-old-son of an old post Gutenberg printer. My father did not just print books. He “composed” them letter by letter, printed the sheet, inked and pressed it, folded and sewed the pages, glued them and sold them. But he was also a book collector. This is called “evolution” …

I don’t think prostitution is the world’s oldest profession. For most part of human history men have lived as hunter-gatherers. No instances of prostitution are seen in societies organised in this manner. It is a fact, however, that a similar phrase is found in the morality play “The Fall of Rightness” (c. 1340). Cain, having been exiled, is wandering in the wilderness when he is visited by Lilith, an agent of Satan. Her function is to explain to him the nature of the post-Fall society he is to encounter and, during her description of the world of sin, she says:” Whoredom is the original busines of woman”. This is a statement that, of course, can be taken as an example of medieval misogeny rather than a statement of fact!

Any person needs to be able to rest from scrutiny and presence of others and the world at large. This person needs to be able to relax, be wholly himself, breathe freely, shut out the demands and prying of others so that he can refresh and restore himself in a private space of his personal, intimate life and his own thoughts. One form of torture and a highly damaging one from a psychological point of view is to keep a person under a constant scrutiny and exposure. A large part of the importance of privacy as a human need, or better, right, is that helps people keep at least some control over how to appear to the world. Most people seek to be acceptable to society, for obvious psychological and practical reasons. It could be awkward and even disabling to have certain of one’s sentiments and personal habits publicly known, especially any that are conventionally unacceptable. A degree of privacy is fundamental for autonomy and psychological health. Yet, at the same time, most people are intensely curious about other people’s lives and doings. This explains the relish people have for gossip. There seems to be a contradiction between our voyeuristic interest in others and our need for privacy for ourselves. The question is: are people dishonest in desiring to know about others what they themselves seek to conceal?

There are many reasons for speaking to myself during the day. I know that I can do it, but I can’t tell you why I do it. The nature of these dialogues is always different, being these talks often diverse and contrasting.

It may be either complimentary or motivational, sometimes a sort of outer dialogue, often goal-setting. Whether I am alone or with others, I feel I’m always living with myself. So I try not to leave myself out of the situation.

I believe that talking with yourself not only relieves the loneliness, it may also make you smarter. It helps you clarify your thoughts, it tends you to do what’s important and firms up any decisions you’re contemplating.

There’s just one condition: you become smarter only if you speak sincerely to yourself. Converse, chatter, communicate respectfully with yourself. It’s not a sign of insanity. It’s a sign of good health. I think …

Do you want the world explained to you every day? Read this site. It is an “aggregator”, meaning it pulls together material from many sources. But I know that it’s much more than that. It’s both a daily reminder of the riches available in the publications of the world and a map to finding those riches.

Since 1998, “Arts & Letters Daily” has been searching tirelessly for online articles providing the links that make it possible for us to put them on our screens with a single click. The editors show a master way to find, in the most obscure places, material that pleases, surprises and stimulates all those who like reading.

The Founding Editor (1998-2010) Denis Dutton, a philosophy professor, once wrote: “Science does not follow a clear road to truth; better is the idea of a meandering river in flood and drought ....”.

If it has a political tendency, I would say this website is libertarian, as well as conservative, in the sense that its openness to new thinking is the opposite of conservatism.

A&LD, with its elegant design, resembles the little papers that were passed around in 18th-century London coffee houses, sometimes called “the penny university” because you could read all the news if you paid a penny for coffee. “Arts & Letters Daily” is totally free!

After Dutton’s death, actual editors treat even the most serious thinking as news and proudly continue to display a motto borrowed from Seneca: “Veritas odit moras” - “Truth hates delay”.

They continue to focus on subjects that count. They watch developments, sort things out, tell you what you need to know. It doesn’t produce profits. Over time A&LD’ s ability to make connections may turn out to be even more important than the stock market. It feeds human minds.

In the 17th Century, the French philosopher Blaise Pascal developed an idea that helped to enhance the belief in a divine power. Pascal’s Wager was a means of reasoning that one should live their life in accordance to the belief in a divine power. His reasoning was that when one reaches the end of their life, and there is a God, if they have lived their life with the belief that God does exist, they will be able to experience the rewards of such a position. At the same time, if it turns out that God does not exist, then individuals will not have suffered anything different by living their lives virtually. However, if one does not live their life in accordance of the divine and there is a God, then Pascal argues that eternal damnation is present, and they have lost the wager. While this might not necessarily explain the effects that religion has on senior citizens, it might help to illuminate some of why religion might be significant at this point in one’s life.

As a matter of fact this wager helps me in having a significant route to follow …

Not only humans play games. I’ve seen also animals play games. We are here concerned with humans, though. The difference between us and them is that we may choose which game to entertain ourselves in. There is a wide choice of them. They are all within a bigger game we are bound to play since we come into this world: the game of life.

There is always a motivation to play for. Behind this you find an object of desire. Here are some. We play for power and behind this game there is a hidden object of desire. In this case we want to have influence on something or somebody. Behind curiosity you find knowledge. People may long for order because they need organization. They may search for idealism since they want equity, romance for sex and beauty, status for social standing.

Motivators vs Objects of desire generate conflicts. The game of life becomes an endgame. Humans know why their game ends. Animals, don’t. They continue the game. Humans, don’t.

‘If people cannot write well, they cannot think well…’ argued George Orwell. Do you agree?

This is really a good question! Mind you! “good” stands for “funny” and the funny thing is that when I sit here at my pc I never know what I’m thinking. As soon as I start typing, I discover that I’m writing what I have never thought to think. The more I type, the more I think. If I stop, I realize that I don’t think, I even think I don’t exist. Now, the question is: does it come first the word or the thought? But we all know that in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with Him, the Lord. So, now I know. When I write, I’m with Him. He is my Shepherd … But it’s much better if I stop here. I don’t know where I might be going to …

I was born and and brought up in a small post-Gutenberg printing shop, deep in the south of Italy, in an agricultural society in the first half of last century and millennium. My father would print everything readable to the very few who could read and write in those days. He gave “life” to printed words, “shaped” with leaden inked pages. I was fascinated by letters, though they could not speak to me. They would tell me something only when I was able to read them. Now I’m typing these words on my pc screen. They appear and disappear, come and go, small or big, dark or coloured. If I want I can even talk to them, they’ll answer back. Reading and writing are no longer the skills they used to be in those days. When I switch on my iPad and go to my ebooks library I can hear and listen to my books, they are alive, they live with me another life. When I look at the silent bookshelves of my printed books I hear nothing. Only when and if I pick them up they come to life. Can you hear, you over there, my words? I’m sure in a moment, you’ll see them on your screen, they are alive for ever …

The Royal Exchange, in the heart of the City (financial district) of London, was not only a hub for business and shopping but also a symbol of “globalization”: the increasing importance of international commerce to the British economy. Addison’s idyllic picture of the Exchange, written in 1711, celebrates the way in which the whole world seems to revolve around the blessings of trade. But many English people also worried that foreign luxuries might sap the national spirit of independence and self-sufficiency.

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There is no Place in the Town which I so much love to frequent as the Royal-Exchange. It gives me a secret Satisfaction, and, in some measure, gratifies my Vanity, as I am an Englishman, to see so rich an Assembly of Country-men and Foreigners consulting together upon the private Business of Mankind, and making this Metropolis a kind of Emporium for the whole Earth. I must confess I look upon High-Change >> note 1 to be a great Council, in which all considerable Nations have their Representatives. Factors in the Trading World are what Ambassadors are in the Politick World; they negotiate Affairs, conclude Treaties, and maintain a good Correspondence between those wealthy Societies of Men that are divided from one another by Seas and Oceans, or live on the different Extremities of a Continent. I have often been pleased to hear Disputes adjusted between an Inhabitant of Japan and an Alderman of London, or to see a Subject of the Great Mogul entering into a League with one of the Czar of Muscovy. I am infinitely delighted in mixing with these several Ministers of Commerce, as they are distinguished by their different Walks and different Languages: Sometimes I am justled among a Body of Armenians: Sometimes I am lost in a crowd of Jews, and sometimes make one in a Groupe of Dutch-men. I am a Dane, Swede, or French-Man at different times, or rather fancy my self like the old Philosopher, who upon being asked what Country-man he was, replied, That he was a Citizen of the World.

This grand Scene of Business gives me an infinite Variety of solid and substantial Entertainments. As I am a great Lover of Mankind, my Heart naturally overflows with Pleasure at the sight of a prosperous and happy Multitude, insomuch that at many publick Solemnities I cannot forbear expressing my Joy with Tears that have stolen down my Cheeks. For this reason I am wonderfully delighted to see such a Body of Men thriving in their own private Fortunes, and at the same time promoting the Publick Stock; or in other Words, raising Estates for their own Families, by bringing into their Country whatever is wanting, and carrying out of it whatever is superfluous … The Spectator