Thanks Seth, yeah that Taking an Internet Walk website is a gold mine of interesting websites awaiting to be stumbled upon, isn't it great? Thank you reading!
So funny that I'm reading this. This morning as I was eating some eggs, I wasn't consuming anything but this beautiful violin concerto I've never heard of before. It felt weird. I can feel the pressure to bring up a YouTube video. Had I read your article prior, I would have sat in the moment longer. Thanks for the inspiration. And since you're a fan of sharing tracks:
During COVID, one of my joys during the lockdown was cycling along the Edo River in Tokyo late at night listening to The Lark Ascending and Dives & Lazarus on repeat as the soundtrack to my peddling. I still get chills when I listen to either of them!
holy smokes… you make me want to get into cycling with how beautiful that sounds. thanks for the share, i started a radio off this song, but these are better!
Really loved this post SJF - as usual; a gracious invitation strung throughout to give ourselves back to our present experience.
Interestingly, what jumped out as me most was the only part I found I couldn’t relate to:
“It allows us to be present like we used to be when phones were just phones.”
I’ve been watching old family videos of when I was a kid - like 1 year old - the TV or radio was always on. A record always spinning. Sure, when the videos are shot outside there was less technology nearby to keep the chatter going, but it wasn’t a deliberate choice. In other words, deliberate silence has never been part of my lived experiences, from the time in entered this world.
So it seems to me, to choose silence is not going back anywhere - it’s going forward somewhere new. That kind of presence-and the nearly heroic and yet impossibly simple effort it takes to find it-is a flavor of presence our predecessors might have never tasted since they never knew the distraction saturation we know now.
I guess I’m also just sharing that I think you, and my fellow readers of this piece, are doing a phenomenal job of blazing this path - even if we occasionally have spells of too many shallow thoughts or too many browser tabs. (Yo tambien amigo, yo tambien).
Today's newsletter has given me 10000 different amazing quiet things to check out. Thank you!
Thanks Seth, yeah that Taking an Internet Walk website is a gold mine of interesting websites awaiting to be stumbled upon, isn't it great? Thank you reading!
So funny that I'm reading this. This morning as I was eating some eggs, I wasn't consuming anything but this beautiful violin concerto I've never heard of before. It felt weird. I can feel the pressure to bring up a YouTube video. Had I read your article prior, I would have sat in the moment longer. Thanks for the inspiration. And since you're a fan of sharing tracks:
https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=igm8TPhqwE0&si=nw0948NONopo6h71
Thanks for sharing Sean! And I'm a huge fan of Vaughan Williams man. You've got a very good taste. His Five Variants of Dives & Lazarus is also one of my favourites: https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=hRBuobu57fU&si=2oGjfGVQLn-2emsG
During COVID, one of my joys during the lockdown was cycling along the Edo River in Tokyo late at night listening to The Lark Ascending and Dives & Lazarus on repeat as the soundtrack to my peddling. I still get chills when I listen to either of them!
Hope you're well pal, and thank you for reading 🙏
holy smokes… you make me want to get into cycling with how beautiful that sounds. thanks for the share, i started a radio off this song, but these are better!
Really loved this post SJF - as usual; a gracious invitation strung throughout to give ourselves back to our present experience.
Interestingly, what jumped out as me most was the only part I found I couldn’t relate to:
“It allows us to be present like we used to be when phones were just phones.”
I’ve been watching old family videos of when I was a kid - like 1 year old - the TV or radio was always on. A record always spinning. Sure, when the videos are shot outside there was less technology nearby to keep the chatter going, but it wasn’t a deliberate choice. In other words, deliberate silence has never been part of my lived experiences, from the time in entered this world.
So it seems to me, to choose silence is not going back anywhere - it’s going forward somewhere new. That kind of presence-and the nearly heroic and yet impossibly simple effort it takes to find it-is a flavor of presence our predecessors might have never tasted since they never knew the distraction saturation we know now.
I guess I’m also just sharing that I think you, and my fellow readers of this piece, are doing a phenomenal job of blazing this path - even if we occasionally have spells of too many shallow thoughts or too many browser tabs. (Yo tambien amigo, yo tambien).
Much love from Kamakura