A Bit More Practice
An invitation to an online series – starting 21 & 22 May 2026
How will we act on the day the industrial supply chains inevitably fail to deliver on their fantastical promise of an unlimited life? Will we build taller fences and gather our munitions? Or set the table with everything we’ve got left and invite the whole neighborhood over for supper?
On that day we are likely to do whatever we practice now.
The part of the book I have been working on sent me back to reread many of Adam Wilson’s letters from the Peasantry School. His lines about the day the supply chains fail have felt close to hand in recent weeks, for reasons that hardly need spelling out, and the thought they lead him to is one that has been present in the conversations around our kitchen table, as Anna and I prepare for our first new online series in over a year.
It’s six years this spring since we first made the invitation to something called Homeward Bound. A group of us gathered week by week, I told stories, we brought in the voices of participants, and over the weeks something quickened within the group.
Most years since, we’ve held a couple of these series. People show up because the invitation speaks to them, and often because they’ve read my work, but gradually the focus shifts as they become curious about each other and connections form, some of them deepening into friendships.
Many of the people who make up this neighbourhood of Substack – Adam Wilson, Elizabeth Oldfield, Lydia Catterall, David Benjamin Blower – have been part of these series, and I still love Caroline Ross’s description of taking part in the original Homeward Bound group:
It was like we were all sketching in charcoal every week, making things bolder, or darker, rubbing them out and redrawing them, until, by the last session, some image emerged from all our overlapping lines. Many of us went off and began to draw parts of our lives differently using the shapes we found together. Forms we could never have imagined on our own.
My other favourite description came from Jeremy in Australia:
I arrived at the previous iteration of Dougald’s course one week late and not really sure what I was getting into. It was everything that all my years of formal education hadn’t been – that is, I really learned and unlearned things, had fun and was excited leading up to each session. It impacted me far more than I could have imagined when I first enrolled. I heartily recommend joining.
It’s been a while since we last held one of these, as I’ve been deep in the work on the new book. But the word count is ticking upward and the days are ticking down, and by the time we get going in the third week of May, I’ll have a full draft finished. I look forward to emerging from the writing tunnel and into a new season of gathering with newcomers and old friends to see what we can learn together around this theme of practice.
So please consider yourselves warmly invited to join us.
As you well know, it takes two to tango. In fact, it takes at least four to hold a square dance, six when you include the caller an fiddle player, and at least ten for certain other kinds of folk dances.
Were I to sign up for a Bit More Practice, would it help me overcome the barriers those around me put up to even entering a twenty minute conversation in a comfortable location, an easy walk from their home? People who say to me, "let's have a conversation about that," and then realize that the depth of their time deficit doesn't permit any conversation at all. And then, one of them makes an appointment, then cancels when something at work comes up, and rather than suggesting a time to reschedule, invites me to just send an email with whatever I have to say.
An email that may or may not be read, and that won't be considered, because email is a one way missive. It signifies the sender talking AT the receiver, and that is the end of it.
The man who just canceled is a member of our Borough's environmental advisory council. I served on that together with him in 2021, but resigned when I couldn't handle the politics. We live around the corner from each other.
He doesn't know that I spent hours writing up how I wanted our meeting to go. He doesn't know that my agenda was first to ask many questions to explore whether we speak the same language, where we share common ground, and where our differences lie, before exploring questions pertaining specifically to our Borough. While I have strong opinions on the topics I ultimately wish to cover, I have no intention of browbeating anyone with them. Rather, my opinions descend from my own clarity on my own system of values, what I hold sacred, and from the research on questions that were prompted by the disparity between my values and my observations of the world. If he and I do not share the same values, that's a very different conversation from if we don't observe the same disparities, which is yet different from whether we are prompted to ask any of the same questions, or whether our searches turn up any of the same answers. That is why we need a conversation, not a quick email back and forth, and why I'm always willing to be wrong.
Being wrong is a joy. It means I've learned something.
So there's another reason to crave discourse, not an opportunity to blast out an opinion.
I wrote back to him that I would not package all my thoughts into an email, to proselytise at him, but would be happy to reschedule. I understand the sacrifice he would have to make to enter a conversation with me, and likewise, I sacrifice to fit him into my life as well. I told him that I see his human face and wish for him to see mine. That was late last night. So far today, no reply, but I'll give him time.
I tell you this story, not because I'm asking for a quick fix, but because it is emblematic of the difficulty of even creating the pre-conditions necessary to engage in A Bit More Practice. If the course helps me penetrate the Armor of Time Deficit of literally everyone in my sphere, then this class becomes a lifeboat in my personal storm of dissonance, but if it focuses entirely on what happens once people are engaged in dialogue, I fear it has no value for me at this time.
There is so much more to say about the Great American Time Deficit epidemic, but I'll save it for another day. Much thanks for your offering!