Things of Beauty #5
Stillness, dopamine, and pizza beans
There’s a little bit of thunder rolling outside, as I type this. It’s a typical deep summer in Virginia sort of day: hot, humid, patchy thunderstorms. When I was a kid, the house I lived in had a tin roof. I still remember the sound of rain on it. The feel of the cool, just before the storm air blowing in the windows that we left open as long as we could. I remember the way it smelled after the storm moved out. Damp, yet clean. I also remember it was quiet.
Still.
There’s hubbub on Instagram this week about changes in the look of the feed, the deprioritization of video over photo and what that all means for creators. It’s tough to want to share your work with the world and feel like you’re screaming into the void. Even worse when it feels like the void is actively suppressing your attempts to scream into it. It’s honestly always been tough- regardless of what Instagram (or whichever social) is doing, not doing, used to do, or might do in the future.
There’s this one piece content that’s been swirling around about the changes that really stuck with me (and apparently nearly 60,000 other people) :
This resonates with me because it captures the fact that this loss of stillness extends way past just the content a social media app is or isn’t pushing out to its users. It speaks to the fact that in a world so connected, so always on, so at the literal tap of our fingers against a screen it can be hard to just sit and listen to the rain against the roof. When the storm passes, will we even notice how still the world is?
I hope so. I’m craving moments of quiet— how about you?
Here are some things that felt particularly soul-nourishing and worth slowing down to savor recently:
🎬 The documentary Kiss the Ground which is about all the awesome things healthy soil can do for climate change. Most of the focus of the film is on farming and regenerative agriculture, but they do mention a few things even us non-farmers can do, like composting and being contentious about where we’re purchasing our meat and produce from. It felt both educational and hopeful.
📙 This article from Tiffany Yates Martin over at Fox Print Editorial really resonated with me this week: Giving Your All for the Few. It’s a perfect reminder to step back and really remember why we create and for whom (very relevant to the screaming into the void feeling referenced above).
🍕 Pizza Beans. That is all. And yes, it’s video content. To be clear, I’m for everyone creating the content that feels authentic to them AND I’m also for being more still. (Perhaps while savoring pizza beans).
🎧 Also relevant to the thought I’ve been having about stillness, or the lack thereof— this podcast episode all about dopamine, what it is, how it works in our brains and bodies, and how we might be getting too much of it (hint: while it’s not all about those likes on social media, that constant source of gratification is probably part of it). There is a bit of a tangent into recent research into psychedelics as mental health treatment toward the beginning, but they do get back to the subject at hand, and I found it an interesting and balanced discussion.
🌸 This plant. I don’t know it’s name. Which is where you come in! I could Google, but I’m going to resist the easy/fast way and ask you instead. Leave a comment and tell me what this gorgeous, gorgeous specimen is!
❤️ Huge thank you this week to my friend, Cristen for both the movie and the podcast recommendation!
What are you stopping to quietly enjoy (even just for a few moments) this week? Also— seriously, what is my flower?! Please and thank you.