![]() ![]() They illuminate, but more in the manner of an explosion in the night than of a huge lamp lighting up a living room. You can understand them, but, if you pause and study them in detail, you realise how very ambiguous they can be, that they are not as easy to understand as you thought on a first reading. The reason Shakespeare still remains so intensely alive four hundred years after his death is because his texts are often enigmatic, but not so enigmatic as to be indecipherable. ![]() We have largely forgotten the power of mystery very few of us dare to appear elusive, that is, to reveal only a little of ourselves and then withdraw, leaving behind only a memory of that brief appearance and making anyone who glimpsed it long for more. Nothing is more alarming than the sense of being invaded. Nothing arouses less curiosity than an excess of light and information. Nothing is less alluring than over-exposure. Nothing is more counterproductive than making someone feel they are under siege. Feeling overwhelmed, bullied and buffeted merely encourages one to switch off and ignore the flood of enticements and entreaties. Our human capacity for absorbing information remains limited, as does our memory, our attention span, our interest and our powers of concentration. In the general hubbub, all those ranting voices are at risk of cancelling each other out advertising campaigns overlap, merge, and hardly anyone can remember which company or business was behind which particularly successful advertisement or slogan. It's not only brand names that are eager to elbow or trample their way into our consciousness, gesturing wildly and uttering deafening howls politicians, film directors, writers and musicians do the same, clamouring to be seen as original or acclaimed as outright geniuses: this has become the norm for anyone with something to sell or a desire to be recognised. In our increasingly shrill, buffoonish world, immodest and exhibitionist, a certain cool detachment may well become the most striking and unusual of qualities. ![]()
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