This really touched me, Dougald. Thank you. I work in the field of 'narrative change', which is all about story and frames and the way we manifest this complex, infuriating, beautiful world into language (I worked with Tom Crompton at the Common Cause Foundation for 5 years - perhaps you know of it?). But a frustration I feel daily is that this work is often geared towards finding some magic sequence of words to persuade someone to think in a particular way in order to do a particular thing which we, as change-makers, deem somehow 'better' than whatever they were thinking or doing before.
Although I can see the power in this sometimes, it often feels to me far too narrow for the depth of the moment we're living through. The sickness we're experiencing, if I can call it that, isn't fixable by better messaging, but perhaps there's some healing to be found in cultivating a world-story (as you call it) that can soothe how we relate, what we notice, what we worship, what we fear and what we do when we're feeling scared etc.
What moved me in your piece was the reminder and beautiful articulation that stories shape the horizons of perception, and deepens my feeling that the work called for in these times is less about persuasion and maybe more about inviting reflection, encounter, grief, beauty and care. I also feel strongly that stories/narratives do not become part of us through language alone, or through the media we consume, but are reinforced through our lived experience of the institutions we interact with and the systems we move through everyday that can subtly teach us how the world works and what matters.
I'm signed up for A Bit More Practice - looking forward to it :)
Thanks for this wonderful response, Ruth! I'm particularly struck by that frustration you describe with trying to work at the level of persuasion. For me, there's a question of vulnerability here: am I willing to be changed, to discover something I haven't seen, in the encounter? Or am I assuming that there's a one-way transmission going on? Like you say, the latter doesn't feel deep enough for the times, or open enough. Glad to know you'll be with us for the series!
So beautiful, so inspiring, Dougald. To get metaphysical, it seems we do create the seemingly physical world--it renders--as we see/experience it.
I am especially touched by "Be free with your joy. Be true to your grief. And be careful where you put your anger."
Yes, there is a "great unworded longing to come alive" in our very bones, and I believe it happens when we drop the shame and guilt of being human and recognize our true purpose in life's ecosystems, which is to see and create beauty. Thank you for your part in this.
Excellent essay. I trust you’re familiar with the work of Paul Kingsnorth. His book ‘Against the Machine’ elaborates on the idea of the end of this long era. His essay ‘Dark Ecology’ wrestles with what is worth doing given this same context. Cheers and thanks again!
Yes, indeed! In fact, Paul and I wrote a manifesto together, many moons ago, which grew into the journal that published that essay. It's a piece I often think back to.
When people started to talk of trees and forests not as living sacred entities but as things , and then as merchandizes, the "brave new world" of modernity was born ...
And the forest death spread all over the planet. When I was around 4 to 5 yo, I was playing alone under the shadow of a big tree in my yard and I was subdued by a sense of awe. I kneeled near her ( the tree) , and prayed to her. Perhaps it was my ancestry expressing through me: my great grandmother was an indigenous woman from the Amazon region. Now , at 77 yo, I live in São Paulo , that is called The Forest of Stone - a Death Forest. But from my balcony my eyes can touch and caress a solitary giant tree below, at the cross roads of three busy streets, that my imagination transform in rivers.
Thank you for this beautiful piece, Dougald. And thank you for taking the time to record the audio, as well. I’m catching up on some reading this morning and listened to your words just after hearing Elizabeth Oldfield’s piece called something like, being present is a prayer (I may have got that slightly wrong). I felt a resonance between them. It’s a beautiful spring morning in Sheffield, with the promise of a welcome band of rain to come this evening and overnight, and I feel more alive to it thanks to your words and hers. I’m very excited for your new book (and congratulations on finishing a first draft) - do you have a working title for it?
Thanks, Emma! I'm glad you felt that resonance with Elizabeth's piece, she's been an important companion in the work I'm doing over recent years. The working title, which I hope will stick, is A World Worth Living For. Beautiful blue-skied spring morning here and I am about to head out to continue picking thorns from the lawn. (Long story, but as Caroline Ross pointed out, it does sound like a fairytale task...)
A beautifully written reflection on the different ways of 'seeing', and the limits of the contemporary mythos of optics - wonderful! Are your books written this poetically, or is this the benefit of a more focussed reflection...?
Thank you, Chris! There's a certain concentrated poetic economy that's possible in a self-contained piece like this that I'm not sure I could sustain over a whole book, but it is part of how I write, even at that scale. Glad you liked the piece!
Exactly what I’m trying to impress upon my spouse all he ever used was” good” for yummy dishes n rverything else under the sun n he’s an ivy- league grad…
This really touched me, Dougald. Thank you. I work in the field of 'narrative change', which is all about story and frames and the way we manifest this complex, infuriating, beautiful world into language (I worked with Tom Crompton at the Common Cause Foundation for 5 years - perhaps you know of it?). But a frustration I feel daily is that this work is often geared towards finding some magic sequence of words to persuade someone to think in a particular way in order to do a particular thing which we, as change-makers, deem somehow 'better' than whatever they were thinking or doing before.
Although I can see the power in this sometimes, it often feels to me far too narrow for the depth of the moment we're living through. The sickness we're experiencing, if I can call it that, isn't fixable by better messaging, but perhaps there's some healing to be found in cultivating a world-story (as you call it) that can soothe how we relate, what we notice, what we worship, what we fear and what we do when we're feeling scared etc.
What moved me in your piece was the reminder and beautiful articulation that stories shape the horizons of perception, and deepens my feeling that the work called for in these times is less about persuasion and maybe more about inviting reflection, encounter, grief, beauty and care. I also feel strongly that stories/narratives do not become part of us through language alone, or through the media we consume, but are reinforced through our lived experience of the institutions we interact with and the systems we move through everyday that can subtly teach us how the world works and what matters.
I'm signed up for A Bit More Practice - looking forward to it :)
Thanks for this wonderful response, Ruth! I'm particularly struck by that frustration you describe with trying to work at the level of persuasion. For me, there's a question of vulnerability here: am I willing to be changed, to discover something I haven't seen, in the encounter? Or am I assuming that there's a one-way transmission going on? Like you say, the latter doesn't feel deep enough for the times, or open enough. Glad to know you'll be with us for the series!
So beautiful, so inspiring, Dougald. To get metaphysical, it seems we do create the seemingly physical world--it renders--as we see/experience it.
I am especially touched by "Be free with your joy. Be true to your grief. And be careful where you put your anger."
Yes, there is a "great unworded longing to come alive" in our very bones, and I believe it happens when we drop the shame and guilt of being human and recognize our true purpose in life's ecosystems, which is to see and create beauty. Thank you for your part in this.
Excellent essay. I trust you’re familiar with the work of Paul Kingsnorth. His book ‘Against the Machine’ elaborates on the idea of the end of this long era. His essay ‘Dark Ecology’ wrestles with what is worth doing given this same context. Cheers and thanks again!
Yes, indeed! In fact, Paul and I wrote a manifesto together, many moons ago, which grew into the journal that published that essay. It's a piece I often think back to.
Words change worlds....
When people started to talk of trees and forests not as living sacred entities but as things , and then as merchandizes, the "brave new world" of modernity was born ...
And the forest death spread all over the planet. When I was around 4 to 5 yo, I was playing alone under the shadow of a big tree in my yard and I was subdued by a sense of awe. I kneeled near her ( the tree) , and prayed to her. Perhaps it was my ancestry expressing through me: my great grandmother was an indigenous woman from the Amazon region. Now , at 77 yo, I live in São Paulo , that is called The Forest of Stone - a Death Forest. But from my balcony my eyes can touch and caress a solitary giant tree below, at the cross roads of three busy streets, that my imagination transform in rivers.
McGilcrist is right, attention is a moral act. Thanks for this timely reminder, Dougald.
Thank you for this beautiful piece, Dougald. And thank you for taking the time to record the audio, as well. I’m catching up on some reading this morning and listened to your words just after hearing Elizabeth Oldfield’s piece called something like, being present is a prayer (I may have got that slightly wrong). I felt a resonance between them. It’s a beautiful spring morning in Sheffield, with the promise of a welcome band of rain to come this evening and overnight, and I feel more alive to it thanks to your words and hers. I’m very excited for your new book (and congratulations on finishing a first draft) - do you have a working title for it?
Thanks, Emma! I'm glad you felt that resonance with Elizabeth's piece, she's been an important companion in the work I'm doing over recent years. The working title, which I hope will stick, is A World Worth Living For. Beautiful blue-skied spring morning here and I am about to head out to continue picking thorns from the lawn. (Long story, but as Caroline Ross pointed out, it does sound like a fairytale task...)
That’s a good title.
I hope you made some progress with the thorns. Fairytale indeed. There’s surely some metaphor in there.
Dear Dougald,
A beautifully written reflection on the different ways of 'seeing', and the limits of the contemporary mythos of optics - wonderful! Are your books written this poetically, or is this the benefit of a more focussed reflection...?
Stay wonderful!
Chris.
Thank you, Chris! There's a certain concentrated poetic economy that's possible in a self-contained piece like this that I'm not sure I could sustain over a whole book, but it is part of how I write, even at that scale. Glad you liked the piece!
Exactly what I’m trying to impress upon my spouse all he ever used was” good” for yummy dishes n rverything else under the sun n he’s an ivy- league grad…