In No Maps, Gibson says

> I think that most people, myself included, are most comfortable, conceptually, living about ten years back from whatever point in time we’ve reached. And I think we all have these…these moments that are vertiginous and terribly exciting, and very frightening, in which we realize the contemporary, absolutely. And I think it induces terror and ecstasy, and we retreat, we retreat from it, because we can’t stay. We can’t stay in that state of panic, which is, I think, the real response to what’s happening to us. We’re most comfortable with an earlier version of who we were, and what we were. It makes us feel more in…more in control. [more]

Color me vertiginous. Very much so lately.