I would be most deprived without the words and images running through my own head and from the mouths and pens of others. I can't see how I would give that up. On the other hand, it is necessary for me to regularly, ritually drop down out of them into the animal and expand from there. I call it finding the donkey. The donkey that is me, the donkeys all around me. Here is rest and refreshment.
Dougland, what a rich and moving piece. "Yet I wonder how much deeper I might have journeyed into that part of the world, how much more I might have learned, if I hadn’t found that window to escape..." I resonate with your experience here, as I first came to Canada as a 16 year-old with just a couple years of English study in my pocket. Part of the stipulation of the exchange program was, not to contact family or friends for the first three months (apart from brief affirmations by phone that all is ok), because it would allow for a deeper immersion. It forced me to communicate, to make friends, to figure things out. Learning a culture and language this way, later helped me to better support my ESL students (interestingly these Chinese students chose to come and study in Newfoundland because they knew that they would have fewer opportunities to speak Chinese compared to a multicultural centre like Toronto).
I have had a similar experience with Substack, and do believe that there is a place for these interactions that have a positive carry-over into real life. The question lies what we are trading off, just like in your Uyghur example, by finding enrichment online. I am hoping to find a renewed focus during Lent to establish habits that will leave my mind untethered throughout the day.
Also, your longhand writing is splendid and has such a natural flow that it is actually palpable in the reading experience!
As someone who has spent their entire life trying and mostly failing to harness their attention for some purpose beyond myself, I say thank you. Also as someone who has so many habitual trappings that the task to be the person I want and need to be seems impossible, I say thank you. Thank you for sharing the oak/meadow lens from Caroline Ross and the perfect timing of this post.🙏
I appreciate the ongoing writings, Dougald. Thank you for your measured thoughts- I feel a similar tension between utter cold turkey and full indulgence in the good things of the Internet. I’ve grown accustomed to getting your dispatches as letters from a friend, like those of others here on Substack—- hopefully that doesn’t seem impertinent or overly American but just friendly, another magic mirror. Cheers.
It's odd the windows of time in which things happen. The year after the Beijing Olympics - China's coming-out party - YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter were all blocked. That Livejournal experience wouldn't have been possible. The summer of 2009, there was a civil disturbance in Guangzhou that caused the mistreatment of Uighurs to go to the next level and the internet was blocked altogether in Xinjiang.
That coincided with my most immersive experience of China. At the time I told myself I had it good, since economies around the Western world were going south and whereas in America there were drive-by shootings, in China there were only drive-by 'helloooooos'.
I also had a mate who nicknamed me 阿富汗人 'The Afghan', because I became dangerously underweight as the food was too greasy. Aren't your twenties great?
To be consciously poised between the conviviality of a platform like Substack, where "people learn how to make their lives and their words into a gift", and the challenges inherent in the bodily reality of our situation as this post describes, strikes me as a very relevant use of the Lenten season.
I would be most deprived without the words and images running through my own head and from the mouths and pens of others. I can't see how I would give that up. On the other hand, it is necessary for me to regularly, ritually drop down out of them into the animal and expand from there. I call it finding the donkey. The donkey that is me, the donkeys all around me. Here is rest and refreshment.
Dougland, what a rich and moving piece. "Yet I wonder how much deeper I might have journeyed into that part of the world, how much more I might have learned, if I hadn’t found that window to escape..." I resonate with your experience here, as I first came to Canada as a 16 year-old with just a couple years of English study in my pocket. Part of the stipulation of the exchange program was, not to contact family or friends for the first three months (apart from brief affirmations by phone that all is ok), because it would allow for a deeper immersion. It forced me to communicate, to make friends, to figure things out. Learning a culture and language this way, later helped me to better support my ESL students (interestingly these Chinese students chose to come and study in Newfoundland because they knew that they would have fewer opportunities to speak Chinese compared to a multicultural centre like Toronto).
I have had a similar experience with Substack, and do believe that there is a place for these interactions that have a positive carry-over into real life. The question lies what we are trading off, just like in your Uyghur example, by finding enrichment online. I am hoping to find a renewed focus during Lent to establish habits that will leave my mind untethered throughout the day.
Also, your longhand writing is splendid and has such a natural flow that it is actually palpable in the reading experience!
Thank you, Dougald
A rich post
The mention of the uyghurs was very poignant in that they seem to have been forgotten by the ‘and now’ culture of what passes for ‘news’
I really like the handwriting idea for posts before going near a screen
Ive long thought it might be the necessary RH ‘take care!’ brake on what might be otherwise an unhusbanded flow of words
I hope to take study leave later this year
I’m wrestling with leaving my laptop behind and simply working with the books I have, plain paper and my supply of Blackwings :)
Your comment may help push me over the edge in this respect :)
I may even begin to publish on this convivial forum :)
As someone who has spent their entire life trying and mostly failing to harness their attention for some purpose beyond myself, I say thank you. Also as someone who has so many habitual trappings that the task to be the person I want and need to be seems impossible, I say thank you. Thank you for sharing the oak/meadow lens from Caroline Ross and the perfect timing of this post.🙏
I appreciate the ongoing writings, Dougald. Thank you for your measured thoughts- I feel a similar tension between utter cold turkey and full indulgence in the good things of the Internet. I’ve grown accustomed to getting your dispatches as letters from a friend, like those of others here on Substack—- hopefully that doesn’t seem impertinent or overly American but just friendly, another magic mirror. Cheers.
It's odd the windows of time in which things happen. The year after the Beijing Olympics - China's coming-out party - YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter were all blocked. That Livejournal experience wouldn't have been possible. The summer of 2009, there was a civil disturbance in Guangzhou that caused the mistreatment of Uighurs to go to the next level and the internet was blocked altogether in Xinjiang.
That coincided with my most immersive experience of China. At the time I told myself I had it good, since economies around the Western world were going south and whereas in America there were drive-by shootings, in China there were only drive-by 'helloooooos'.
I also had a mate who nicknamed me 阿富汗人 'The Afghan', because I became dangerously underweight as the food was too greasy. Aren't your twenties great?
To be consciously poised between the conviviality of a platform like Substack, where "people learn how to make their lives and their words into a gift", and the challenges inherent in the bodily reality of our situation as this post describes, strikes me as a very relevant use of the Lenten season.