"Pyroepistemology". Whew. Had to take a minute after reading that - and that was weeks ago, because I've been thinking about all of this a lot, including regarding what the hell I'm doing vs what I could be doing.
(And as the California fires are demonstrating, fires are utterly indiscriminate. It's horrifying to see how technology fuels and accelerates immense division - when really it'll look like ourselves against ourselves in the long run, given enough time and enough mindless short-term reactivity to what's in front of us that very second on a screen.)
I think I used to believe in the digital equivalent of firebreaks - just hack it all down and refuse to participate. I'm not sure I do now, and this is where the analogy goes completely to pot: I don't want people to encounter an absence in their scrolling where something was that might have made them feel a bit more hopeful and energised and a bit stronger somewhere around the knees. I want to fill that gap with something that refuses to burn. I don't know how, but - digitally speaking, I want to see firebreaks of *better, truer stuff that won't burn* when the nearby garbage goes up in smoke. I want to be part of that. I think so many folk would, if they only knew where to build. And part of that is the same struggle you're having - to find a better way to be online, because my ability to do anything worth doing has to start there.
(I also think a huge part of "how to be online" is finding better ways to be offline. All our chats about this, and so much of your writing, they have swayed me heavily in this direction - for which I'm grateful. So I think it all starts outside, where dealing with what's inside and what's online seems much simpler, when you're striding along taking big lungfuls of clean air and the fog is clearing from between the neurons...)
I love “it starts outside”! I really do believe in that, because it’s about how we “be human,” be a person, just ourselves without all the other inputs and interactions.
And honestly I think what you do is a great example of the kind of firebreak you’re talking about, both digitally and … imaginatively? Like in the collective imagination. And I think where I’ve come to for the time being is in the need for people doing the kind of work you do (and plenty of others, and what I try to do), is to build the strength and resilience to not constantly get pulled by every online cycle throughout the day—news, outrage, whatever. It takes something to do that, to maintain a knowledge of right and wrong in the world and to constantly stick to the job you’re meant to be doing, rather than responding it all, all day every day.
Which leads us back outside! Water, trees, fresh air, …
Thanks for this, Antonia. I read it while knitting the brim of a hat. Sometimes knitting helps me concentrate on the words I'm reading. Anyway, I've been thinking a lot about rage and fire (love Women Who Run with Wolves) lately. I've always possessed a lot of "fire" and spent decades trying to quell it. Now, I don't try to put it out, but I am trying to figure out how to do a controlled burn, as you say (they do those on the prairies here every year). I'm also 52 and am aware that the peri-menopausal women often experience an influx of rage. Understandably, in my opinion.
I'm not on any social media besides Substack, but that does not mean I don't scroll Youtube on my smartphone as a way to avoid the uncomfortable or vicariously accomplish amazing things through the lives of others on the screen.
I'm petting my dog off and on as I type this, and I am going to restack your post (there's that fire again).
Emily, the phrase "read it while knitting the brim of a hat" made me smile! I do not knit, but my younger kid is learning to crochet and it's fun to watch those things take shape.
LOVE Women Who Run with Wolves, don't know what took me so long but I think it came to my life at the right time. And both the rage and the too-much scrolling of YouTube (on my iPad since I don't have the phone anymore) ... well, I'm with you. 🥴
I have the same thoughts about Women Who Run with Wolves, read it in 2018, and know it came into my life at the right time. I do appreciate your company here in the YouTube scrolling,even though we'd both rather be somewhere else.
Reading this many days after you writing it because I myself needed several days away from this space. Thank you for writing about this and putting words to feelings I have as well. I’m leaving this comment on a smartphone, but on a web browser because I had to delete the substack app for reasons that you mention. I keep thinking about how those of us who want to live robust creative lives really do have to retreat from the world, that all that pulls at us (the emails, the pings, the social mediafying of every single platform) gets in the way of our process. Which is to say: gets in the way of us feeling like and being ourselves.
“It takes effort to keep one’s mind strong in the face of being urged to and rewarded for quick responses” - I absolutely love this insight Nia. It takes courage to stay away from the mundane “look at me” culture and focus on mastering one’s own consciousness, it is an art and true essence of living a meditative life. There’s always a cost we are paying for being distracted, for taking time away from ourselves and giving it away freely to digital media.
Despite its massive cost I guess we still ingrain this in our lives because for some of us there is no other way to function with equal opportunities in stagnant and oppressive social and economical systems. Yet I still grieve the stolen attention and time from my life, and the addictive mindlessness scrolling that social media perpetuates. The dilemma is real.
I grieve it SO MUCH. The effort it takes to fully let the body rest on the grass on a sunny day and do nothing but watch birds, sky, and trees.
It takes so much work now to know our own minds, to be *allowed* to know our own minds. To have the time and space and lack of inputs ... maybe that's why those precious foods, the mango preserves and dried apples, are such a gift. Making them lets our minds rest.
I totally align Nia. It takes so much effort to stop and let ourselves observe life passing through, breath working through us, the sense of peace and space become us. So much needs to change with the toxic ways we have learned to relate with the world and living in general. We are always in so much rush and hustle. It takes immense effort to stop and smile at the flowers blooming just for a day as if god responded to all our inner struggles with beauty and we almost missed the conversation.
Your willingness to complicate your life by living a less complex digital life is inspiring and moving and frustrating to be with. Islands of sanity spark hope in the heart when imagining new systems integrated with the watershed and resident species. The book I'm currently reading, 'Social Forestry' talks about these things and pyroepistemology. Happy Solstice. May we embrace the inner fire as a deep expression of love because that's what it is. That's what it all is. Thank you for the invitations. We must keep going.
That sounds like a wonderful book that I should look into reading! It makes me think of "Wild Service: Why Nature Needs Us." And how lovely to read, of sparks of hope in the heart when imagining new systems integrated with the watersheds and more-than-human life we live among. And embracing the inner fire . . . especially during what I like to think of as the Season of Lights. 🔥 Happy Solstice!
At it's very core, the modern science project, of which technology is an offspring, is an attempt to master and subjugate nature. Drilling down a little deeper, our obsession with mastering and subjugating nature derives from the fear of death and our frenzied efforts to conquer and master it. Neither alchemy nor religion have saved us, after all, as Annie Laurie Gaylor reminds us, "our cemeteries are full of people who prayed to live," so we now seek our salvation in the magic of science & technology. But what we think is going to save us and make us immortal is only robbing us of our humanity. And in the end, it will be our undoing. For to be human is to struggle and suffer the ravages of mortality. To be human is make mistakes and to sometimes forget. To be human is to die. It's a packaged deal.
There is more to this story of being human and being alive, with all its challenges and limitations juxtaposed with all its wondrous possibilities, its awesome beauty, and the seemingly magical joy to be found (or cultivated) in every moment...but, along with various and sundry other tasks to tend to on this wintry day...alas...there is laundry to be done.
Do you remember when Steve Jobs died and someone, maybe the New Yorker, had that simple little cartoon of Jobs at the Gates of Heaven with Saint Peter looking through the entry book and Jobs saying, "I have an app for that"?
"To be human is to struggle and suffer the ravages of mortality" -- yes. Exactly. I often feel like nothing of our endeavors are more important than facing "Do I accept death?" on a regular basis.
Here's to the romping rivers flowing where dams once stoppered them, trees reaching to the sky. snowfall and starlight, and wondering why there is not an app for doing the laundry. (Seriously, why can't they make something actually useful?)
This post is another reminder of how glad I am to have connected with you here. Thanks for the recommendation of Elif Shafak's post -- and her books, which need to move up my list. As for "me-time," working on final edits of my novel by the light of a beeswax candle is very rewarding. Happy Solstice!
That sounds beautiful! I am definitely a beeswax candle person. I don’t have a lot of material attachments, but when I do, they’re to those nice things that please the senses — good unscented candles, quality paper and pens, the luxury of quiet . . . how lovely to think of you writing your novel by candlelight.
I nearly quit Substack today myself. Freedom of speech in the US is for the independently wealthy, and I have nothing to say lately that can't be used against me.
I imagine much of what I write can be used against me, but there is also the reality that the FBI used to visit our house when I was growing up, and one agent even went to my dad’s workplace and got on his boss’s case for hiring “that commie.”
At least the trees and birds don’t hold words, or our origins or identities, against us.
I'm probably not going to switch to a Light Phone (as much as I genuinely would like to) but I am going to build a morning fire and drink another mug of coffee.
Hey, I’m delighted this wasn’t an I’m leaving Substack list…rather, a I’m figuring out how to deal with the issue post. I think that, if we want to stay here to write, that’s the way to go. We are, surely, more able to manage it than it manage us…to do just the things you propose at the end of your piece (I notebooked a bit, I looked at the sky, and I stroked the cat and marvelled at the bond between us: she has absolutely no awareness of the world of algorithm).
And yes, it does require work to keep those long form muscles in shape. You’ve got to keep pushing and lifting that iron to be pumped and stacked, and it’s the same with our intellect. But it’s so worth doing (both physically and intellectually). We can work to keep and develop, not wreck, our creativity - but, unlike our own ancestors, really have to put some heft into doing so.
And, (final and) fun fact you may not have been aware of as you drove around it without navigation on your phone, Portland, Oregon is home of Langlitz Leathers!
I suppose if everyone leaves for these reasons, then there's nobody left to figure out how to do it better? Maybe. But at least the cats will always be there to keep us in the here and now -- and remind us how utterly unimportant we are 😺 I love cats.
And you are one of the ones doing that creative heavy-lifting! In fact, Julie Gabrielli is going to be serializing her novel on Substack, and this reminds me I meant to tell her of your work, which is so fun to read and must -- I am possibly assuming -- take some solid time with you and your own mind to truly create.
I did not know that! I have friends to visit there on occasion. I'll look up Langlitz next time I go, though not being a motorcycle person it will be mostly to admire :) (We spent a great deal of time at the Japanese bookstore Kinokuniya.)
Wonderful. Thank you for being here in spite of the toll.
Your guidance about not sharing, at least not yet, made me cry.
I did do some breath work and also gave the kitty a snuffle even though she was napping, partly because you're 100% right to point us towards grounding, partly because I wanted to earn the right to share your great words.
I want to snuffle some kitties! We got a dog in 2020 after our final cat died (at 21!), and as much as our kids are still soooo happy to have a dog, I realize that I am a lifelong cat person and it's probably not going to change.
Lovely. I feel every word. And this is spot on: "Being on Substack also reminds me of Instagram, which I left in 2020 after getting fed up with curating a “self” online in the midst of a months-long family crisis. The effort it takes to curate a “self” here, on Substack, often feels similar."
The vigilance required to use these platforms as tools rather than becoming their tools is nonstop.
I am trying, and failing, to move through the discomfort of trying to unprogram my brain for quick hits of high reactivity. Sitting and staring at the tree tops is lovely for perhaps twenty seconds. And then... and when the loved ones you live with are all "decompressing" on their screens, the pull to join them leads to the darker paths of scrolling beside them. How fitting, with everything supposedly "easier," that my mind is railing "this isn't easy!"
It is HARD. Really, really hard. Did you ever read Florence Williams's book "The Nature Fix"? I think I remember a scene from it where a group went on a multiday desert trip and had to leave their devices behind, specifically as a digital detox. It was hard, and definitely took longer than anyone thought it would to adjust to the physical world in front of them without reaching for other stimulation. I find it's more natural with regular practice, but I have the luxury of going offline on a regular basis for days at a time.
But even on something like trail crew in the wilderness, I've seen people carry their phones to the top of a mountain to catch a signal, and come down with the day's news. Was so disappointing the first time it happened, like the stars were suddenly dimmed.
I haven't read that one but the anecdote reminds me of one in The Comfort Crisis.
I tried to simply not have a phone. Two years ago this February, I lost my phone in a field.
As much as I adored my days without it - the expansion of my mind's walls? The deepening or lengthening of the sentences in my head, and the thoughts coming back that didn't need words at all...I missed my friends.
I text, nearly daily, with my dearest three friends. And as much as I wanted to pretend we would write letters, we simply didn't. And after a few weeks, my wise and caring husband reminded me that perhaps I'd invested too much love into these people to close those communication doors of convenience.
And I came to Substack as an attempt to write and read, without the flitting flustering flurry of Meta or others... And then it changed into Chats and Notes and Apps as well.
But I've picked up a laughably large stack of books from the library and am already falling into that instead. So while the discomfort of not-doing may not be losing ground, the screen swap for books is still alive and well.
Thank goodness for books. Honestly, this fending off of attention-theft would be so much more difficult without books to read. I wonder if there's something in that, in who finds it more accessible to go offline?
Texting is a constant nibble for me. I like texting. A lot. I text with my friends, my sisters. Texting on the Light Phone is a pain, and I ended up keeping iMessages on my iPad so that I can type and read longer conversations more easily. It's actually the healthiest aspect of having a smartphone that I miss, I think. That *actual* connection with people I care about. I like all my little groups of friends, or sisters, or nieces and nephews and niblings, and emojis. Thank you for reminding me of it!
There is a definite train of thought around who can go offline more easily and who simply could not, and which parts of those life differences creating the relative ease or relative difficulty are choices and which are not. Hmm... Do you think there is an awareness now, in new-to-career folks, around which careers pull you online more and which allow for an easier disconnect?
Yes, I do not recommend hindering actual connection, even if screens are required to keep it. 💚
Antonia -- I have taken a full year off from Substack and only recently, with progress in other lanes in my life, the itch to return and a sound reason about what to do with the commitment seems to be emerging. Your writing is remarkable. It captures a feeling likely universal in this world if only we take the time to ponder what is happening to us.
Your shift to a "not so smart phone" is a paean to the deep feeling in our soul that we are losing our identity in some way. I think it is worthwhile to minimally (a) realize it is happening (b) ponder whether we are okay with it (c) map out a strategy of how we can remain self-aware and have an exit strategy before we lose ourselves altogether.
One of the topics I have been thinking about lately maps nicely into your essay. It is about "human progress". It starts with the premise of joules and watts. Humanity, after so many millennia of existence only very recently blitzed through the Industrial Revolution. I surmise the consequences might be reduced to a simple observation. We stepped back and surveyed this beautiful planet and decided that our place and purpose was, in the end, to become force multipliers and usurp all of nature for our selfish needs. What am I talking about? We were a single species and our focus became, how much energy and power could be enough for each person to be director of. We weren't even capable of a horsepower but we understood early a first goal. Tools >> Wheels >> Plows >> Pulleys >> Engines >> Powerplants. Never is any amount enough and this selfish obsession in us doesn't seem to consider the consequences.
When I return to your essays I often mull the idea that this race of conquest and by us humans is readily measured in how much energy each of us "need". It is CREEPY that in the context of 4.6B years for this rock and 100K years for this upright walking ape, we have managed to hurtle forward with this "dominion" nonsense and completely upend the planet altogether in only perhaps 300 years. The "dominion BS comes from the same types of folks writing papal bulls. Only in the last 50 years, PERHAPS, a subset of us, trapped in this economic system of our own design have begun to ponder our consequence.
It is harrowing to see our conclusion of what to do next right before our eyes. The "problem" at hand only 300 years ago was dominion via the capture, creation and direction of energy on an unprecedented scale. The consequences presented us with a chance to work together and rethink our place in this world. Instead, after our 300 year experiment our conclusion was that we've already done the energy thing and are no longer "prisoners" of what we might lift. Instead of maybe considering how much is enough, we have pivoted inward again and decided our intellect that we can direct out of our brains is insufficient. Instead, we hurtle headlong toward artificial intelligence. I have little confidence we will be able to harness and control this monster any better than we did with the joule and the watt. The only thing that seems likely is we are a one-trick pony. We now seem focused on using all of this newfound, perhaps "sustainable" energy we have begun to generate and are going to use the short-term surplus to make AI a reality.
What I know for sure is that among the people I know, including those I had the honor to meet on Substack (that's you), it is a precious few that were self-aware enough to realize they don't need the extension of themselves we call smartphones be able to run ChatGPT or Gemini in order to live a "real" life. Your essay today reminds me that the only way we come to such a conclusion is we figure out a way to listen to our inner selves. You seem to have figured that out.
This is remarkable, Mark. I hope you save a copy of this comment for yourself because it is a complete, thoughtful, and sharply insightful essay all on its own.
I don't know that I've figured much out, just muddling through like most people, but I am trying to stay conscious and aware--hard work sometimes. I have been surprised by how quickly and readily so many people I know have taken up ChatGPT, and from what I can see, not for much of any reason except that they don't trust their own minds to explore ideas or, say, write an email.
I said "remarkable" because you reminded me of an essay I wrote over 10 years ago that was never published, where I got interested in the question of power and work. It started with Tarkovsky's lengthy movie "Andrei Rublev," which is placed in ... 13th-century Russia? Maybe 14th. Anyway, there's a scene toward the end where the villages have all been put to work gathering the materials and digging the pit to pour an enormous new bell. And then they all have to lift it out when it's done. I was thinking about how fossil fuels have made that communal labor soooo much easier, and where the point is when those fuels are useful, and when they cause more harm than good.
It's an idea I never fully got to the bottom of in my own mind, but your note here about our species becoming force multipliers and usurping nature for our own needs is very much related. It's like we missed something vital between the labor needed to raise that bell, and destroying as much life as possible for ... nothing, really. Somewhere in there was a tipping point or something we were meant to see, and we missed it.
I enjoyed reading these thoughts of yours and might print them out to keep myself, to remind me of what's at stake when we lose touch with that inner self. Thank you.
The number, which is quite harrowing the last time I checked the math was over 20,000. That is, we currently generate about 20.000 times the power a human can generate for every many, woman and child on the planet. Most of it, of course, in the first world. This is one of the few ways we can actually explain to someone how it is that something like climate change or maybe even the reversal of natural circulation models in the ocean are now possible to be driven by a single species over a short period of time.
Everything I've read of yours resonates. It's so gratifying. I'll assume you also own Lorraine Daston's 2022 book Rules and Heller/Salzman's 2021 book Mine!. So much to read! So much to write! <3
I have read Mine! (recommended by a subscriber here, actually) and think about the “ownership” of airplane space all the time now, but do not have the book Rules, so that’s one for the list — thank you! So much, so much, indeed. 📚
Thank you for such a lovely and thoughtful piece (as usual!). I came to Substack about six months ago after a progressive decline in social media use, because, while I had needed it (might still) for my work, it's just so draining to feel (and mostly ignore) the imperative to Feed the Machine. So I optimistically came here to start sharing my writing.
I was most pleased that there didn't seem to be any "algorithm" to feed, no hungry beast demanding you constantly give it content and attention. Unfortunately, soon after I joined, Substack started with "Notes" which is purely algorithmic. Feed the Machine! And if you don't, of course nobody finds your work.
When I started here on Substack, I thought it would provide the good kind of pressure to write more often and, especially, to share my writing. At first that felt easy, but then the algorithm vibe came on strong, and I found myself almost protective, even a little defensive. I post when I am moved, follow no schedule, engage with other material on this platform in a purely "organic" way (not thinking about gaining readers, or how the algorithm will see my post, or whether it's "on-brand" or whatever).
It's an ongoing struggle: I feel a pull to share my writing, and for it to be read by at least a few people, and I want it to feel human enough and not like a content cycle for Feeding the Machine.
Jane, you've articulated I think better than I did the essence of the struggle I'm having here, in particular why this platform has reminded me of being on Facebook. Though it wasn't a place to publish writing, the groups I was in constantly had discussions of going viral, getting the right bylines, building a platform -- in short, a model of "success" that takes the heart and breath right out of creative work.
Not that we don't all want success of some kind. But wow is it a delicate butterfly, and trying to figure out that balance, how we create and how we share and how readers find our work, that is some of the true work that can get lost in focusing on building.
Especially building before we're ready, now that I think of it. I am suddenly reminded of at least one person who found levels of success here they never imagined, but it turned out they weren't ready for the kind of attention it brought, nor were they ready to do the bigger, deeper work that they suddenly had the support for.
Supporting ourselves, maybe that's a way to think about it. Thank you for all of this and the thoughts they provoke. I appreciate your being here!
"Pyroepistemology". Whew. Had to take a minute after reading that - and that was weeks ago, because I've been thinking about all of this a lot, including regarding what the hell I'm doing vs what I could be doing.
(And as the California fires are demonstrating, fires are utterly indiscriminate. It's horrifying to see how technology fuels and accelerates immense division - when really it'll look like ourselves against ourselves in the long run, given enough time and enough mindless short-term reactivity to what's in front of us that very second on a screen.)
I think I used to believe in the digital equivalent of firebreaks - just hack it all down and refuse to participate. I'm not sure I do now, and this is where the analogy goes completely to pot: I don't want people to encounter an absence in their scrolling where something was that might have made them feel a bit more hopeful and energised and a bit stronger somewhere around the knees. I want to fill that gap with something that refuses to burn. I don't know how, but - digitally speaking, I want to see firebreaks of *better, truer stuff that won't burn* when the nearby garbage goes up in smoke. I want to be part of that. I think so many folk would, if they only knew where to build. And part of that is the same struggle you're having - to find a better way to be online, because my ability to do anything worth doing has to start there.
(I also think a huge part of "how to be online" is finding better ways to be offline. All our chats about this, and so much of your writing, they have swayed me heavily in this direction - for which I'm grateful. So I think it all starts outside, where dealing with what's inside and what's online seems much simpler, when you're striding along taking big lungfuls of clean air and the fog is clearing from between the neurons...)
I love “it starts outside”! I really do believe in that, because it’s about how we “be human,” be a person, just ourselves without all the other inputs and interactions.
And honestly I think what you do is a great example of the kind of firebreak you’re talking about, both digitally and … imaginatively? Like in the collective imagination. And I think where I’ve come to for the time being is in the need for people doing the kind of work you do (and plenty of others, and what I try to do), is to build the strength and resilience to not constantly get pulled by every online cycle throughout the day—news, outrage, whatever. It takes something to do that, to maintain a knowledge of right and wrong in the world and to constantly stick to the job you’re meant to be doing, rather than responding it all, all day every day.
Which leads us back outside! Water, trees, fresh air, …
Thanks for this, Antonia. I read it while knitting the brim of a hat. Sometimes knitting helps me concentrate on the words I'm reading. Anyway, I've been thinking a lot about rage and fire (love Women Who Run with Wolves) lately. I've always possessed a lot of "fire" and spent decades trying to quell it. Now, I don't try to put it out, but I am trying to figure out how to do a controlled burn, as you say (they do those on the prairies here every year). I'm also 52 and am aware that the peri-menopausal women often experience an influx of rage. Understandably, in my opinion.
I'm not on any social media besides Substack, but that does not mean I don't scroll Youtube on my smartphone as a way to avoid the uncomfortable or vicariously accomplish amazing things through the lives of others on the screen.
I'm petting my dog off and on as I type this, and I am going to restack your post (there's that fire again).
Emily, the phrase "read it while knitting the brim of a hat" made me smile! I do not knit, but my younger kid is learning to crochet and it's fun to watch those things take shape.
LOVE Women Who Run with Wolves, don't know what took me so long but I think it came to my life at the right time. And both the rage and the too-much scrolling of YouTube (on my iPad since I don't have the phone anymore) ... well, I'm with you. 🥴
I have the same thoughts about Women Who Run with Wolves, read it in 2018, and know it came into my life at the right time. I do appreciate your company here in the YouTube scrolling,even though we'd both rather be somewhere else.
Reading this many days after you writing it because I myself needed several days away from this space. Thank you for writing about this and putting words to feelings I have as well. I’m leaving this comment on a smartphone, but on a web browser because I had to delete the substack app for reasons that you mention. I keep thinking about how those of us who want to live robust creative lives really do have to retreat from the world, that all that pulls at us (the emails, the pings, the social mediafying of every single platform) gets in the way of our process. Which is to say: gets in the way of us feeling like and being ourselves.
Exactly. 💚
“It takes effort to keep one’s mind strong in the face of being urged to and rewarded for quick responses” - I absolutely love this insight Nia. It takes courage to stay away from the mundane “look at me” culture and focus on mastering one’s own consciousness, it is an art and true essence of living a meditative life. There’s always a cost we are paying for being distracted, for taking time away from ourselves and giving it away freely to digital media.
Despite its massive cost I guess we still ingrain this in our lives because for some of us there is no other way to function with equal opportunities in stagnant and oppressive social and economical systems. Yet I still grieve the stolen attention and time from my life, and the addictive mindlessness scrolling that social media perpetuates. The dilemma is real.
I grieve it SO MUCH. The effort it takes to fully let the body rest on the grass on a sunny day and do nothing but watch birds, sky, and trees.
It takes so much work now to know our own minds, to be *allowed* to know our own minds. To have the time and space and lack of inputs ... maybe that's why those precious foods, the mango preserves and dried apples, are such a gift. Making them lets our minds rest.
I totally align Nia. It takes so much effort to stop and let ourselves observe life passing through, breath working through us, the sense of peace and space become us. So much needs to change with the toxic ways we have learned to relate with the world and living in general. We are always in so much rush and hustle. It takes immense effort to stop and smile at the flowers blooming just for a day as if god responded to all our inner struggles with beauty and we almost missed the conversation.
Your willingness to complicate your life by living a less complex digital life is inspiring and moving and frustrating to be with. Islands of sanity spark hope in the heart when imagining new systems integrated with the watershed and resident species. The book I'm currently reading, 'Social Forestry' talks about these things and pyroepistemology. Happy Solstice. May we embrace the inner fire as a deep expression of love because that's what it is. That's what it all is. Thank you for the invitations. We must keep going.
That sounds like a wonderful book that I should look into reading! It makes me think of "Wild Service: Why Nature Needs Us." And how lovely to read, of sparks of hope in the heart when imagining new systems integrated with the watersheds and more-than-human life we live among. And embracing the inner fire . . . especially during what I like to think of as the Season of Lights. 🔥 Happy Solstice!
We live on the horns of a dilemma.
At it's very core, the modern science project, of which technology is an offspring, is an attempt to master and subjugate nature. Drilling down a little deeper, our obsession with mastering and subjugating nature derives from the fear of death and our frenzied efforts to conquer and master it. Neither alchemy nor religion have saved us, after all, as Annie Laurie Gaylor reminds us, "our cemeteries are full of people who prayed to live," so we now seek our salvation in the magic of science & technology. But what we think is going to save us and make us immortal is only robbing us of our humanity. And in the end, it will be our undoing. For to be human is to struggle and suffer the ravages of mortality. To be human is make mistakes and to sometimes forget. To be human is to die. It's a packaged deal.
There is more to this story of being human and being alive, with all its challenges and limitations juxtaposed with all its wondrous possibilities, its awesome beauty, and the seemingly magical joy to be found (or cultivated) in every moment...but, along with various and sundry other tasks to tend to on this wintry day...alas...there is laundry to be done.
Isn't there an app for that?
Do you remember when Steve Jobs died and someone, maybe the New Yorker, had that simple little cartoon of Jobs at the Gates of Heaven with Saint Peter looking through the entry book and Jobs saying, "I have an app for that"?
"To be human is to struggle and suffer the ravages of mortality" -- yes. Exactly. I often feel like nothing of our endeavors are more important than facing "Do I accept death?" on a regular basis.
Here's to the romping rivers flowing where dams once stoppered them, trees reaching to the sky. snowfall and starlight, and wondering why there is not an app for doing the laundry. (Seriously, why can't they make something actually useful?)
I actually don't mind doing laundry. One can daydream while folding clothes and bedsheets.
This post is another reminder of how glad I am to have connected with you here. Thanks for the recommendation of Elif Shafak's post -- and her books, which need to move up my list. As for "me-time," working on final edits of my novel by the light of a beeswax candle is very rewarding. Happy Solstice!
That sounds beautiful! I am definitely a beeswax candle person. I don’t have a lot of material attachments, but when I do, they’re to those nice things that please the senses — good unscented candles, quality paper and pens, the luxury of quiet . . . how lovely to think of you writing your novel by candlelight.
Happy Solstice! 🔥
🔥🔥
I nearly quit Substack today myself. Freedom of speech in the US is for the independently wealthy, and I have nothing to say lately that can't be used against me.
I imagine much of what I write can be used against me, but there is also the reality that the FBI used to visit our house when I was growing up, and one agent even went to my dad’s workplace and got on his boss’s case for hiring “that commie.”
At least the trees and birds don’t hold words, or our origins or identities, against us.
Too often, I’m reminded of the Marina Tsvetaeva poem that ends, “hell is where we’re bound.” (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/55410/bound-for-hell)
I'm probably not going to switch to a Light Phone (as much as I genuinely would like to) but I am going to build a morning fire and drink another mug of coffee.
What, you're not tempted by a device that calls people at random and hangs up on those you're talking with?
A fire sounds blissful 🔥
Hey, I’m delighted this wasn’t an I’m leaving Substack list…rather, a I’m figuring out how to deal with the issue post. I think that, if we want to stay here to write, that’s the way to go. We are, surely, more able to manage it than it manage us…to do just the things you propose at the end of your piece (I notebooked a bit, I looked at the sky, and I stroked the cat and marvelled at the bond between us: she has absolutely no awareness of the world of algorithm).
And yes, it does require work to keep those long form muscles in shape. You’ve got to keep pushing and lifting that iron to be pumped and stacked, and it’s the same with our intellect. But it’s so worth doing (both physically and intellectually). We can work to keep and develop, not wreck, our creativity - but, unlike our own ancestors, really have to put some heft into doing so.
And, (final and) fun fact you may not have been aware of as you drove around it without navigation on your phone, Portland, Oregon is home of Langlitz Leathers!
I suppose if everyone leaves for these reasons, then there's nobody left to figure out how to do it better? Maybe. But at least the cats will always be there to keep us in the here and now -- and remind us how utterly unimportant we are 😺 I love cats.
And you are one of the ones doing that creative heavy-lifting! In fact, Julie Gabrielli is going to be serializing her novel on Substack, and this reminds me I meant to tell her of your work, which is so fun to read and must -- I am possibly assuming -- take some solid time with you and your own mind to truly create.
I did not know that! I have friends to visit there on occasion. I'll look up Langlitz next time I go, though not being a motorcycle person it will be mostly to admire :) (We spent a great deal of time at the Japanese bookstore Kinokuniya.)
A shidakh with Julie Gabrieli! Cool.
Wonderful. Thank you for being here in spite of the toll.
Your guidance about not sharing, at least not yet, made me cry.
I did do some breath work and also gave the kitty a snuffle even though she was napping, partly because you're 100% right to point us towards grounding, partly because I wanted to earn the right to share your great words.
I want to snuffle some kitties! We got a dog in 2020 after our final cat died (at 21!), and as much as our kids are still soooo happy to have a dog, I realize that I am a lifelong cat person and it's probably not going to change.
Thank you for being here, as always!
Lovely. I feel every word. And this is spot on: "Being on Substack also reminds me of Instagram, which I left in 2020 after getting fed up with curating a “self” online in the midst of a months-long family crisis. The effort it takes to curate a “self” here, on Substack, often feels similar."
The vigilance required to use these platforms as tools rather than becoming their tools is nonstop.
Exhaustingly nonstop. And everyone is rewarded for not trying, at least with dopamine hits if nothing else.
I am trying, and failing, to move through the discomfort of trying to unprogram my brain for quick hits of high reactivity. Sitting and staring at the tree tops is lovely for perhaps twenty seconds. And then... and when the loved ones you live with are all "decompressing" on their screens, the pull to join them leads to the darker paths of scrolling beside them. How fitting, with everything supposedly "easier," that my mind is railing "this isn't easy!"
It is HARD. Really, really hard. Did you ever read Florence Williams's book "The Nature Fix"? I think I remember a scene from it where a group went on a multiday desert trip and had to leave their devices behind, specifically as a digital detox. It was hard, and definitely took longer than anyone thought it would to adjust to the physical world in front of them without reaching for other stimulation. I find it's more natural with regular practice, but I have the luxury of going offline on a regular basis for days at a time.
But even on something like trail crew in the wilderness, I've seen people carry their phones to the top of a mountain to catch a signal, and come down with the day's news. Was so disappointing the first time it happened, like the stars were suddenly dimmed.
It is NOT EASY!
I haven't read that one but the anecdote reminds me of one in The Comfort Crisis.
I tried to simply not have a phone. Two years ago this February, I lost my phone in a field.
As much as I adored my days without it - the expansion of my mind's walls? The deepening or lengthening of the sentences in my head, and the thoughts coming back that didn't need words at all...I missed my friends.
I text, nearly daily, with my dearest three friends. And as much as I wanted to pretend we would write letters, we simply didn't. And after a few weeks, my wise and caring husband reminded me that perhaps I'd invested too much love into these people to close those communication doors of convenience.
And I came to Substack as an attempt to write and read, without the flitting flustering flurry of Meta or others... And then it changed into Chats and Notes and Apps as well.
But I've picked up a laughably large stack of books from the library and am already falling into that instead. So while the discomfort of not-doing may not be losing ground, the screen swap for books is still alive and well.
Thank goodness for books. Honestly, this fending off of attention-theft would be so much more difficult without books to read. I wonder if there's something in that, in who finds it more accessible to go offline?
Texting is a constant nibble for me. I like texting. A lot. I text with my friends, my sisters. Texting on the Light Phone is a pain, and I ended up keeping iMessages on my iPad so that I can type and read longer conversations more easily. It's actually the healthiest aspect of having a smartphone that I miss, I think. That *actual* connection with people I care about. I like all my little groups of friends, or sisters, or nieces and nephews and niblings, and emojis. Thank you for reminding me of it!
There is a definite train of thought around who can go offline more easily and who simply could not, and which parts of those life differences creating the relative ease or relative difficulty are choices and which are not. Hmm... Do you think there is an awareness now, in new-to-career folks, around which careers pull you online more and which allow for an easier disconnect?
Yes, I do not recommend hindering actual connection, even if screens are required to keep it. 💚
Antonia -- I have taken a full year off from Substack and only recently, with progress in other lanes in my life, the itch to return and a sound reason about what to do with the commitment seems to be emerging. Your writing is remarkable. It captures a feeling likely universal in this world if only we take the time to ponder what is happening to us.
Your shift to a "not so smart phone" is a paean to the deep feeling in our soul that we are losing our identity in some way. I think it is worthwhile to minimally (a) realize it is happening (b) ponder whether we are okay with it (c) map out a strategy of how we can remain self-aware and have an exit strategy before we lose ourselves altogether.
One of the topics I have been thinking about lately maps nicely into your essay. It is about "human progress". It starts with the premise of joules and watts. Humanity, after so many millennia of existence only very recently blitzed through the Industrial Revolution. I surmise the consequences might be reduced to a simple observation. We stepped back and surveyed this beautiful planet and decided that our place and purpose was, in the end, to become force multipliers and usurp all of nature for our selfish needs. What am I talking about? We were a single species and our focus became, how much energy and power could be enough for each person to be director of. We weren't even capable of a horsepower but we understood early a first goal. Tools >> Wheels >> Plows >> Pulleys >> Engines >> Powerplants. Never is any amount enough and this selfish obsession in us doesn't seem to consider the consequences.
When I return to your essays I often mull the idea that this race of conquest and by us humans is readily measured in how much energy each of us "need". It is CREEPY that in the context of 4.6B years for this rock and 100K years for this upright walking ape, we have managed to hurtle forward with this "dominion" nonsense and completely upend the planet altogether in only perhaps 300 years. The "dominion BS comes from the same types of folks writing papal bulls. Only in the last 50 years, PERHAPS, a subset of us, trapped in this economic system of our own design have begun to ponder our consequence.
It is harrowing to see our conclusion of what to do next right before our eyes. The "problem" at hand only 300 years ago was dominion via the capture, creation and direction of energy on an unprecedented scale. The consequences presented us with a chance to work together and rethink our place in this world. Instead, after our 300 year experiment our conclusion was that we've already done the energy thing and are no longer "prisoners" of what we might lift. Instead of maybe considering how much is enough, we have pivoted inward again and decided our intellect that we can direct out of our brains is insufficient. Instead, we hurtle headlong toward artificial intelligence. I have little confidence we will be able to harness and control this monster any better than we did with the joule and the watt. The only thing that seems likely is we are a one-trick pony. We now seem focused on using all of this newfound, perhaps "sustainable" energy we have begun to generate and are going to use the short-term surplus to make AI a reality.
What I know for sure is that among the people I know, including those I had the honor to meet on Substack (that's you), it is a precious few that were self-aware enough to realize they don't need the extension of themselves we call smartphones be able to run ChatGPT or Gemini in order to live a "real" life. Your essay today reminds me that the only way we come to such a conclusion is we figure out a way to listen to our inner selves. You seem to have figured that out.
This is remarkable, Mark. I hope you save a copy of this comment for yourself because it is a complete, thoughtful, and sharply insightful essay all on its own.
I don't know that I've figured much out, just muddling through like most people, but I am trying to stay conscious and aware--hard work sometimes. I have been surprised by how quickly and readily so many people I know have taken up ChatGPT, and from what I can see, not for much of any reason except that they don't trust their own minds to explore ideas or, say, write an email.
I said "remarkable" because you reminded me of an essay I wrote over 10 years ago that was never published, where I got interested in the question of power and work. It started with Tarkovsky's lengthy movie "Andrei Rublev," which is placed in ... 13th-century Russia? Maybe 14th. Anyway, there's a scene toward the end where the villages have all been put to work gathering the materials and digging the pit to pour an enormous new bell. And then they all have to lift it out when it's done. I was thinking about how fossil fuels have made that communal labor soooo much easier, and where the point is when those fuels are useful, and when they cause more harm than good.
It's an idea I never fully got to the bottom of in my own mind, but your note here about our species becoming force multipliers and usurping nature for our own needs is very much related. It's like we missed something vital between the labor needed to raise that bell, and destroying as much life as possible for ... nothing, really. Somewhere in there was a tipping point or something we were meant to see, and we missed it.
I enjoyed reading these thoughts of yours and might print them out to keep myself, to remind me of what's at stake when we lose touch with that inner self. Thank you.
The number, which is quite harrowing the last time I checked the math was over 20,000. That is, we currently generate about 20.000 times the power a human can generate for every many, woman and child on the planet. Most of it, of course, in the first world. This is one of the few ways we can actually explain to someone how it is that something like climate change or maybe even the reversal of natural circulation models in the ocean are now possible to be driven by a single species over a short period of time.
Everything I've read of yours resonates. It's so gratifying. I'll assume you also own Lorraine Daston's 2022 book Rules and Heller/Salzman's 2021 book Mine!. So much to read! So much to write! <3
I have read Mine! (recommended by a subscriber here, actually) and think about the “ownership” of airplane space all the time now, but do not have the book Rules, so that’s one for the list — thank you! So much, so much, indeed. 📚
Thank you for such a lovely and thoughtful piece (as usual!). I came to Substack about six months ago after a progressive decline in social media use, because, while I had needed it (might still) for my work, it's just so draining to feel (and mostly ignore) the imperative to Feed the Machine. So I optimistically came here to start sharing my writing.
I was most pleased that there didn't seem to be any "algorithm" to feed, no hungry beast demanding you constantly give it content and attention. Unfortunately, soon after I joined, Substack started with "Notes" which is purely algorithmic. Feed the Machine! And if you don't, of course nobody finds your work.
When I started here on Substack, I thought it would provide the good kind of pressure to write more often and, especially, to share my writing. At first that felt easy, but then the algorithm vibe came on strong, and I found myself almost protective, even a little defensive. I post when I am moved, follow no schedule, engage with other material on this platform in a purely "organic" way (not thinking about gaining readers, or how the algorithm will see my post, or whether it's "on-brand" or whatever).
It's an ongoing struggle: I feel a pull to share my writing, and for it to be read by at least a few people, and I want it to feel human enough and not like a content cycle for Feeding the Machine.
I appreciate your work, Antonia.
Jane, you've articulated I think better than I did the essence of the struggle I'm having here, in particular why this platform has reminded me of being on Facebook. Though it wasn't a place to publish writing, the groups I was in constantly had discussions of going viral, getting the right bylines, building a platform -- in short, a model of "success" that takes the heart and breath right out of creative work.
Not that we don't all want success of some kind. But wow is it a delicate butterfly, and trying to figure out that balance, how we create and how we share and how readers find our work, that is some of the true work that can get lost in focusing on building.
Especially building before we're ready, now that I think of it. I am suddenly reminded of at least one person who found levels of success here they never imagined, but it turned out they weren't ready for the kind of attention it brought, nor were they ready to do the bigger, deeper work that they suddenly had the support for.
Supporting ourselves, maybe that's a way to think about it. Thank you for all of this and the thoughts they provoke. I appreciate your being here!