If you don't have time to read the whole exchange, scroll down to the bottom of the page for the last four paragraphs. That's where you'll find the heart of the matter.
David is a close friend.
He usually goes to bed in California about the same time I wake up in Texas, so we catch each other by email at 3 or 4 in the morning:
On 10/12/09 4:34 AM:
Hi Roy,
It seems like it was just a few weeks ago you had a quote from an author how eating burgers from a fast food joint leaves the buyer lonelier because no human had ever touched it.
It was a remarkable quote, making the jump from machine-processed food to loneliness.
Do you know what week that was? I’m sitting here reading previous memos and I must have skimmed right over it or something.
Thanks,
David
I responded:
David,
It was Wealth, the MMMemo for Sept. 28.
http://mondaymemo.wpengine.com/newsletters/wealth
“That's the thing with handmade items. They still have the person's mark on them, and when you hold them, you feel less alone. This is why everyone who eats a Whopper leaves a little more depressed than they were when they came in. Nobody cooked that burger.”
– Aimee Bender, from her short story, Tiger Mending
Roy H. Williams
He replied:
Thanks Roy.
For some reason that quote really affected me when I read it.
I had three things in mind when I read that quote. The first wasn’t personal to me, but I thought a good illustration of the point.
It was this article in the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/03/arts/design/03railway.html?pagewanted=all
It’s about the new train station in Stuttgart that’s being built.
They’re replacing this:
With this:
The second thing that came to mind was my nephew in college. He’s brilliant. I hadn’t seen him for a year. He’s got three email addresses, AIM, and his Facebook and MySpace pages all funneling into his blackberry. If anyone emails him through any of those means, it comes into this Blackberry.
I’d say that during the 1 1/2 hour dinner he responded to about 20 text messages/emails.
Breadth and access have been gained; depth has been lost.
It’s somehow related to that quote. We were across the table from each other but never connected…