Steve @stebby@bsd.network

It's not the old internet you miss, it's some of the things that were in the old internet. The same things could be in the internet today. It's not the old internet you're looking for. Take it where you can find it, in old phonograph records, old UNIX environments, and in old friends; look for it in nature and look for it in yourself.

The old internet was only one type of receptacle where we stored a lot of things we were afraid we might forget...The magic is only in what the internet says, how it stitched the patches of the universe together into one garment for us.

The old internet showed pores in the face of life. The comfortable people want only wax moon faces, poreless, hairless, expressionless. We are living in a time when flowers are trying to live on flowers, instead of growing on good rain and black loam.

Even fireworks, for all their prettiness, come from the chemistry of the earth. Yet somehow we think we can grow, feeding on flowers and fireworks, without completing the cycle back to reality.

Do you know the legend of Hercules and Antaeus, the giant wrestler, whose strength was incredible so long as he stood firmly on the earth. But when he was held, rootless, in mid-air, by Hercules, he perished easily. If there isn't something in that legend for us today, in this internet, in our time, then I am
completely insane.

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade.
Rest your head in her lap.
Swear allegiance to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos can predict the motions of your mind, lose it.
Leave it as a sign to mark the false trail, the way you didn’t go.
Be like the fox who makes more tracks than necessary, some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

— Wendell Berry, Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

Coffee outdoors on colourful furniture.

#coffee #photo

Raindrops on young lupins.

I find myself procrastinating about the procrastination I was about to get into.

Pheasant on a phence.

#photo

Today's lunch

Cameron Winter - Love Takes Miles

https://youtu.be/Xee_2r-5L2U

I work more hours these days for a smaller return on those hours, but it’s been less stressful. My previous work, until 2021, was fewer hours at a higher rate, but the hours were an intense grind for me.

I previously had this thought: how few hours can I work to “make a living” so that I have time to do all the things I’d rather be doing?

What I didn’t realize was that even fewer hours can burn me out and sap the energy I need to do the things I want to be doing.

​

Setting my alarm for 6AM. That’s enough to get a song stuck in my head. ​
…
Waking up at 6 a.m. on a cool warm morning
Opening the windows and breathing in petrol
An amateur band rehearsing in a nearby yard
Watching the telly and thinking about your holidays

That’s Entertainment

— The Jam (Paul Weller)

I like dandelions. Why anyone would go out of their way to remove them baffles me.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taraxacum

It’s a weird feeling looking at satellite image maps, like Apple Maps, of places I lived in the early 2000s. The changes are so dramatic in some cases I have a hard time finding places I used to frequent and some are gone completely. It’s most dramatic in the big cities. I spent lots of time in London, Brighton, Madrid, and Cape Town. It’s been a full decade since I’ve visited any of them — the pandemic didn’t help but my travels decreased even before that. It hits me hard sometimes thinking about revisiting but knowing I can never really go back. The places are still there but the time has passed.

https://www.charliechaplin.com/en/synopsis/articles/29-The-Great-Dictator-s-Speech

https://youtu.be/J7GY1Xg6X20

Regrettably Chaplin’s words are as relevant today as they were in 1940.