You can get a full explanation what it all means in Paul Kingsnorth's recent substack post. In short, the image describes the kinds of ideas that appear in the world at large. Most of them, unfortunately, are nothing more than underdeveloped roots of an idea. Stuff that should probably remain underground.
That basically describes 99% of the stuff you read on the internet. And probably about 99% of the stuff that I write, too.
I challenge you all, myself included, to let the roots grow for a while. To allow time and reflection for the shoots of better ideas and experiences to grow from them. And not to settle for a reality in which becoming a social media influencer is considered similar to the flowering of brilliance of someone like Rainer Maria Rilke.
Maybe some of these offerings I'd like to share with you this week will help your personal flowering of wisdom:
1. Here's a wonderful reminder of why teachers, more than anyone, need to read fiction. It has to do with the fact that stories help us embody someone else's experience. To be someone else, for a time.
2. Have you heard the old writer's axiom: kill your darlings? Here's a better one: relocate your darlings.
3. Any of you parents of small children? Here are a few ways to cultivate a healthy relationship with technology. For them, and for you.
4. Perhaps it's a bit bold of me to share this essay now, but here's a good reminder of why hobbits actually don't like to travel, and why it's a lesson to all of us.
5. Oh, have you heard? They found the earth's heartbeat! (I'm off to write that thriller sci-fi story about a sentient earth killing off all its inhabitants. Oh wait. Someone already did that. )
6. The scary case of the biologist who predicted historical cataclysm. They asked him about the next ten years. Guess what? It's wasn't pretty.
7. How about a book recommendation? Planet of Exile by Ursula Le Guin is not the best known of her Hainish Cycle, but it's a wonderful little morsel of world building and complex ethics and interpersonal relationships. You can get it in this collection of some of her early novels.
Finally, I hope you all find the time and inspiration to allow for those leaves of knowledge and beauty to grow in their own time.
Let me know how it goes :)
~Nicky
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