Euan Semple's Blog, page 39

We are the world

“Nothing is so much food, drink, and sleep for you as the return to your beginnings. The wave roars around you, and you are wave; the forest rustles, and you are forest. There is no more outside and inside. You fly, a bird in the air; you swim, a fish in the sea; you absorb light, and you are light; you taste darkness and are darkness. We wander, soul, we swim and fly, and smile and tie the torn threads and with ghostly fingers and blissfully drown out the destroyed pinions. We no longer seek God. We are God. We are the World.”

~ Hermann Hesse, The Fairy Tales of Hermann Hesse

Same walk, different day…

Possibilities…

I could write about how much I love writing…

I could write about how awful Triggered is and how sugary Call The Midwife is…

I could write about how wonderful The Salt Path by Raynor Winn is…

I could write about Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj’s I Am That…

But I won’t…

A night in in front of the fire

Swearing

Advice on the subject of swearing in memoirs which may be more generally applicable…

“Get rid of the “bloody”s and the “damn”s and treat yourself to the occasional “cunt””

Cathy Rentzenbrink in Write It All Down

RIP podcasts

Interesting that I wrote this two years ago given what is happening currently with Spotify and Joe Rogan (reminded of it by Nico Macdonald liking it!)

The media are inter_media_ries. The power of the internet was disinter_media_tion. The point of tools like blogs, bulletin boards, and podcasts was …

RIP podcasts

My outboard brain is hurting

Back in the early days of blogging it used to feel as if the internet was an extension of my neural networks. My blog posts would trigger responses which I would then react to. It was as if some synapses fired inside my skull, while others fired outside it. Cory Doctorow called this his outboard brain.

Well, nowadays it feels like I’ve had an aneurysm! The synapses outside my skull are malfunctioning. Some are dying off and others are overheating.

Maybe I need to step back from this synaptic dysfunction – meditation to calm my outboard brain. Maybe I need a frontal lobotomy.

It’s the little things

I have always resisted the commonly held view that face to face is the best form of communication. It is possible to dissemble face to face, to wear a uniform that conveys authority, or to bully with shear presence. These are all harder online.

But…

It is becoming clear that without the ability to catch someone in a corridor, glance meaningfully across a meeting table, or see someone visibly relax when you praise them, work life becomes harder.

Millions of people around the world are having to adjust to working online most of the time. Endless video calls, trying desperately to attract attention in chat groups, making assumptions based on poorly written emails. It is taking its toll.

We need to pay even more attention to each other’s needs, to be more aware of our impact, to be more compassionate in our new, distortedly connected, world.

Flip side

The way our house is situated we are more used to seeing colourful dawn skies but this is this evening‘s sunset.

Just be yourself

Sounds easy doesn’t it, but just who or what is that self that you are meant to be?

Our sense of self is a construct, a combination of all of our fleeting thoughts and the interactions we have had with other people, our families and the wider culture that we live in. It is a bunch of shoulds and shouldn’ts that we have learned. When you strip those away there is nothing left.

And yet we worry that if we are “just ourselves” that won’t be enough. We won’t be accepted and risk rejection. It feels like an existential crisis.

Working out what you really think and having the courage to act on that, regardless of the consequences, is possibly the greatest act of bravery.