Newsletter Number Seven

As the lockdown eases a bit but the year rushes towards it Christmasy climax, I implore you all to take some time assert your humanity, before poking a few questions about the nature of reality

Hi all,

Links to this week’s articles:

-          Don’t Be Robot Go In Nature

In which I remind you that living your life solely by expert advice and careful calculation is no way to live at all

-          Return to the Sprawl

The final leg of my bike trip, where I make it back to Hanoi through some heavy traffic, and ponder the improbabilities of our daily survival on earth.

A slightly shorter newsletter this week, as I’ve taken the opportunity of the relaxation of travel restrictions to move around a bit, meet some people, and generally ease back into some kind of normal routine of humanity as we get closer to Christmas.

It might seem like a strange observation, but to me it feels like the brightest December I can remember. It is normally a month that conjures in the mind dark city streets, lights of the street and Christmas variety, rainy wet days and bleak clouds, days where there’s barely a chance for it to get bright at all. It’s a dark month, one that works towards a bright shining 10-day beacon of soft contentment and exuberant celebration, through a dark, wet but celebratory three weeks of work parties, shopping trips and growing lists of excuses for indulgence.

This year, there’s no real beacon to look forward to. Of course Christmas will still be celebrated, but in a year where everything’s already been so strange and unprecedented, yet has simultaneously been one of a slow decline into mundanity and inevitability.

Lock goes down, lock goes up, news goes on, repeat.

And so Christmas in the mind of future of projection looks now like it’ll be much the same as other weeks. Less events to mark the passing of days. That week that sits between Christmas and New Year, the most liminal of all times of the year, where sky is always grey and the days are all bank holidays and you can only guess what day of the week is by the football fixtures and Thursdays feel like Sundays and so on – it feels like we’ve already had enough of them this year. I’m sure it probably won’t be the case when we actually get there, though the usual excitement of the build-up to Christmas feels non-existent this year.

Which isn’t to say there isn’t something in the air, all the same. There does feel like there is a strange excitement or energy building around us. It is similar in nature to the usual Christmas build-up, which is always a communal and shared cultural energy. No-one quite knows what we’re building towards this year, but it’s there. It’s invisible and intangible, and it seems like the wind has gone out of the Christmas sails, but energy cannot be destroyed, only changed in form, and so, if you’re able to sit still and pay attention to it, you might be able to see the passing of time and the feeling of Christmas and New Year – stripped bare of the usual festive accompaniments which we never otherwise go a year without, unless we spend it abroad and away from family and friends – and see the effects that these moments in time have on the world around us, always assuming it to just be the effect of our own celebrations and festive observations.

Or, maybe not.

Maybe it’s just the effects of the football, and the latest oddity and excitement of a Mayo match, something those of us from this part of the world have been well used to for years now. It seems like over the last few decades it’s given us some sort of preparation for the uncertainty and chaos of this year. You could say we thrive on it. The team are clearly feeding off some of the uncertain energy that’s been hanging in the air and dragging the season out til Christmas; Eoghan McLaughlin looks like he’s still cycling the bike he used to ride for Ireland.

For now, it seems impossible to look past Christmas and into whatever our plans might be in January and the New Year. The psychological build towards the end of December carries on as usual, though stripped of the usual pubs and big meet and greets with your community and even extended family. Perhaps stripped even of the usual outward celebration and spending and exchanging of gifts and so on. A more reflective Christmas for many, for sure.

There’s still an awful lot of psychological energy left though. It can’t be destroyed – it has to go somewhere. The question is: where’s it all going to go?

Stay safe and Up Mayo as always,

Gav