We make ourselves up as we go along

move slow and mend things

Another Hest Bank sunset- this time featuring Grasmere gingerbread*

I’m starting to get a real sense of things I want to use this tiny slice of internet for.

This space started as something I very much needed- playful creative prompts and other people’s words. I imagine this will still very much be part of it.

But there are other ideas forming round the edges; I am trying not to rush into them without giving them some proper thought. I’d like to attend to them that aligns a little better with how my brain and body actually work. But, ultimately I called this page ‘Your Attention Please’ because I believe our attention is precious and co-opted in a hundred tiny ways each day. I know that there are many people who feel the same way and can feel the sea-change of lots of people raising tiny white flags and opting out of Facebook/X altogether, or trying to find new ways to do things. We can all feel the ‘enshittification’ of most platforms we use even if we have given it much direct thought.

I believe in the power of new things and technological inventions but I do not believe in Silicon Valley and the people at the helm. I believe that for the most part, my head is often filled with more of other people’s thoughts than my own and that ultimately, this isn’t great.

I also believe that we can use online spaces well and that community is not limited to the people in your home town. I know that there are people at the forefront of big questions, such as ‘how do we shape technology to human purpose?’ (here’s an amazing podcast with data scientist Latanya Sweeney) and I want to find more of those voices.

I want to explore some of these things and find ways to ask big questions, hold space for nuance and blend the analogue and digital in a way that feels good. I’d also like to collaborate with folks who might be interested in similar things in different disciplines. As I say, I don’t completely know what this looks like yet (poems? gatherings? music?), but sometimes it feels like you need to throw things out into the ether and see what happens.

I started to obsess on some of these questions after going to see Jeanette Winterson talk about her (then) new book ‘12 Bytes’- a collection of 12 essays on the future of AI and where we are headed. This line always stays with me-

“Humans have been telling stories since time began- on cave walls, in songs, in dance, in language. We make ourselves up as we go along. Who we are is not a law- we are not like gravity. We are an ongoing story.”

I despise the story that we have to ‘move fast and break things’ and that everything we are currently subjected to is inevitable. And that for every dickhead who lives by this philosophy, there are real humans at the heart of the breakages and others trying to move slow and mend things.

I also despise the way so much of this rhetoric is mixed up with climate conversations- there’s always an insidious implication that in order to solve the multiple crises we are facing, we have to push through this awkward period to pave the way for the tech titans to solve all our issues. The same thinking that got us into this mess will absolutely not get us out.

I have been thinking lots of about the future of work and communities and AI. I have been reading lots about the Luddites (I apologise profusely if I have met up with you in the last couple of weeks and banged on about the Luddites!) and how we often think they were anti-progress, but they absolutely weren’t. They were anti-demeaning factory system and anti-megaboss-CEO. I have been thinking how much harder it is to rail against a system that is dispersed and not as easily taken to with a hammer, but that people are doing it anyway. I have so much more to talk about on this but I will leave that for a future post.

I have been listening to and singing this Lisa O Neill song repeatedly.

So yes, that is where I am at and the things I have been thinking.

I am hesitant to write here and add more noise to inboxes. I am trying to figure out the best way forward. I am hoping to start by putting on another creative writing workshop- a blend of a letter through the post with some creative prompts followed by an online writing session.

For now, thanks for reading. I appreciate this is quite rambly and not well thought through. I know there are layers and layers to these things. I’d love to know your thoughts on any of this. Or just send me a good podcast or cat video.

Em

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An old, slightly scrappy poem with possibly bad punctuation. But you get the idea…

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*Re the header picture and Grasmere gingerbread. I was very happy to stumble across an old friend whilst walking on the beach last week. It was very random, the beach is fairly deserted and we live in a tiny village. I was even happier to learn that he was staying overnight at his Mum’s caravan on the beach, and was heading to Grasmere the next day, because my gingerbread stocks were pretty low. We agreed to meet at the same time and place the day after so I could collect my gingerbread. The entire situation made me very happy!