I have a short essay in the next edition of The Monthly looking at some ideas around the strength (I hope) of our common humanity. Here’s a sneak peak … check out the full piece when the May edition comes out next week … There’s another side to this age of the individual: that in this digital age we stand alone, but crowded by things of which we are aware but can’t influence. That awareness of intimate yet remote externalities can be urgent, often traumatic. But so often we feel disempowered by the act of knowing. What can we do with all the global detail – war, peace, hope, joy, contempt, lies, truth, politics and personal poison – of which we are suddenly, so constantly aware? Talk back to the internet in protest? Sign a petition? We see so much but are simultaneously lost in the little well of ourselves, so befuddled by the diversionary assembly of modern being that the old truths that might be found through deeper, quiet self-knowledge seem to slip beyond our grasp.
So important, yet I could never have expressed this! You've somehow articulated something that tugs at the core of my being. My soul feels cleaner for having read this.
Our online togetherness can also be helpful I think. For example, I've found a lot of support from others on Substack who share my heartfelt concern over Israel's ongoing genocide of Gaza.
We need a balance too. Human connection, alone time, time in nature.
So important, yet I could never have expressed this! You've somehow articulated something that tugs at the core of my being. My soul feels cleaner for having read this.
👌
Our online togetherness can also be helpful I think. For example, I've found a lot of support from others on Substack who share my heartfelt concern over Israel's ongoing genocide of Gaza.
We need a balance too. Human connection, alone time, time in nature.