New Moon: Mindful Media
A few antidotes to the existential overwhelm of current affairs
If you are a happy reader, then I am a happy writer. Let me know how my work has moved you.
Today I wanted to share a few articles that I have appreciated reading over the last few weeks.
By now, you should all know how I feel about Berkana: Swarnali Mukherjee offers incisive, deft storytelling at its best, offering a broad sweep of cultural history to bring light to its shadowy spectres. Her essays are the opposite of ‘inspiresting’ — she hits us where it hurts to shake us out of our benumbed stupor. And yet her analysis of human atrocities, past and present, in the article below belies the cynicism of many political writers: Mukherjee shows that the antidote to cruelty is the compassion of a heart on fire.
One way to counter the philosophy of war is to develop a pragmatic philosophy of peace and not just diplomatic deliberations. As we advance into our futures, we need to meditate on the next stage of evolution and what it demands out of us. Wars being obsolete should be the prime parameter of progress.
Alex Olshonsky’s deep dive on violence and digital addiction creates a context for viewing the violence of our own patterns of consumption in relation to world affairs. The watchword here is awareness: to what extent do we embody and become complicit with the media we consume? Here he offers a carefully mediated perspective that enshrines, above all, the will to freedom.
We have become connoisseurs of digital narcotics, snorting lines of pixelated cocaine throughout the day, coming down on an injectable Netflix series at night… I suspect that, in a few decades from now, we will view digital consumption as even worse than smoking cigarettes.
In a similar vein, Josh Pillay offers the below contemplation on where truth is situated in a mediatised world. He invites us to consider subtlety, nuance and shades of meaning in current affairs rather than hastily forming opinions to gain social leverage. The whole piece is rampantly quotable, but this was my favourite bit:
It is ok to simply acknowledge a reality that is sterile and shattered, because its broken pieces will continue to sparkle under the sunbeams of an indifferent sun. Let time and not your Instagram feed becalm the stirred waters of a troubled conscience and remedy the festering pain of unhealed wounds.
The final essay from Ivan, a Russian expatriate, is a must-read. As the world of his history and identity undergoes a dramatic effacement, Ivan explores the grief and shame of watching the war unfold from afar. The whole notion of patriotism, as he puts it, is consumed by the ‘mental civil war’ that poisons Russia from the inside.
The end is somewhere far, it seems, blurry and invisible, regardless of how much we all wish and plead for it. As one smart Russian woman recently said, we're in that moment of a story when kids usually ask you to stop reading.
I leave you with a gem from Nikolai Gogol, the great Ukrainian-Russian storyteller.
And you, Russia of mine—are not you also speeding like a troika which nought can overtake? Is not the road smoking beneath your wheels, and the bridges thundering as you cross them, and everything being left in the rear, and the spectators, struck with the portent, halting to wonder whether you be not a thunderbolt launched from heaven? What does that awe-inspiring progress of yours foretell? What is the unknown force which lies within your mysterious steeds? Surely the winds themselves must abide in their manes, and every vein in their bodies be an ear stretched to catch the celestial message which bids them, with iron-girded breasts, and hooves which barely touch the earth as they gallop, fly forward on a mission of God? Whither, then, are you speeding, O Russia of mine? Whither? Answer me! But no answer comes—only the weird sound of your collar-bells.
— Dead Souls
Thank you dear Nicola for being an integral part of Berkana's journey. How would I have come so far without your kind encouragement and honest feedback! I have so much to learn from you. 🌼❤️
Very well said, and thank you for sharing, you truly added to the conversation and your comments sparked several insights for me