Oka Jemima give us your thoughtful Sunday musings!
A new season, if you follow the meteorological calendar, is upon us. Even if you prefer the astronomical system (as I do) and view the equinox, in just over three weeks’ time, as the proper start to autumn, there is nevertheless a definite end-of-summer energy in the air; a palpable sense that after the long, languid, juicy days of August, things are suddenly about to get exhaustingly, painfully real again.
Of course, she turns to the French... having, no doubt, been vacationing there recently... #1521581
The French have long packaged up the resumption of regularly scheduled programming as la rentrée, or “the return” — to school, in particular, but also to the cities, to the office, to productivity. This heavily commercialised annual reset provides an important microeconomic boost to retailers of cahiers and cartables all over the country, as well as an (equally important) emotional one to those grieving the fact they have just blown the majority of their annual leave allowance in a single month.
...or maybe I got that one wrong?
As a child of economising parents growing up on the outskirts of Paris, I found the annual prospect of setting off to the hypermarché to buy a load of shiny new things quite thrilling. As an adult, I am struck by the consumerism and excess of the whole thing.
"Giving a name to this sudden lurch back into reality allows it to be understood as a collective experience, helping take some of the sting out of it."
I also like the way the rentrée creates a sense of new beginnings, bringing with it new chances to finally do that thing you want to do. I get a burst of energy and enthusiasm at this time of year, and must confess to even rather enjoying getting back to business, to routines and more focused work.
There's some scholarly evidence that Sept-Nov are the most productive months; most work getting done etc.
"beyond mere productivity, there is much loveliness in what is to come."
I love the abundance of root vegetables and the opportunity to make delicious warming soups; I even love the longer nights and the excuse they give me to spend my evenings curled up on the sofa with no pressure to be out gallivanting somewhere.
ALSO, that. The return of night and northern lights and snow have some appeal for us northerlies, too.
The more AI encroaches on our lives, the more I feel myself wanting to return to doing more effortful things. I saw a couple struggling with a huge map in a car recently and it made me smile. I am about to invest in a CD-cassette-record player HiFi stack. I intend to follow through very soon on my commitment to get a dumbphone, at least for the weekends (iPhone addiction is proving sticky). Some people might call it “friction-maxxing”. I think of it as remembering how to live, not just for the summer.
Beautiful. BEAUTIFULLY PUT.
Lovely. What have you done to live well recently, anon?
archive: https://archive.md/vfLQz
I bought a pack of knockoff jaffa cakes for 2500 sats last week.
Incredible
I still have half of it. Saving it for a rainy day... i.e. tomorrow, lol
Got into some shit at work recently. Reminded myself that my current job allows me to take care of my son easily, so I should let everything else slide. This chance to get reacquainted with my core objectives helped me feel grounded, I reckon
Precisely.
Sometimes slowing down and getting back is exactly what we need.
Maybe twenty years ago, I was a great sucker for the "friction-maxxing" movement: Wendell Berry, The Quotidian Mysteries, Marilynne Robinson and Housekeeping, Nicholson Baker and Box of Matches -- I was well on my way to becoming an adventure-less Alexander Supertramp, dwelling in thrift stores and vegetable gardens.
While these things are all well and good, making and breaking bread and living in community, and slow-walking between booths at farmers markets do provide the warm fuzzies, the flip side is that life really is slow. The people I know from that part of my life are still pretty much where they were, doing the same things.
And now, perhaps because I've been reading too many cyberpunk books where the heroes deeply embrace the integration of the virtual in their lives, I have to say that I find the slow life uninteresting.
Especially as I think a little more about how it will feel to be old and looking back, I doubt that the thing I will wish I had done more was admiring the sunrise.
I hadn't come across this before, nor had I even wondered about it.
If we're talking about outdoor physical jobs, this is when the weather is usually most cooperative and if we're talking about bs e-mail jobs, this is when everyone is done taking vacations and can finally reply to their damn e-mail.
yes, I think it was the latter... bad proxy, though, since it was just a Redbooth/project-management platform numbers.
One of the seasons has to be the most productive and I'd say fall makes the most sense to me. There's also the arbitrary crunch of trying to finish projects before the end of the year.