Things I Like
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That’s all I have to say to myself tonight: How can I be with what is arising? This is a radically different response than martyrdom, classism, blame, hate, revenge, sanctimony, resignation, denial, or numbing. And it makes rooms for emotions—grief, fear, sadness, confusion, anger, disappointment. I’m not talking about toxic positivity or spiritual bypassing here. I am talking about facing all of it, which is only possible when we have community and spiritual practices to hold us up. Strong individual values won’t do it. Reading the news won’t do it. Self-care won’t do it. Not even moral outrage by itself will help us face what is arising. There is a place for all those things, of course. But they will not bring the healing, understanding, and yes, change, that we long for.
Sarah Murphy-Kangas has been a favorite in my feeds for a while now, it's not all my cup of tea, but often she speaks so well about what is happening in the world. I found this piece helpful in light of world events.
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The antidote to all of this, in the broadest terms, is more reality, more immersion in the finite here and now: more writing on paper; more gathering in person and in public; more looking strangers in the eye; more scruffy hospitality; more queueing for the supermarket checkout that’s staffed by a human, if there even is one; more feeling the weather on your face and staring into fires; more living as creatures, not machines.
This is probably the most helpful thing I've read since the election. Your mileage may vary, of course, but I do think getting outside and being around other people and using my paper journal and making things out of yarn and fabric are helpful. I'm thinking through how I can consume media in a way that keeps me somewhat in the loop but doesn't damage my mental health. I'm still not sure of all the things I'll be doing going forward but I am following a lot of Burkeman's advice here.
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In my last sustained period on Twitter, six or seven years ago I guess, when I was still promoting my published writings, I remember often — quite often — getting replies or quote-tweets from people who had no idea what I was saying but wanted to comment on it in a way that corroborated or reinforced their sense of themselves, their social self-presentation, a social self-presentation that typically took the form of performative partisan self-righteousness.
Jacobs response to Mandy's post caught my attention and I've been thinking about both posts since originally reading them. I'm with Jacobs here, but my reasoning for not doing syndication is dramatically different. I have no idea how many people read my site as I have no analytics on here, but I don't want the words traveling anywhere else because I would feel obligated to then be on those sites more and checking replies and responding to people so as not to be rude. Weird, but it's the way I'm wired. I really can't do social media, it does things to my brain that are really not good for me.
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I’m not interested in paternalistic nudges or vapid prompts to think twice, but rather, something like the way a well-designed park creates space both to gather and to wander—quiet benches tucked under trees alongside open fields fit for games, pathways for walking in ones and twos, blooms and birdhouses that invite a moment of rest. What if our social spaces had more ways to get lost? More places to sit a spell? What if we brought more intention to the way we contribute to these patterns? To the way our own choices overflow the container, and push on what’s possible.
Another thoughtful post from Mandy on social media and again, it makes me think of the way things were and they way they will likely never be again. I can also see how our own human nature somewhat drives these things and it makes me think a lot about the writing of Sara Hendren.
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I read to escape. I read to find myself. I read because I like facts. I read because I like fiction. I read for entertainment. I read to fall asleep. I listen to books to help me finish mundane tasks like doing the dishes every night. And I listen to books because there’s a slight communistic thrill of getting them from the library.
The only thing I'd add to what Dave has said is: if you aren't enjoying what you're reading, don't finish it. It's taken me way too long to give myself permission to do that.
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To step into the stream of any social network, to become immersed in the news, reactions, rage and hopes, the marketing and psyops, the funny jokes and clever memes, the earnest requests for mutual aid, for sign ups, for jobs, the clap backs and the call outs, the warnings and invitations—it can feel like a kind of madness. It’s unsettling, in the way that sediment is unsettled by water, lifted up and tossed around, scattered about. A pebble goes wherever the river sends it, worn down and smoothed day after day until all that’s left is sand.
I read this piece by Mandy yesterday and I've been thinking about it ever since because of the analogies and way in which she talks about social media is so good. I had a hard time choosing a quote as there was another paragraph that hit me hard, about the nostalgia of the old Twitter and what it was. I'm no longer on a computer all day like I was in prior years, so I post a lot less frequently here than I'd like. But I use a journal and all the things that used to go into social media end up there. I have no where to syndicate my thoughts to and that has been very good for me and keeping my mind clear and my thoughts on what is important rather than the muck.
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There is no strict definition for the analog web, and it’s not tied to a single methodology or technology. But there is a culture that exists beneath the commercial web that is motivated by the same goal; to create a bulkwark against the erasure of a more human web.
This piece is related, somewhat, to what I posted by Mandy. The way in which we can, if we want, create our own sites and do what we want and not be at the mercy of the platforms or whatever they decide they want to do.
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Why a notebook? I could technically do this with my phone but I have a problem where I pick the phone up to put something in it, immediately get distracted by something else, and then forget why I originally picked up the phone in the first place.
It me. I'm not a sketch or journal person right away in the morning, but I'm trying to take my sketchbook and jot things down during the day such as what I saw on my walk, something about what I'm making, or something I've seen when out and about. Like Rachel, I tried the Journal app on iPhone and while I enjoyed access to photos, it often led to me getting distracted and scrolling and well, not really what I'm wanting to do.
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I’ve always been overly cautious and considered in the tools I use but I’ve never thought of the tools I use as a moral choice. Perhaps now I will. I’m not a Daoist by any means, but this idea of cosmotechnics begins to provide a mental framework for expressing the relationship between technology and morality. From the large scale of the cosmos to the small scale of the knife, I’m glad to have vocabulary to think about future problems.
I still have to read the Jacobs piece that Rupert references here, but I found his thoughts here and all the various things he links to really interesting. We are in difficult times and I'm living a small life, but I think a lot about my actions and the larger repercussions. I realize I'm not making large ripples, but maybe it's more about being thoughtful and feeling better about my own actions.
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The whole idea that ordinary people would concern themselves with their fitness is something that’s emerged over the last 40 years. It’s staggering to consider the scale of the collective awareness of our physical well-being. Now, does that mean that health itself is a new idea? No, people have been worried about their health since forever. But the specific activation of fitness, that’s a relatively new thing, and it’s really changed in our lifetimes. And I’m proposing to you that that’s going to happen again. Over the next 40 years, a collective recognition that our wellness in our attentional lives, our hygiene and health and our attention, is going to be constitutive of our experience of being. This is what’s going to happen. It’s going to reshape education, which, as you’ve signaled, needs to be for and about attention. That’s what it needs to teach. And it’s going to transform our other ways of being together.
I found this entire podcast really interesting and could've pulled a lot of different quotes from it, but settled on this one becuase it resonated so much when Burnet pointed it out. The way in which we collectively change and come to think about things differently takes time, but I do think the way we're thinking about attention is changing. The little devices we carry with us that are constantly demanding our attention, if you let them, are a big reason why. As my life has changed over the past few years, I've become very aware of attention and thought about it a lot and this conversation is well worth the listen if you're interested in the topic as well.
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This isn’t to say Americans don’t value third places. “I think that people both wish they had more of them,” says Katherine Giuffre, a professor emerita of sociology at Colorado College, “and at the same time, overlook them or take them for granted.” With some intentionality, experts believe we can recommit to — and reimagine — third places. They may look exactly as we’ve always experienced them. They may not be physical spaces at all.
Living in a rural community, finding the third place has been hard, but I'm still trying. I'm also intrigued by the fact that many are shutting down and I think often about the fact that there is an epidemic of loneliness but to get out of it people need to take risks and put themselves out there; not an easy thing for many to do.
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You can have a tech that is mostly used for fraud, bankrupts the elderly, or even literally kills people, but tech enthusiasts will defend it by saying it saves five minutes on their morning breakfast routine.
Bjarnson hits the nail on the head.
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I really do think that the internet, in its original open form, is an amazing thing and a genuine contributor to human flourishing — but the occlusion of the open web by the big social media companies has been a disaster for our common life and for the life of the mind.
I love the use of ecological terms when talking about the web. The open web is a great thing and I continue to hope that more people are willing to take a chance on it rather than the big walled gardens.
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There’s too much to read, right? Especially contemporary fiction. Too many choices. You have to develop a strategy of selection, a method of triage. I will always read more old books than new ones, as I think everyone should. But I don’t neglect what my contemporaries are doing.
Not saying I agree with Jacobs criteria, but I did find this post amusing.
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Every hour spent with the phone is an hour not spent on anything I actually care about. Which is fine in small doses but as soon as it gets too much I know deep down that I’m not operating in alignment with my values, and that makes me feel quite bad about myself.
Rach has been posting a note every day this month and so many of them been completely relatable.