Seth Haines's Blog, page 7

The Pandemic's Parasite (Here Comes the Pain Again)

Im continuing my COVID supplement to The Book of Waking Up. If youd like to support this project, signup for my Substack. Special thanks today to Sealy who signed up as a yearly $65 subscriber!

8. Sobriety is a Suckers Game in the Pandemic

Sobriety doesnt make sense anymore.

Amber said this over morning coffee, and it was not meant as some declarative statement, some shifting-sand thought on remaining undrunk. Instead, it was a rhetorical outworking of justification, a shorthand for the more...

The Vibes of Chaos: Booze and Netflix and Sex-Toys, Oh My!

Im continuing my COVID supplement to The Book of Waking Up. If youd like to support this project, signup for my Substack. Special thanks today to PokeyDenver who signed up as a $7 monthly subscriber!

7. The Vibes of Chaos: Booze and Netflix and Sex-Toys, Oh My!

Comfort, pleasure, distraction from pain and chaosthis is the most natural of human impulses. And if ever the conditions were set for studying the effect of societal pain and chaos on our pleasure-seeking, pain-numbing noggins, its now....

The Pandemic Resurrection of Old Habits, Coping Mechanisms, and Addictions

Im continuing my COVID supplement to The Book of Waking Up. If youd like to support this project, signup for my Substack. Special thanks today to PokeyDenver who signed up as a $7 monthly subscriber!

5. Pandemic Alex

Alex is a therapist, a pastor, a faith leader, a man, a woman, a collection of pronouns. Alex is an amalgam of friends spread across the country, each serving on the frontlines of the New Demons more nuanced warthe war of the head, heart, and soul.  

There is a collective weight...

Partying Through a Pandemic (The Supplement, Cont.)

Im continuing my COVID supplement to The Book of Waking Up. If youd like to support this project, signup for my Substack. (And follow the tags below to read the full series.)

2. The Responses to the New Demon

In the earliest hours of the New Demons dawn, the people gathered around office coffee machines, stopped in stocked toilet-paper aisles, and yammered around lunch tables. We became prognosticators and predictors, pandemic forecasters. We created narratives, and those narratives were much...

Waking Up in the Pandemic Age: An Introduction

I asked my Substack subscribers whether theyd be interested in supporting a COVID supplement to The Book of Waking Up. Yes, they said, but many found themselves unable to support the project in these uncertain financial times. So, Im ripping out the supplement here over the next few weeks for free. If youd like to support this project, signup for my Substack.

1. Waking to a Pandemic

March 24, 2020

My work materials are strewn across the farm tablestacks of paper, two computers, a red well,...

Pausing for a Pandemic

First things first: Im taking a two-week break.

Why?

There are many reasons, I suppose. First, Id already planned to take a week for spring break. As weve pushed into this COVID-19 pandemic, though, Ive realized that many of you are sensing the worlds anxiety working into your communities like leaven. Your workplaces are closing. Your houses of worship are canceling. Local markets are emptying. Writing in this milieu feels, somehow, ungenerous.

Whats more, theres a lot of noise in both media...

Preventing Fragmentation and Isolation in a Coronavirus World

Why I Wrote 7 Pieces on Fragmentation

Over the past two weeks, Ive been writing about our fragmented, compartmentalized lives. It began with the revelation that the supposed-saint, Jean Vanier, was actually a vile serial abuser. I considered the ways each of ussupposed-saints and regular folkstends to live fragmented lives, how we split our personalities when it best suits us. I mused about the causes of fragmentation, how the social structures that required integritymarriage, career, church...

A One-Hour Practice to Overcome Divided Attention

Yes, I know

Im a little late to the page today. Truth is, I woke up quite early to cover a sort of prayer shift for my wife at our local chapel. That shift threw me a little off schedule. Thanks for your patience.

The Effects of Divided Attention.

Keep two screens connected to your computer, a third oneyour cellphoneon the desk beside your keyboard.

The Left Screen: Work the flowchart, the spreadsheet, the document, but only for a few minutes. Then, switch.

The Right Screen: Monitor the YouTube...

How Forgiveness Frees the Fragments

I start most Mondays the same way, with silence, solitude, and prayer at a local church. Yesterday, my time was cut short by an early morning service, but I counted the interruption as some sort of omen and decided to stay.

In that service, an older man took the podium. He shared of Eva Kor, an Auschwitz survivor who’d agreed to meet with a Nazi doctor—Dr. Hans Munc—in her home in 1993. There, Dr. Munc admitted that he’d watched as so many Jews were gassed at that death camp during World War...

You Said... WHAT? (The Body Holds the Fragments Together)

Our World is Marked by…

fragments. Last week, I wrote about our increasingly fragmented society and the resulting fragmentation in our own lives. In this day of social isolationism (and the increasing social distancing that’s coming in the Coronavirus Age), it can be so easy to present different versions of ourselves. Can’t we compartmentalize more easily than ever? Can’t we present the social justice Tweeter self in one forum while simultaneously purchasing oxfords made by sweatshop labor in...