Springing Back Into Being
My new inspiration series nearly ended before it began.
I’m going to try to do a weekly round-up of what’s been inspiring me in the last seven days or so.
Me, when I told myself something overly ambitious that I would do and couldn’t live up to.
So what was to begin as a weekly round-up of what’s inspiring me lately will now become an irregular collection of artifacts and thoughts. This round-up covers what I’ve been enjoying and thinking about for the last checks calendar 3 and a half weeks.
I’m going to give myself a little leeway because I haven’t been faffing about these last few weeks. The weekly classes for my Masters program ended, and I had two group projects in the same week that we had to finish and present. I’ve also been overhauling my entire website1, indulging in artsy (read: new play stuff) activities, and being more social overall.
But while I’ve been out in the world, I’ve also been taking in various zeitgeisty things that I think are intriguing and worthy of sharing. Most of this post is organized around coalescing themes because I noticed some overlap, but it also highlights some books and music I want to share.
The matriarchy
As we continue to reckon with the fallout from the messy release of the Epstein files among the total oppressive awareness of escalating global conflict, references to the matriarchy have continued to crop up.
I first noted it in CHANI’s Astrology of the Week Ahead podcast (naturally). She did not mince her words as she called out that people often imagine putting ‘women in charge’ automatically means that ‘men’ will be oppressed. This is the same mistake people make when they assume or try to promote that ‘feminism’ should only benefit cis-women. Imagining (and implementing) a matriarchy and promoting feminism are opportunities to shift our paradigm to find a new way of living that’s not just the opposite to our currently lifestyles. Unless you consider the ‘opposite’ of being ego-driven and oppressive as being enveloping and supportive of all people.
The latest messages I’ve been hearing about the failures of the patriarchy came up in this excellent episode of NPR’s It’s Been a Minute with Brittany Luse about beauty ideals:
With Jessica DeFino of FLESH WORLD, she covered the beauty industry’s well-documented obsession with youth, and they connected it to the recent revelatory conversations about the America’s Next Top Model documentary.
I’ve listened to podcasts2 conduct retrospectives on the negative impacts ANTM, but while listening to IBAM, I appreciated how Luse and DeFino pointed out how when we connect the impact and damage of ANTM to the oppressive empire of beauty standards, it becomes starkly clear how the show perpetuated patriarchal oppression in an ersatz matriarchy and how much damage that wrought.
Our current moment in the arc of Western feminism was deftly illustrated in Rebecca Solnit’s sweeping op-ed in The Guardian. There were several parts of her perspective I found comfort in, but this is the phrase that stood out to me:
any attempt to render women less equal and less free is a reminder that, in fact, we are more equal and more free than we were
As the possibility of matriarchy continues to pop up in conversations about society and pop culture, I’ve been noticing where it’s present in my own life.
I recently joined the facilitator team for Stage to Page in Glasgow, which is primarily made up of Scottish women who are deeply familiar with the local theatre scene. There are also men on the facilitator team and there are certainly male artists who write, direct, and act in the event, but because most of the core group approaches their interactions from a place of ‘a rising tide lifts all boats’, it feels like I’m participating in a matriarchy in real time.
Our goal is to promote the development of new plays. Full stop. Because the plays/writers are selected anonymously by the guest host, it becomes more valuable to develop good vibes for the event and work with whoever is in the room, without introducing gatekeeping or a strict atmosphere. The result is that feminism and matriarchal culture is promoted by who sets the tone and framing for the event, not necessarily the people who are most visible.
I’ll likely write more about S2P as I continue to work with them so that I can further develop these observations and ideas.
Two things can be true at once
I was very touched by this personal essay by Lindsay Johnstone about her feelings of loss after the recent devastating fire near Glasgow Central station:
Some will say that it is just a building and that there were no casualties. Some will argue that in the context of other fires raging in other parts of the world — in cities of 10 million people as opposed to half a million for example — we need to maintain perspective. All of this is true, but then two things can be true at once. To paraphrase others, when you live in a city buildings are your tall trees.
I want to elaborate on this theme, but I’m not sure I have much to contribute to the conversation except to direct you to others who have articulated it well. I just feel like I’m constantly struggling and comforted by having to keep dual (or multiple) viewpoints at the forefront to function, while doing so makes it feel more complicated to function.
Extreme metric tracking
Speaking of simultaneously juggling multiple viewpoints, conversations about tracking our health metrics (like sleep and heart rate) have also come up in It’s Been a Minute and Plain English:
Both of these conversations investigated how we may not be living our full lives by scrutinizing everything we do, but I especially liked how Derek Thompson discussed this topic with philosopher C. Thi Nguyen.
From ~June 2020 until ~November 2023, I diligently recorded everything about my days. I documented my activities—walking, working, drinking—and also charted how I ‘felt’ on a 10 point scale. It feels absolutely unnecessary now, but at the time, I used the tracking to observe myself and eventually make changes to improve how I took care of myself and showed up in the world.
Looking back over the database, I can see when I stopped. It was exactly when I became severely depressed because of the job I had at the time. I felt trapped and overwhelmed, and the idea of recording the minutiae was unappealing. In 2024, I also made the conscious choice to switch my diary from Notion to Google Calendar since I had fewer gaps of time for the type of reflection I had become accustomed to in 2020.
In the episode of Plain English, C. Thi Nguyen confirms that after awhile, metric tracking every single thing we do can make us miserable and ultimately defeat the purpose. I don’t think tracking is what made me miserable, and I stand by my 2.5 year obsession because it’s a part of me.
However, I do understand the need to find ways to live in the moment. Since I went through this period of ‘extreme metric tracking’ with Notion3, I find that I no longer need it.
Now I listen to my body, indulge in nights of being social when it suits, and allow myself time to recover. Of course nothing is perfect, but I find now that my balance comes in weekly, monthly, and seasonal periods.
Authenticity and showing up
Being authentic and consistently showing up over the long-term to achieve desired (and maybe unpredictable) results is reflected in the burgeoning popularity of comedian Chris Fleming. Your comedian’s favorite comedian (I’m pretty sure someone has said that) is finally getting their flowers, and it’s delightful and comforting to see someone from my generation achieve success on their own terms.
I haven’t even watched the HBO special, but I have been watching every Instagram video Chris edits, and I absolutely ingested this lifestyle piece in Vulture (paywall). Chris Fleming has been developing his craft over the years and is finally becoming more visible. And yet, he stays authentic:
Caleb Hearon: Why don’t you have a podcast, by the way?
Chris Fleming: Because I think that something awaits for me in the divine for resisting.
Do yourself a favor and listen to any interview that showcases his tenderness, or watch his unhinged comedy.
Some books and music
To wrap this up, I’m going to leave you with some good books I’ve read and new music I’ve listened to.
Jasper Fforde’s Thursday Next series
There are seven books in this series altogether, but I’ve only made it through the first three. Although they’re quite silly and funny, I feel smarter for having read them because of dense erudite references. My dad first told me about them years ago, and I finally picked up a copy of The Eyre Affair and dove in. I can highly recommend these to anyone who loves literary references and a mystery.
Linda Duncan McLaughlin’s debut novel, Original Sins
Linda Duncan McLaughlin is a local playwright, actor, TV writer, and facilitator who has written her first novel. Original Sins is classified as a crime novel, but it’s so much more than that. It has a deep heart that propels the reader to the end. I’m not so familiar with the crime genre, so I found it all very surprising and new. It was a quick read that I made sure to savor because I didn’t want to leave the world, even though it was shocking in parts. All of that is a testament to how comfortable I felt with her writing. I especially appreciated how distinct and believable the characters’ voices and motivations were. If you want to get a taste of Glasgow and Bute, I encourage you to find a copy. (And support a new author!)
Courtney Barnett’s new album, Creature of Habit
‘One Thing At A Time’ is an absolute banger. It’s about overwhelm and needing to just focus on the thing that’s in front of you. The entire album is good, and it feels like a return to the rocking simplicity I first fell in love with many years ago.
Even though this song that I’m trying to tell you to include in your rotation is about letting the rest melt away while we live in the now, that can’t be the message I’m advocating for because it’s no longer possible. Instead, I’ll try suggesting that we find a way to carry our multitudes while we build a better world.
📸 Social preview image of Glasgow Necropolis from 16 March at 06:41 taken by the author.
There’s more to be done to make it make sense, but if you’re curious about what I’ve directed and dramaturged the past few years, you can check it out here.
The hosts of Vibe Check and Text Me Back both went into informed deep dives.
That wasn’t my only period of extreme tracking, but it always takes different forms. In 2011, I loved this app called ‘Moves’ that would tell me how many miles I biked, walked, etc. Then from 2013 to 2014, I obsessively checked my Fitbit. After my years of hyper tracking in Notion, I pivoted to looking at the number of miles I was walking in my Health app, but now that it’s switched over to kilometers, numbers have started to lose all meaning.