Smuggling Light Bulbs
Underground Incandescents, Darkness Retreats, And the War on Your Reading Lamp
Like many of you I woke up this morning with my innate desire to be free from government interference fully intact. This is the golden hour, when I brew my tea—an excellent blend The Serb imports from some secret off-shore source—check in on the pack of wild border collies in the back yard, feed the horses and chickens, then jot a few notes in my daybook. This morning I was pleased to enjoy summer sunshine free from wildfire smoke, which these days is a more or less routine blot on the seasonal landscape.
And then, finally, I settle in with a fresh cup of tea and begin the doom scrolling.
This is a bad habit because it’s like signing up for ritualized abuse. Which isn’t altogether strange when put in the context of our era, I suppose, after reading recently of “darkness retreats” where people sign up to be sealed into lightless rooms for a week of sensory deprivation. When it was being conducted by Soviet interrogators on captured American pilots it was considered torture, but in the modern era there appears to be no shortage of bored and confused Americans who will open their wallets to be treated like POWs on a mushroom farm in Ashland, Oregon.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Craig Rullman on Substack to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.