Contingency, or the "presence of the unforethinkable," is at the heart of earthly reality, according to philosopher Albert Borgman. Contingency doesn't make life random or meaningless, he says, adding that in ancient times contingency meant something like consummation. Rather, it attests to the "unsurpassable eloquence" of a reality that often asks us to confront what we cannot control or even understand. A face-to-face meeting, which demands a mutual reading of body language, emotion, and soul, is harder to fathom, and less predictable than a virtual encounter. But by losing the will to face one another, we are turning away from the messy, unpredictable, and real in life.
-Maggie Jackson, Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age
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