Hello there:
A million years ago, before Covid, I had many short term plans. Then everything changed. It seemed to be sudden, but if I think back, it was kind of like in slow motion. As if time both expanded and contracted.
This is because Covid created the first major downgrade of quality of life for the average person since WWII. Shorter distances, no international travel feel like mobility has been drastically curtailed.
From where I sit—used to traveling to Italy 3 times a year— it feels quite sad. The end of an era. Like the end of The Lord of the Rings. Twenty letters ago feel like today. J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring:
“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo.
“So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
For me, the sense of stronger connection to a distant past and possible futures has been a way to mitigate the sadness. I've been reading a lot more than I ever had to make sense of how the the world has gotten bigger in space... and smaller in time.
Reading about habits for survival in turbulent times from 23 years ago feels like corporate reality in 2020. (I'm working on two articles on this I will likely publish next week) Thinking about life a hundred years from now somehow feels doable.
But here's the thing, incremental change did this. Slightly warmer temperatures compounded over a few decades, and there you have it: climate change. Stewart Brand calls this thinking expanded in both directions the long now.
We are in the long now. Perhaps, after years of instant gratification, humanity is rejoining the currents of history. All of a sudden I feel double my age. The other day, my mother, the ever amazingly creative and inventive optimist, told me she feels fragile. A hug emoji doesn't quite do the job there, does it?
So here's the deal, it's tempting to let the crazy stuff get to you. And we now know without doubt that we won't get to live hundreds of years to make up for lost time. We can expand to embrace more than we thought possible before this time. It's up to us to decide. Feeling can make up for touching, says Venkatesh Rao.
Feeling is an embodied quality. It's like 3D printing for your soul. Recommended.
|
|
|
"Leaving my old self behind"
by Elisa Macellari.
Born in Perugia and based in Milan,
this illustrator has Thai roots.
Her favorite quote fits
this week's theme:
"All language is a set of symbols
whose use among its speakers
assumes a shared past."
Jorge Luis Borges
This image is for Donna Moderna.
Freelance work for The New York Times,
Il Sole 24 Ore, other publications.
She's also done book covers,
and published graphic novels.
Website . Instagram
+
|
|
|
I was intrigued to discover the words that appeared prominently in the history of Scientific American. 175 represented by 4,000 words, some more salient than others based on frequency.
Some years were more verbs than nouns. Once we make something a noun, it turns into a thing and ceases to be dynamic and changing. When we look at the type of actions we take, they are all dynamic. Hence verbs.
In a long now kind of exercise, I loved tracking the juxtapositions over centuries:
- Certainty 1850 - Uncertainty 2019
- Machine 1910 - System 1959
- Solution 1951 - Mystery 2018
- Spirit 1849 - Brain 2012
- Practice 1918 - Theory 2004
It gets me thinking about how we've moved more toward abstraction and from physical to conceptual work. Interesting that we have more uncertainty and mystery the more technological advance. Two pairings made me smile:
- Show 1927 - Tell 1933
- Impossible 1915 - Possible 1936
Thinking historically, the Great Depression made us highly motivated to sort things out. "Us" because of the long now, expanded time. Here's how you can search for words as well. I looked up "culture" and found it in 1966, then as agri-culture in 1976.
"Progress" shows up in 1935. As far as I'm concerned that's 100 percent accurate—my late father was born that year.
|
|
Copying mechanisms
Yes, it's a pun. But a good one to remember that we can build on the work of others.
When the best laid plans go into smoke.
- When a pandemic kills your book launch plans, you’ve got to get creative. Melanie Deziel's guerrilla marketing tactics got her hundreds of thousands of impressions for very little effort. (This could come in handy in 2021)
Finding the real point in a story.
Tasty take.
- Have you ever impulse purchased a chocolate bar by the register at Whole Foods? Tony's Chocolony raises the bar... on chocolate and with their employment agreement.
Quiz!
- ‘What’s your creative type?’ personality test from Adobe is doing the rounds again. It’s so beautifully done I don’t even mind that it’s pure trash. (Me: ‘Adventurer’. hmmm)
|
|
|
“The more you're the master of your worldview,
the happier you are."
- Ilaria Gaspari
philosopher, author, teacher
|
|
|
|
|
|
