Time rolls like a wave
The more things change, the more they... you know the rest. (Plus: Some cultural recommendations)
Interested in how we live on social media now - and how it’s changed since its early days? My debut bestselling non-fiction book Social Capital looks at that, and then some. Order it from your favourite online store - or pick it up in your local bookshop.
Note: The below discusses the Russell Brand allegations and some grief stuff. I’ve put it between two pictures, so skip down to the second pic of the notebooks if you’d rather not read that, and you will find some nice things waiting!
The passage of time has been making me feel odd and uncomfortable of late - how is it that the years are flying past and the days can feel both never-ending and too short? I can’t seem to get a handle on how I am the age I am now, in the year it is now, and that time is just going to keep barrelling on without allowing me to catch it by the scruff of the neck.
This week in particular has felt like the past and present slamming into each other, two people with their heads down colliding spectacularly. Partly that’s for personal reasons, as it marked the anniversary of my dad’s death, which itself marks the beginning of a surreal and horrible few months. Truthfully, I feel like part of me is back there on 18 September 2022, and that the past 12 months are still ahead, waiting to be lived out. Surely I’m not here, in 2023, a whole year later? Surely I’m not a year into the ‘complex grief process’? And yet I am. Wonderful.
I described the past year to a pal as being rolled along by a wave. I’ve just let it carry me along, day to week to month, trusting that I don’t actually have a lot of control over this force of nature. Death is something that’s both life-changing and so normal it happens to us all multiple times over. You just have to keep going.
It’s helped that I’ve also had the book and all the great stuff that comes with that, and the manifold positive work things that have been happening. Curious how life hands you its delights and its dramas all at once…
Time scrunched up
This week has also coincided with news stories that a naive, hopeful part of me can’t believe are real things actually happening in this year too. The Russell Brand allegations made time feel scrunched up, like no years had passed since his heyday in the early 2000s. They made me think of how we fool ourselves into assuming that as time moves on, certain behaviours become less acceptable and certain things have less chance of happening. How often we are hit with our own hubris.
I wrote a column about this for The Journal (thanks to all who’ve read it) and a screengrab of it seemed to strike a chord on Instagram:
It resonated with people because I think it feels depressing but cathartic to acknowledge that as much as we live now - in post-referendums Ireland, where we have bodily autonomy and can marry who we want, where we don’t have a marriage bar, where we have women ministers and choices around education and work - that there’s so many damaging things that haven’t changed, and people who haven’t been made accountable for them.
While patting ourselves on the backs for our progress, we can ignore right in front of us the failures that are occurring. It’s nice to focus on the positive change, but it’s so shiny it can distract.
There’s a circularity to history and to time, things that roll into view and then seem to disappear before rolling back again. The Brand allegations were like a clown jumping out from behind a door: ‘Aha! Thought I was gone? No chance!’; the ugly face of the nadir of human behaviour. (I have to add Brand denies all the allegations. But I’m speaking here about the general theme of ‘man accused of misbehaviour’, which speaks to the wider landscape of the world not feeling like a safe place; these allegations, regardless of the outcome, will remind people of their own personal experiences and the depths to which human behaviour can plummet.)
Now that I’m out of full-time news editing/writing, I don’t spend as much time every day consuming the news. I have to do more deep work, which I enjoy, but I’ve noticed that when I do catch up with the headlines, it can feel like a slap. Maybe I’m just over-sensitised to it, but the volume of difficult, desperate things never abates.
Still, I know too that there are other worlds beyond the news headlines, so I turn to the things that nourish me and make me feel whole: music, books, anything created by a person with heart and authenticity (I’ve detailed some below). I’m currently reading Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, and just the act of reading a well-written, deeply thought-out and smartly conceived book, which is sweet without being saccharine, gives me a sense of relief.
I have a habit of rounding off columns and newsletters with a positive, almost chirpy summing up, a hangover from being a dutiful English student. ‘Well, it’s bad but it could be worse!’.
I can’t do that here because I know given the circular nature of these things that there’ll be more allegations and another celebrity on the front pages in the near future. I can’t even give a pithy comment about a year of grief because I don’t have anything to say about that, either. I’m just being carried along on whatever it is that it’s doing, trying to adjust to its whims. But I’d imagine that plenty of you reading this are on the same journey, for similar or different reasons.
It’s not so much an unusual place to be as a part of being human, and that’s the strangest bit of all.
If you’ve made it through that mildly downbeat state of the nation update (the irony being that while all the tough stuff is going on, normal life is continuing and good, fun and enjoyable things ARE happening and being experienced, I promise), then the least I can do is bring you some uplifting things.
Tech podcast I love: I really, really enjoy Hard Fork, the New York Times podcast presented by Kevin Roose and Casey Newton. If you’re thinking ‘tech podcast? I’d rather spend 24 hours reading tweets by blue ticks’, let me assure you it keeps you up with the major tech news but in a light, humorous way, and crucially they aren’t in thrall to Musk and co. The pair’s teasing dynamic is heartwarming and they ask great questions about the major tech moments of our times. I don’t actually agree with them on some things (eg they have an interview about driverless cars where I was firmly not on their side) but it’s those challenging moments that I learn a lot from.
Lovely album: This album is just gorgeous - instrumentals from Leland Whitty that will help you usher in autumn. He’s a member of BADBADNOTGOOD and is a multi-instrumentalist with an improv background; this feels cinematic and warm, cosy and expansive at the same time.
Opera I love: I’ve long had ‘get into opera’ on my list, but where do you start? I’ve just been dipping in as I come across new examples. One opera that I love listening to is Stabat Mater from Giovanni Battista Pergolesi - I usually listen to this one on Spotify. It’s epic, dark, moving, the vocals are stunning. I found it after listening to this interview with Irish artist Dorothy Cross by John Kelly a few years ago. Cross once put on a performance of Stabat Mater at a Marian Grotto, which is just one of the reasons why she’s amazing.
Please read this Werner Herzog essay immediately: Frame this and put it in the Louvre!!! One of the best things I’ve read in an age. I’ve recently taken to listening to podcast interviews with him as a way of relaxing, as his voice soothes me so much. (I still have a lot of his work to watch so if you have any particular faves beyond the obvious Grizzly Man etc etc, let me know!)
Some other nice personal news - I was selected as one of the 10 writers on the Irish Writer’s Centre’s Evolution Programme 2023-2024. I’ll get to access a suite of supports, meet writing peers and also take part in a teaching internship at NUIG. I’m so grateful for this opportunity and can’t wait to take part.
Also: On 11 November I’m interviewing PJ Gallagher at the Dublin Book Festival. This is always a fab festival and I’m delighted to be chairing another interview for them.
(If you’re a festival organiser and interested in featuring my book Social Capital or having me chair an event, get in touch!)
Finally - articles I’ve written lately:
Interview with Patrick Kielty for the Sunday Times Culture (currently offline but I’ll update this link when it is back online)
Boutique festivals and their impact on Irish towns for the Sunday Times Home
Naomi Klein ‘Doppelganger’ book review for the Irish Independent Review
Interview with author Paul Lynch about his Booker nomination and kidney tumour experience for the Sunday Times Culture
Gorgeous read xx