Too hard; didn't bother

Secondhand engagement with the world is not enough

Swans in Stroud, shot on film

I’ve been struggling to write lately. No, not true. I’ve been struggling to come up with an original thought. Every time I sit down to write, I start reading instead. I gobble up the news, the cultural analysis, and all the brilliant Substacks (and there are many!). But rather than making me feel more informed, and enamoured with knowledge, it’s been utterly disorientating.

Everything gets scrutinised from every angle before I have a chance to form my own opinion. Analysis is instant. I read so much about Adolescence, the hotly debated Netflix series of the moment, before it even launched, limiting the possibility of having my own authentic thoughts and feelings about it. I could of course have chosen not to read about it. But it is just an example of how collective analysis moves faster than I can establish my own ideas. The opinion pieces, trend reports, and hot takes come in so quickly, it’s overwhelming. I find myself taking on a mediated viewpoint. And I am starting to resent it.

I crave my own experiences, and my own discussions, to make up my own mind. The book The Extinction of Experience by Christine Rosen explores this human crisis in the digital age. According to Rosen, we now spend as much time consuming the experiences of others as we do having experiences of our own. Read that again. Urgh. Not cool. I would argue that we also spend as much time consuming other people’s opinions as forming our own. Because that would take time. It would involve having conversations, mulling things over, and considering different viewpoints.

It’s a TL;DR attitude to life. Too hard, didn’t bother. So we settle for a secondhand engagement with the world.

At a recent client meeting, we discussed this tension between analysing and interpreting the world versus actively engaging with it. We all agreed that we are at a stage where we have enough information. We know enough about climate collapse, late-stage capitalism, inequality, ongoing wars, democracy under threat, and all the other big topics. That’s not to say we know it all, or ever will have a complete picture, of any of it (unless you are an outspoken expert in any of these fields), but we know enough to get involved. To do something, anything, right here, right now, wherever we are, to make things a little less shit. It’s good to be aware and see the big picture, but that doesn’t mean consuming quite so much all the time when we have no ability to process it, let alone act on it. It’s like we chose to live like AI – absorbing all the content to make a well-informed statement that adds absolutely nothing but is in line with what is current in our chosen bubble. It’s a sense that there is more need for action, and less need for words.

I guess conversations could offer a way out of this dilemma (and I mean the genuine face-to-face variety). Conversations are a great way to make sense of complex issues, and are definitely the medium of the moment. Meaning emerges as we talk, it’s a dialogue rather than a monologue in our heads. But it’s going to be a boring conversation if we all consume the same sources, and have the same secondhand opinions on stuff. Talking to people from different generations, both older and younger, can be a powerful way to break out of our echo chambers. These conversations are often the most enlightening because they bring fresh perspectives, grounded in real-life experiences.

What I’m getting at is the importance of lived experience. Having instant access to everything all the time makes us believe a digital substitute is just as good. But it’s not, and we must resist at all costs.

To illustrate my point, here’s a little anecdote that made me very happy.

A few weeks ago I was visiting friends in Vienna. As I sat on the bus I overheard two women in their fifties chatting behind me. First, they were lamenting the effects of climate change. The summers they used to know as kids no longer existed. They vividly described the heavy thunderstorms typical of hot summer days. Summers were no longer what they used to be. Then they moved on to the topic of technological advancements. “Die Digitalisierung geht ma sowieso am Oasch” said one of them in heavy Viennese dialect (which roughly translates to ‘digitalisation is a pain in the arse’) I had to pinch myself not to burst out laughing. It was their language that made me giggle, but I could fully relate to their fervent disgust at how digital had taken over our lives. They went on to list examples of annoying ‘digital only’ situations, how it had complicated their lives, and how much they pitied young people because of it. Then they decided, very spontaneously, to get off the bus and grab a drink together before they both went their own ways.

Yes, I thought, all is not lost.

Until next time

Because I take photos on film, they take ages to develop and then are totally out of sync with the season. So just as lovely spring weather is hitting the UK, I can now share a nice photo from December ; )

Shot on film in Austria