The way you set a scene is immediately immersive. There’s this incredibly relatable “normalcy” that pretends like it isn’t teetering right on the edge of a mystical abyss.
Thanks Eric, that is such a great comment, in fact I just name checked you and your comment in another thing...(coming soon)...yes, teetering on a mystical abyss, a political abyss, philosophical abyss, a social abyss is a perfect way to describe these. Thanks pal.
This is amazing! Number one, that people like your new friend exist and two, that you are able to make friends with them! The place you were in, the people (person) you were with, but those around too, sound like a rare and wonderful crowd of deep feelers and thinkers. How lovely! My kind of crowd. Thanks for sharing. XO
Thanks so much for your kind comment Danielle. I’d say that the kind of people in this story do exist, they really do, but this particular post is a fictional story where I’m using the characters and the setting as symbolic of various things I want to write about or say. I realise that you know this, but recently I’ve had various comments about my fiction writing that assumed it was journaling or something similar, so I’m just putting it out there. 🙏🏼
“They had that rare knack of actually paying attention…” Rare indeed. A personality trait on the list of endangered; possible extinction. On a side note, there is nothing worse in a social situation when a partner in conversation does not make eye contact while listening, does not “pay attention”, makes my blood boil. Sometimes enough to walk away in mid sentence, regardless of who I am talking with.
* “…he was willing to stand on the edge and peer into the nothingness. Eager even, to feel the vertigo. And I knew this because I feel it too, that need to honour this fleeting life by trying to muster enough bravery to look, and then, to leap.”
The small cafes, seated around an outside fire to take the chill, a conversation amongst friends around a kitchen table, one man in a classroom holding a “cardboard cutlass”
“…here imaginations were untethered and eccentricity celebrated…”,
And I always thought it was children who were easily distracted. Too many shiny things to reach and grab for. I wanna be a pirate too.
Imagine a world where we humans were the centre, not an extractive unbalanced economy designed to enrich a few at the expence of everybody else, imagine that people paid attention to one another for no more reason than pure curiosity or friendship, imagine we could encourage true individuality where each person was respected for just being, imagine that we chose to do the things in our hearts instead of the things we are forced to do, imagine that we had a community built on trust and dignity and the intrinsic value of each of us based not what we offer but on nothing other than we exist, imagine the next generation casting off all this madness and the privileging community and mutual support over selfishness and exploitation, imagine that!
Imagine " teetering right on the edge of a mystical abyss" and then daring to leap!
I know you'd love that Lor, you are already a pirate, long live your piracy :)
Wonderful writing! I'm sure I'll come back to read it again
For now just this:
“In the sanctity of this indulgent oasis, crammed full of people working to describe the world, or better still, to change it, or to just play for the sake of playing, or to provoke others from their slumber through art, in this permissive oasis, where society itself was perpetually scrutinised, where anything taken for granted was challenged and questioned and mocked, here, where imaginations were untethered and eccentricity celebrated, here in this small sanctuary where the rest of the planet’s slow collapse seemed like a dream, the idea of doing what I need to do was both intoxicating and terrifying.”
What a brilliant, dense, sparkling sentence/paragraph, capturing a whole community, buzzing with people, a certain type of people, "a sanctuary where the rest of the planet's slow collapse seemed like a dream" ... this reminds me of places where I've lived... We need such places! Set into the narrative of your story is like a jewel readers can wear in their heart. Thank you!
I honestly don't think it does. I think all fiction or memoir or historical writing or journalism or whatever is a touch of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, a slice of imagination, a slice of reality and a slice of who knows what. I love slipping along and weaving in what is, and what isn't and what might be in my writing.
I was talking the other day about writing categories and taxonomy and all that, and unsurprisingly you'll guess that I was for burning down those houses. Not that it helps gaining purchase in these category obsessed platforms though. But, hey ho, as you say, does it matter ;)
YES! I love the who knows what, reminds me of one of my favourite Keats ideas, negative capability (I know you know this Fotini), Keats suggested a good mind was “capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason,” and that there is the beauty of the "who knows what", the feeling of potential and possibility and unknownness. Something like adventuring through uncharted territory, that's a writers journey :)
Keats knew. Rilke also knew when he addressed the young poet "I want to beg you, as much as I can, dear sir, to be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now."
"where imaginations were untethered and eccentricity celebrated, here in this small sanctuary where the rest of the planet’s slow collapse seemed like a dream, the idea of doing what I need to do was both intoxicating and terrifying" I love this...
Need or necessity, I am never certain... though this essay reads like a labyrinth of latent wisdom.
"The conversation pulsating around the cafe seemed to lower in pitch as the evening matured. The snow-muffled street muted the city leaving space for the human voice. People leant in closer, their eyes lingered, arms around shoulders, hands ruffling through hair." And here, somehow nostalgic, a half memory of snow and windows steamy with condensation... Perhaps just a dream, either way it's vivid!
True to your good soul you’ve plucked two themes that celebrate the gorgeous potential of we humans, Susie. The human alternative to the machine, the sloppy, warm mess of feelings that we are and should be, if only we’d lean in that direction instead of the other.
In my work, you know well, I see too much of the opposite Jonathan, I have to concentrate on the good elsewhere or I might curl up in a dark corner and never leave… we humans do have the most phenomenally gorgeous potential, I see it and feel it and I love that direction - it’s magnetic and wholly good for the soul even in all its mess!
I’ve been patiently waiting for a quiet moment to sink into this one, and I’m glad I waited because it deserved a double read. As usual, you deliver layers of meaning and revelation from the intimate and personal to the sublimely universal. This sentence made me smile out loud (yes, that can happen!) as it was a perfect summary of what I shared yesterday in our conversation about identity stripping itself away until nothing is left but a vast, fluid ocean. I mean! What a cool brain overlap! “Almost nobody ever faces the truth that most of what they think they are is merely a complex fiction behind which lies only the terrifying vertigo of awareness in a sea of nothing.” If you don’t stop writing such thought-provoking pieces, we’ll have to schedule a part 2 to our conversation.:)
I know! When you said that about identity being a vast, fluid ocean I also smiled out loud (great expression) because of the echos of this. We build a little ship of habitual feelings and sail about on this ocean. It’s very healthy for us (and the world) to take the occasional dip.
The way you set a scene is immediately immersive. There’s this incredibly relatable “normalcy” that pretends like it isn’t teetering right on the edge of a mystical abyss.
Thanks Eric, that is such a great comment, in fact I just name checked you and your comment in another thing...(coming soon)...yes, teetering on a mystical abyss, a political abyss, philosophical abyss, a social abyss is a perfect way to describe these. Thanks pal.
This is amazing! Number one, that people like your new friend exist and two, that you are able to make friends with them! The place you were in, the people (person) you were with, but those around too, sound like a rare and wonderful crowd of deep feelers and thinkers. How lovely! My kind of crowd. Thanks for sharing. XO
Thanks so much for your kind comment Danielle. I’d say that the kind of people in this story do exist, they really do, but this particular post is a fictional story where I’m using the characters and the setting as symbolic of various things I want to write about or say. I realise that you know this, but recently I’ve had various comments about my fiction writing that assumed it was journaling or something similar, so I’m just putting it out there. 🙏🏼
“They had that rare knack of actually paying attention…” Rare indeed. A personality trait on the list of endangered; possible extinction. On a side note, there is nothing worse in a social situation when a partner in conversation does not make eye contact while listening, does not “pay attention”, makes my blood boil. Sometimes enough to walk away in mid sentence, regardless of who I am talking with.
* “…he was willing to stand on the edge and peer into the nothingness. Eager even, to feel the vertigo. And I knew this because I feel it too, that need to honour this fleeting life by trying to muster enough bravery to look, and then, to leap.”
The small cafes, seated around an outside fire to take the chill, a conversation amongst friends around a kitchen table, one man in a classroom holding a “cardboard cutlass”
“…here imaginations were untethered and eccentricity celebrated…”,
And I always thought it was children who were easily distracted. Too many shiny things to reach and grab for. I wanna be a pirate too.
An excellent cautionary tale to start 2025.
I know, right!
Imagine a world where we humans were the centre, not an extractive unbalanced economy designed to enrich a few at the expence of everybody else, imagine that people paid attention to one another for no more reason than pure curiosity or friendship, imagine we could encourage true individuality where each person was respected for just being, imagine that we chose to do the things in our hearts instead of the things we are forced to do, imagine that we had a community built on trust and dignity and the intrinsic value of each of us based not what we offer but on nothing other than we exist, imagine the next generation casting off all this madness and the privileging community and mutual support over selfishness and exploitation, imagine that!
Imagine " teetering right on the edge of a mystical abyss" and then daring to leap!
I know you'd love that Lor, you are already a pirate, long live your piracy :)
Mmmm, you might well be right Lor...let me ponder for a while :)
Oh! Chapter 2 please! I’d love to live in this story a little longer. So much gold.
Funny you should say that, Julia, I liked what I’m getting at here but I felt I wanted more too… maybe, maybe…
Love it -- and what a line -- " “From now on I’m just going to do what I need to do.”
Thanks Jan, I really like that you've felt that line as much as I do :) And I'm glad this landed with you!
Wonderful writing! I'm sure I'll come back to read it again
For now just this:
“In the sanctity of this indulgent oasis, crammed full of people working to describe the world, or better still, to change it, or to just play for the sake of playing, or to provoke others from their slumber through art, in this permissive oasis, where society itself was perpetually scrutinised, where anything taken for granted was challenged and questioned and mocked, here, where imaginations were untethered and eccentricity celebrated, here in this small sanctuary where the rest of the planet’s slow collapse seemed like a dream, the idea of doing what I need to do was both intoxicating and terrifying.”
What a brilliant, dense, sparkling sentence/paragraph, capturing a whole community, buzzing with people, a certain type of people, "a sanctuary where the rest of the planet's slow collapse seemed like a dream" ... this reminds me of places where I've lived... We need such places! Set into the narrative of your story is like a jewel readers can wear in their heart. Thank you!
I too loved that sentence disguised as a paragraph! Don't forget there is a part 2 to this one...just saying ;)
I won't! it's on my reading list xx
You have great friends, Jonathan :)
That's true, but is this fiction or faction? Mmmmm, tricky waters. Good timing though if you read today because part 2 comes out tomorrow :)
Does it matter? If you have no such friend, an actual living one, then surely you have an imaginary one inside you. Or it may be you in disguise…
I honestly don't think it does. I think all fiction or memoir or historical writing or journalism or whatever is a touch of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, a slice of imagination, a slice of reality and a slice of who knows what. I love slipping along and weaving in what is, and what isn't and what might be in my writing.
I was talking the other day about writing categories and taxonomy and all that, and unsurprisingly you'll guess that I was for burning down those houses. Not that it helps gaining purchase in these category obsessed platforms though. But, hey ho, as you say, does it matter ;)
That slice of “who knows what” is what keeps as going or so I feel. Not really knowing we write, we love, we live. Isn’t that a blessing?
YES! I love the who knows what, reminds me of one of my favourite Keats ideas, negative capability (I know you know this Fotini), Keats suggested a good mind was “capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason,” and that there is the beauty of the "who knows what", the feeling of potential and possibility and unknownness. Something like adventuring through uncharted territory, that's a writers journey :)
Keats knew. Rilke also knew when he addressed the young poet "I want to beg you, as much as I can, dear sir, to be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now."
"where imaginations were untethered and eccentricity celebrated, here in this small sanctuary where the rest of the planet’s slow collapse seemed like a dream, the idea of doing what I need to do was both intoxicating and terrifying" I love this...
Need or necessity, I am never certain... though this essay reads like a labyrinth of latent wisdom.
"The conversation pulsating around the cafe seemed to lower in pitch as the evening matured. The snow-muffled street muted the city leaving space for the human voice. People leant in closer, their eyes lingered, arms around shoulders, hands ruffling through hair." And here, somehow nostalgic, a half memory of snow and windows steamy with condensation... Perhaps just a dream, either way it's vivid!
🤍
True to your good soul you’ve plucked two themes that celebrate the gorgeous potential of we humans, Susie. The human alternative to the machine, the sloppy, warm mess of feelings that we are and should be, if only we’d lean in that direction instead of the other.
Thanks so much :)
In my work, you know well, I see too much of the opposite Jonathan, I have to concentrate on the good elsewhere or I might curl up in a dark corner and never leave… we humans do have the most phenomenally gorgeous potential, I see it and feel it and I love that direction - it’s magnetic and wholly good for the soul even in all its mess!
I’ve been patiently waiting for a quiet moment to sink into this one, and I’m glad I waited because it deserved a double read. As usual, you deliver layers of meaning and revelation from the intimate and personal to the sublimely universal. This sentence made me smile out loud (yes, that can happen!) as it was a perfect summary of what I shared yesterday in our conversation about identity stripping itself away until nothing is left but a vast, fluid ocean. I mean! What a cool brain overlap! “Almost nobody ever faces the truth that most of what they think they are is merely a complex fiction behind which lies only the terrifying vertigo of awareness in a sea of nothing.” If you don’t stop writing such thought-provoking pieces, we’ll have to schedule a part 2 to our conversation.:)
I know! When you said that about identity being a vast, fluid ocean I also smiled out loud (great expression) because of the echos of this. We build a little ship of habitual feelings and sail about on this ocean. It’s very healthy for us (and the world) to take the occasional dip.
Thanks so much Kimberly 🙏🏼
So much gold in this one Jonathon!
Thanks Leon, there is plenty going on under the surface here. Glad you’re liking it :)
“Social bandits!” Wonderful! This whole piece and its many layers is such a provocative start. Jumping over posthaste to take in part 2.
May we untether imaginations and celebrate eccentricity!
I always enjoy your work, Jonathan, but this one in particular has such an invigorating energy about it. It smiles. 🙂
That's a wonderful thing to hear Alia, thank you so much :)
And, you'll be glad to hear then that part 2 of this tale is coming out on Friday!