Something for the Weekend: 10.12.23
Modern life isn't rubbish (really), kitchen drama, a book of the year, and Bill Nighy
Modern life isn't rubbish, but it can be mentally exhausting. At least for me. I know that in the scheme of generations and geography it can seem quite indulgent to wring your hands at the demands of technology, but I've long known that I use social media too much. It zaps my energy, my time, and I think dulls my creativity.
Opening whichever app, but most often Instagram, is akin to picking at the edges of that lasagna you've batch cooked for the week. Every time you pass the fridge you pick at the crusty edges thinking no one will notice. A little more, a little more, and then a thin slice, and another, and another. Soon, it's all gone, you’re going hungry, left filling the gap with a hurriedly thrown together meal that’s never as good as the lovingly layered lasagna.
If proof were needed of the positivity of unplugging, I just need to do go for a walk with only my surroundings as stimulus or grab a coffee and sit by the ocean free of my phone. Ideas come quickly, thoughts connect, memories, it’s the starting of things.
So, I hit pause last week. It came with an announcement post on Instagram, and the acknowledgment that such things are a bit wank. It's all, yeah whatever, but as I pointed out, in the past people I know and those I don't have reached out when I've gone quiet there to ask if I’m alright. Intrusive to some it proves there is an element of community to it all, but at the moment I want to see what happens when I give my attention span a fighting chance and recapture a little of my pre-internet brain.
As if to confirm my status as a middle-aged man, my craving other than concentration is time to read, garden, and cook. So, how’s that going for you Max, someone asked me this week. Yeah, good was my not so eloquent reply.
The longer answer would be that I'm typing part of this newsletter on my phone outside a Bunnings (hardware store) at 8am before a morning of slashing and battling rye grass and pernicious weeds. Over the week I’ve instinctively reached for my phone, navigating to the app that isn’t there anymore, before hitting my notes app and launching into writing with ease. Short bursts perhaps but going back into review those notes there’s the start of many a newsletter that will exist here, but also of features that will land elsewhere.
Being present is something I've struggled with for years but in the last few I've become a lot more adept at interrogating my mood, motivations, and intrusive thoughts. I know that I often feel an instant dip as I remove the smartphone blinkers. Ugh, real life. A week in, with the risk of sounding like a line from a Richard Curtis film, it seems to me that wonder is everywhere.
I ventured out into the dark. The actual dark, up a path that runs by the house to the river. Looking south west there was a tinge of green across the night sky. Holding up an iPhone, Aurora Australis was revealed.
A voice came from the dark. A neighbour, who is a perennial watcher of the night sky, of flora and fauna. A similar night-time meeting years ago he dipped his head as we chatted and raised his ear to a distance bird call. "Ahh, the nankeen night heron,” he said. It occurred to me that he must have learnt that from someone passing on knowledge. I also wondered if there was an app for that.
As we chatted clouds shifted, the night grew darker, and the sky was ever more punctuated with stars. The Aurora would be better tomorrow he said. The next night we ventured out again, a faint magenta hue banding the horizon. Holding up the iPhone camera the Aurora was revealed: bursts of solar wind carrying particles collide with the earth's magnetic field to gift us this celestial lightshow. Wonder is everywhere.
In the weekly three we’re getting into one of my favourite cookbooks of the year, excellent if not triggering kitchen dramas, and the most beautiful piece of cinema I’ve seen in years. You can find it all behind the paywall.
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