Three. It ends, and such endings are a gift

Analogue pleasures conclude. The loaf gets eaten. The swim ends when the cold wins. The record reaches the run-out groove, the arm lifts itself and the room goes quiet.

What follows is a specific sensation, now so rare that many people may never have felt it in relation to entertainment: the sensation of an end, and of being pleased to be finished. Not interrupted. Not dragged away. Finished, and content.

Notice how hard the streaming services work to prevent it. You finish an episode, you turn to say something about it, and the next one is already tumbling in, counting down from ten. No gap, no breath, no solitude between experiences. That often how we live now.

Endings have consequence: analogue things can be ruined. The roll can be fogged. The letter can go astray. The only copy can be left on a train. The soufflé can fail in front of guests. Digital life has quietly abolished nearly all of that with backup and undo and infinite retry, which is of course marvellous but it also takes the weight out of things; stakes are what make an experience feel as though it happened.

Something that cannot be lost was never quite held.