In the digital world, there are no breaks. Anyone who disconnects even for a moment risks losing touch. Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht does not get swept away by the current of the digital. Since he began writing a blog for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in 2011, he has used the digital format as a space for contemplation and intellectual engagement. The compactness and rhythm of this genre allow him to analyze everyday phenomena and develop philosophical questions for his readers. He sets pauses and discovers contours in a highly complex and fleeting present. Provocatively, Gumbrecht's perspective as an American on his homeland and continent reveals dissonances in the self-understanding of contemporaries on both sides of the borders, despite their many similarities.