What turns me on about the digital age, what excited me

The musician and poet Bono, whose voice has echoed across generations with both fire and tenderness, once proclaimed: “What turns me on about the digital age, what excited me personally, is that you have closed the gap between dreaming and doing. You see, it used to be that if you wanted to make a record of a song, you needed a studio and a producer. Now, you need a laptop.” In these words shines the awe of a man who has witnessed the transformation of creation itself — a shift from an age of gatekeepers and scarcity to an era of possibility and empowerment. His words are not merely about technology; they are a hymn to the power of imagination finally freed from its chains.

The origin of this reflection lies in Bono’s own journey through music and art. Born into a world where recording a song required immense resources — studios filled with wires, instruments, and specialists — he saw firsthand how many dreams were silenced by limitation. For decades, creativity was bound by material barriers. Only those blessed with wealth, patronage, or luck could share their visions with the world. But in the digital age, those walls have fallen. The tools of creation now rest in the hands of anyone with passion and a connection to the infinite — the glowing screen. Bono’s excitement was not for the machines themselves, but for what they made possible: the union of dream and deed, the return of power to the dreamer.

In ancient times, the storytellers and poets gathered around the fire, their voices alone the vessels of their art. Then came the scribes, the presses, and the studios — each a marvel, yet each building walls between the creator and the creation. What once flowed freely through voice and vision became slowed by systems and intermediaries. But now, the digital realm has restored something ancient: immediacy. A painter can share her art across the world in a heartbeat; a musician can reach millions from a single room; a writer can speak to every corner of the earth before dawn. The divine act of creation — once reserved for the few — has become the inheritance of all.

Consider the story of Billie Eilish, a child of this new age. She and her brother Finneas created their first songs in a humble bedroom, using nothing but a laptop, a microphone, and their hearts. They did not wait for approval or permission; they simply created. From that small space came melodies that would move millions. This is the very essence of Bono’s vision — that the distance between idea and action, between inspiration and realization, has been dissolved. The tools no longer define the creator; the imagination does.

Yet there is a deeper wisdom in Bono’s words: the reminder that freedom is both gift and test. The digital age has opened the gates of creation, but it has also placed in our hands the weight of responsibility. When every voice can be heard, we must choose what kind of voice we will be. Will we create with purpose, with love, with reverence for truth? Or will we drown in the noise of abundance, mistaking motion for meaning? Bono’s excitement is not naïve — it is tempered by faith in humanity’s better angels. He believes that when dreaming and doing become one, the artist becomes a force for good.

The lesson of this quote is not only for artists, but for all who seek to live with intention. It is a call to act — to stop waiting for perfect circumstances, for permission, for the approval of others. The tools of creation, connection, and change are already in your hands. The time when dreaming was enough is over; now is the time of doing. If once the dreamer gazed upon the horizon and sighed, now he can walk toward it. If once the poet needed a patron, now she can speak directly to the hearts of her audience. The barrier has vanished — only hesitation remains.

Thus remember, O creator of the new age: the distance between dream and reality is no longer measured in miles or money, but in courage. Do not waste the freedom that your ancestors longed for. Take your ideas — fragile, glowing, half-formed — and bring them into being. Use your hands, your tools, your voice. The world waits not for perfection, but for sincerity. For as Bono reminds us, the miracle of our time is not the technology itself, but that at last to dream is to do — and to do is to become the very thing you once imagined.