Author: Andrew Hazlett

Writer embedded among insurgent do-gooders in Baltimore.

Weekly Twitterings for 2012-10-08

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Weekly Twitterings for 2012-10-01

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Weekly Twitterings for 2012-09-24

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Weekly Twitterings for 2012-09-17

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Writing, work and darkness

CamusThere’s something I’ve found in dark, unsentimental writers (like Naipaul, Camus, or Orwell) that has been a great help and comfort.

To see the world as it is… as it really is, especially in the 20th century those guys wrote about, can produce fear, trembling, nausea, and dry mouth. Such darkness can make even the sunlit days seem like a cruel trick.

But there’s an countervailing force, especially in Camus and Orwell. It may be that work, just doing the physical task before us, is one way to counter this darkness within and without. If there’s a blasted chaos around us, maybe the best thing to do is to take one tiny action right now to build or repair what is before.

What can one do? What can one person do?

Take responsibility for one thing at a time, one moment at a time, on this day.

To craft something, make something tangible. Do something, anything. Make a commitment to something. Build or work on something, even if its made of nothing more than pixels, and know there’s an answer to emptiness.

Spring and summer are seasons as real as bleak winter and melancholy autumn. Life is as real as death. Beauty lives alongside decay.

To take action is to promulgate evidence of this truth.

Weekly Twitterings for 2012-09-10

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Past and present troubles

The other day Tara Hunt wrote on her FB wall:

The more I read history, the more I realize that nothing new is new. We aren’t going to hell in a handbasket. Or rather, we’ve already been there and back time and time again.

I think that’s a really important insight about studying the past. We too often lose perspective on our own time in the context of history. We are smug about our apparent superiority or absurdly downcast about our present troubles.

Learning about history teaches humility, fear, and optimism. I think we have a lot more reason for realistic hope about the future than, say, Europeans in 1914 or 1939. When you look at the mass murder and totalitarianism that dominated the 20th century, we are very lucky indeed to live at a time when hierarchies are breaking down and new possibilities are opening up. Lots can and will go horribly wrong, but I think there’s a rapid revolution underway in our cultures, economies, and inner lives. I’m excited to see how the battle between networked individuals and centralized power works out.

Weekly Twitterings for 2012-09-03

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Weekly Twitterings for 2012-08-27

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