If An American Teenager Were To Come

In A World Of Intrusive Technology, We Must Engage In A Kind Of Struggle If We Wish To Sustain Moments Of Solitude. E-reading Opens The Door To Distraction. It Invites Connectivity And Clicking And Purchasing. The Closed Network Of A Printed Book, On The Other Hand, Seems To Offer Greater Serenity. It Harks Back To A Pre-jacked-in Age. Cloth, Paper, Ink: For These Read Helmet, Cuirass, Shield. They Afford A Degree Of Protection And Make Possible A Less Intermediated, Less Fractured Experience. They Guard Our Aloneness. That Is Why I Love Them, And Why I Read Printed Books Still.

Sometimes We Are Looking For Somebody We Can Connect With On The Basis Of A Shared Past Or A Tradition Or Experience. And So Finding That You're Sitting Next To Someone Very Much Like You In Terms Of Where They Come From Is Enormously Reassuring.

Television Has Given Pakistan A Truly Open National Forum For The First Time In Its History. Ideas Are Debated, Leaders Are Assessed And Criticised, And A Nation Of 170 Million People Is Finally Discovering, Together, What It Thinks.

What Used To Help Us To Cope With Transience Was Stuff Like, Extended Families All Living In One Place, Or Very Strong Religious Beliefs, Or A Tribe That Would Outlive You. That Stuff Is Getting Weaker.

I Am A Strong Believer In The Intertwined Nature Of The Personal And The Political; I Think They Move Together.