Jetsetting is now not the privilege of the elite so much as a veritiginous mundanity for a permanently dispossessed global workforce.
Mark FisherRead
Is it possible to reproduce, later in life, the impact that books, records, and films have between the ages of fourteen and seventeen? The periods of my adult life that have been most miserable have been those in which I lost fidelity to what I discovered then.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects on the profound influence that art and media have on our formative years and the struggles of adulthood when disconnected from those inspirations.
Mark Fisher suggests that the experiences and emotions we encounter through books, music, and films during our teenage years leave a lasting imprint on our lives. As we grow older, losing touch with these influential mediums can lead to a sense of emptiness or misery, highlighting the importance of remaining connected to the passions and ideas that shaped us in our youth.
Themes
InfluenceArtYouthMediaConnection
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be used in a speech about the importance of creative expression in education.
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The most powerful love songs always turn on the discrepancy between the act of declaring love and the knowledge that the ostensible addressee is no longer there, was never there, and could never be there.
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Little Axe's records are wracked with collective grief. Spectral harmonicas resemble howling wolves; echoes linger like wounds that will never heal; the voices of the living harmonise with the voices of the dead in songs thick with reproach, recrimination and the hunger for redemption.
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What many students most want from college, although they would never admit it, is an authority structure. There is a demand for an authority which they can then reject; they want to be told what to do, so they can disobey. It is a textbook case of bad faith, a flight from freedom.
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