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Beethoven’s Fifth
I notice it at night.
The arrival of an invisible insect and its strangely consistent buzzing. A barely perceptible string of Es smoothed out and perpetual. A monotone whisper; a breeze most unwelcome in the smallest of tunnels. Annoyance proportional to the volume of silence. The sounds from everything else – vehicles on the road outside, voices or footsteps of neighbors, clamors of wildlife, rustling of wind, or the ticking and whirring of appliances – must have ceased. All it takes is a moment of complete stillness for it to creep in. When all other vibrations retreat, this imaginary one takes their place.
Why does it choose to disturb me at this time? When I am most yearning for peace. Of course, the truth is it is always there. The coarse hum of Tinnitus, a confounding affliction that many manage. One that I have dealt with for a couple of years. Not due to hearing loss, luckily, but devoid of explanation.
A ripple that will never ebb. The tedious taunt of an uneasy mind.
I used to chase the hush of night, but now I shun it out of necessity. Some white noise is better than none. A miniscule opening in the window can do the trick; this car city’s abhorrent nighttime echoes provide enough shielding. Or a fan turned to its first setting, a lighter repose.
But often, I choose music.
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Montage
A compilation of some moments from our trip to Chile in September, set to “Montage” by Andy Hull and Robert McDowell. There were many videos I could not include; consider this the most fleeting of glimpses.
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Chilean Vistas
Ethereal tones filling the sky just prior to sunrise at Ahu Tongariki.Maybe it was the expansive landscapes. Or the yearning to capture more in every frame. Or perhaps it was just a time-saving exercise.
But instead of trying to stand still and slowly rotating with my phone’s panorama function turned on, I decided to take a lot of overlapping shots of the scenery and stitch them together using software after returning home. Faster in the present, more work for the future, and with plenty of mixed results. There were some advantages, like greater detail or more natural, linear outputs. There were also some cons. A narrower field of view being the biggest one unless numerous clicks were obtained from different angles preserving the same brightness. A difficult task when the sun was lower in the sky.
The panorama function was not always an option, either. The winds of Patagonia above certain summits were strong enough to ruin every single video or continuous shot attempted.
I recall a more practiced, careful approach back when I used to have a DSLR camera. For this journey however, a quick sequence of images close enough together had to suffice. This was not a photography-focused adventure where we paused too often to line up the perfect composition.
Anyway – here are some panoramas taken from different corners of a country with an abundance of geographical diversity.
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Enclosure
The evergreen grass of Rapa Nui, sterile sands of the Atacama, element-battered mud of Patagonia, and coarse gravel of Arica and Parinacota. Particulate matter, dried and encrusted on shoe soles, collected and carried four hundredths of a light-second – a quarter planet – away. Memory fresh and developing.
Granules slowly becoming indistinguishable from the rest, destined to disappear with time.
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The Chilean jaunt, undertaken this past month, was a bittersweet affair. The country has plenty of character, charm, and beauty. Its capital was bustling, more so than usual as the nation approached and celebrated its anniversary of independence. Folk dancers paraded the streets, unions led multiple protests, and students on field trips could be found at every cultural site. All under the watchful eyes of the pervasive police, lining major intersections in their conspicuous green and white sedans. The remote island of Rapa Nui gifted us two days of perfect weather sandwiched between heavy rains and fog. Plenty of time to gaze upon the myth-inducing Moai and stroll upon its rocky shores as the Pacific crashed relentlessly into jagged outcrops. Of course, the Atacama Desert lived up to the hype. Sand dunes, salt flats, and scintillating starlight to enliven the soul. Patagonia’s jewel – the Torres Del Paine park – was another highlight. The wind constantly threatened to lift us off our feet as condors and caracaras glided the currents. Snow-capped peaks, glacial lakes, novel flora – all in abundance. Finally, Arica and Parinacota offered a repose; slower days seaside watching the waves or driving around Lauca, looking up at volcanos or down at lagoons as alpacas, vicunas, guanacos, and llamas dotted the landscape.
Why bittersweet? The experience was somewhat spoiled by an illness I caught a few days into the trip, which only worsened throughout. I did not fully recover until a few days ago. It meant a slower pace, lack of appetite, and diminished opportunity to fully engage with my companions. But it did afford me some time alone to contemplate things.
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The First Eight Months
As noted in prior updates and recent newsletters, I will be stepping away for the next month and a half as I prepare for and depart on a trek through Chilean frontiers. Until then, I have assembled here some highlights from 2024 to date.
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Cult Classics
Let us talk about cults, their active ingredients, and their xenomorphic allure.
We are social creatures with personalities deeply intertwined with our environments. How we juggle external touchpoints (our relations) and internal systems (our protective psychologies and reactive defense mechanisms) are crucial in determining what we tend to believe or what we reject. Our awareness of what affects us, to what degree, and how, is a humbling force. An indicator of our grasp on reality.
Our susceptibility to cults, conspiracies, mythologies, logical fallacies, propaganda, or misinformation all derive from the same corner of human cognition. The same place we foster diehard dedication to political figures, sports fandoms, pop cultural obsessions – beliefs in everything from alternative medicine and the cornucopia of supernatural phenomena to more mundane things like which habits to integrate into our lifestyle. Anything that requires a suspension of our critical faculties or dismissal of nature – and of each other – without being accompanied by its own scrutable schematic, is telling of a tall tale.
Cults and the accounts they provide are part of a larger narrative of our collective socialization. Human experience is guided by our failure or success to connect with others; humanity’s is a story of seeking connection. And there are many rabbit holes that humans can easily fit into.
This post is an exploration of instructional parables that illustrate how easily our need for bonding can be rewired to suit specific aims. Primarily, and as is often the case in our world, to build egos and movements seeking power or profit by tapping into a resource that is never in short supply: our yearning to believe. A formidable evolutionary development. And while it can take many a nefarious form, it is also necessary in constructing the monuments of which we are so collectively proud. It takes quite a leap to go from hunter-gatherer societies to establishing global information networks and putting rovers on planets afar in the geological blink of an eye.
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Weekly Picks – August 18, 2024
Credit (left to right): Umar Nadeem for The Atlantic; Jose Camões Silva / Wikimedia; IDF/ GPO/ Sipa/ Rex/ Shutterstock; Eric Thayer/ ReutersAs mentioned last week, this is the final ‘Weekly Picks’ post to this blog. I am soon departing for some travels and new updates will be shared in October when I return to Canada.
While this 33-week exercise highlighting 265 pieces across 104 sites (plus some archival material) has been fun, it must come to an end as I refocus my efforts. Expect long form content to continue to appear in this space, though from a personal lens.
This week’s collection:
- The melting brain
- Fatal Chase: Cops and the Illusion of Control
- As a former IDF soldier and historian of genocide, I was deeply disturbed by my recent visit to Israel
- A Trip to One of the Hottest Cities on the Planet
- What if we learned contemplation like we do arts or sports?
Introductory excerpts quoted below. For full text (and context) or video, please view the original piece.
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Weekly Picks – August 11, 2024
Credit (left to right): Piotr Kowalczyk; Makrem Larnaout; Moises Saman/ Magnum, for The New York Times; Mark Harris for Vox/ Getty Images; Stephen Lam/ ReutersDear reader, next week’s collection of articles will be the final ‘Weekly Picks’ post.
As newsletter subscribers were informed recently, In Difference will be on a brief hiatus from August 19 to the end of September, while I am travelling without regular access to the internet.
I have decided to use this interlude as an opportunity to refresh some of my initial aims in creating this reflective space.
Wishing you a pleasant week ‘neath the Perseids ahead.
This week’s collection:
- The Parable of the Vulture
- A Worldmaking Plant
- The Future Before Us
- Medicine is plagued by untrustworthy clinical trials. How many studies are faked or flawed?
- The Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples
- How the most powerful environmental groups help greenwash Big Meat’s climate impact
- Building a Public Energy Commons
- The War the World Forgot
- Who Do They Think They Are?
- Milky Way Over Tunisia
Introductory excerpts quoted below. For full text (and context) or video, please view the original piece.
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Facing WordPress Demons
A blog-building experience from someone eternally confused by web design.
Creating this site was not easy, and neither is maintaining it. Of course, it was never the behind-the-scenes stuff that I was keen on, but the random pontifications on the meaning of life, the universe and everything.
Regardless of my initial plans, setting up and sustaining the infrastructure has taken up a considerable amount of time and energy. Let me take you through that process, interspersing it with some tips for those contemplating a similar route. Some may read this and laugh, thinking that these are very easy challenges to understand and answer. I would caution – not for many of us unacquainted with the syntax of the web, facing a global database that is progressively more nebulous. With only ourselves as interpreters to rely on.
Note: Though I share some plugins I found helpful below, do not construe this as endorsement. What works for one person may not work for another. Each site construction will be its own puzzle.
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Saturday, the first day of a week off from work, and the first day of the winter holiday break. I have already reverted to my natural, nocturnal state, still awake at 4am and wondering what to do next. The rest period has barely begun and I am convinced I need to pick up an activity to occupy myself lest boredom arrives.
After all, I do not celebrate any holidays. It is freezing outside and I will not be venturing too far. The fridge is stocked and the apartment is comfortable – I have everything I need right here. Local acquaintances have travelled to be with family; they will not come calling. This is a welcome sabbatical from regular existence.
So I decide, on a whim, to cross an item off the long-growing to-do list.
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Me Gustas Tú
I am currently cramming as much Spanish as I can in rushed preparation for a trip to the hinterlands of Chile. The lessons undertaken today gave an overview of the various conjugative couplings of ‘me gusta’ and ‘me encanta’.
All I could think about was this classic by Manu Chao (who’s wiki page, by the way, makes for some interesting reading). And I have a feeling it will be circling around in my head throughout the coming week. Es demasiado bueno.
A nostalgia trip for those of us who were playing FIFA video games in the early to late 2000s. This one was featured on numerous discs. How could it not be.
The countdown continues…
