Total withdrawal from the world is impossible and a mistake

Evidence

Given the current reality of my digital environment, distance for me usually means things like going on a walk or even a trip, staying off the Internet, or trying not to read the news for a while. But the problem is this: I can’t stay out there forever, neither physically nor mentally. As much as I might want to live in the woods where my phone doesn’t work, or shun newspapers with Michael Weiss at his cabin in the Catskills, or devote my life to contemplating potatoes in Epicurus’s garden, total renunciation would be a mistake. The story of the communes teaches me that there is no escaping the political fabric of the world (unless you’re Peter Thiel, in which case there’s always outer space). The world needs my participation more than ever. Again, it is not a question of whether, but how. — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 230

Categorization

• DEFINE: Establishes directly that Odell does not recommend renunciation, arming the reader against the withdrawal misreading.
• XREF: The Peter Thiel/outer space jab foreshadows the libertarian blank-slate critique that recurs across the book.