welcome, welcome! happy february to you all! and just like that it’s one month down, and 11 to go. i wonder what interesting and amazing things will happen next! i’m doing quite well this week. i’ve had my gears churning recently that have me feeling a sense of euphoria and excitement that i haven’t felt in 2 years. it’s the energy that comes with a new idea that’s crystallizing, and all your senses are primed to notice manifestations of that idea wherever you go. a friend and i are currently working on the idea, and we have a long ways to go. wish us luck, and i’ll write more about that later.
but for today’s newsletter, let’s talk about presence. without further adieu.
tedious presence
it occurred to me as my hand cramped part way through the middle of the page i was writing that being present was an incredibly tedious task. writing forces that of you. well, maybe not so much forces, but like it definitely requires you to be present. you can always walk away at any moment, choose to put the pen down, or focus on something else. but in order for you to engage in the ritual of writing you have to be there, there.
and that’s something that i struggle with. being present is difficult for me. but i’d be surprised if i was the only one. when you’re on some sort of robotic, automated mode in life it’s hard to notice how hard it is to just pause and be. i was in that state not to long ago, and, in a stretch of irony, i was on instagram reels watching this boxing coach talk about presence.
“… for two minutes straights, I want you to just be here. Be present. Throw some jabs, duck, move your feet, I don’t care what you do, but just be here. Don’t worry about the time, how much time is left, what to do, just be. Alright guys, time starts now”
and i must have watched that video a couple times over as it dawned on me how tough that is for me. like, i remember being in a class having to do drills and i’d be overthinking everything from “when’s the class over?” “do we have more conditioning?” “fuck, we have conditioning??” “is the traffic gonna be bad when i get out?”
be it boxing or writing, to be present in the moment isn’t simple a one-off choice. it’s more like you’re choosing to be there every second. And choosing something over and over again is like a lot of things in life. there’s a honeymoon where you’re like “heck yeah!” then you hit a trough of sorts. then you oscillate. and at every step of the way, you almost start feeling the opportunity costs. the costs are felt because for every second you choose the same thing, there’s like 50 things in the back of your head you might want to be doing or suddenly feel the impulse to jump to. what’d Hemingway say again?
“All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.” – Ernest Hemingway
yet the beauty of presence is such that, when you take writing a page, you start with a word, then a sentence, then paragraph, page, essays, chapters, books, and so on. but all of that starts with a single word. beautiful things take time to craft, form, create, curate, and nurture. presence is supposed to be tedious, and that’s okay.
everyday i write two pages in my journal. each page is about 40 lines, give or take. i find myself falling out of love with searching for some sort of zen like flow state. nowadays i much prefer taking my time writing a line at a time — even if it sucks. i used to think this writing ritual was about completing the 2 pages. but the more often that i do it, i realized it was a practice of presence — something that can’t me tethered measurement by way of time or the number of lines. maybe i’m on some Camus “perhaps Sisyphus enjoyed pushing the boulder” type beat, but, idk, try it? get lost in something, whether or not you like it, and just be there. let me know how it goes.
media futures: 7 trends and predictions by jihad
below comes from a tweet referenced by Jihad in his media futures article. it makes me think a lot about Gilga and the way Gambino thinks about media: that the audience should be able to digest “smarter” more complex material. a good example of art versus content that comes to mind is Miyazaki’s last film. people were in uproar because they didn’t immediately “get it.” why is that not okay? if art at its core is about expressing oneself deeply, why should we expect ourselves to dive more carefully or slowly?
Tombolo Shirts
i thought this shirt below was pretty swanky. Tombolo carries a lot of camp collared shirts (think bowling shirts) with bold and colorful designs. this one is the most tame of them, but i found the texture pretty rad. apparently they have an artist residency to collab and make shirts with them. i’ll forward you the email if that’s up your alley dude.
Plateau Studios
this jacket from taipei-based Plateu Studio caught my eye. looks like something you’d see in a Wong Kar Wai movie. some ol’ school gangster type fit. thought it was worth mentioning. also, funny story, i found out about this studio on complete accident! i saw this Japanese-NYC rapper name Miyachi rock a knitted shirt that I ended up reverse searching for hours. After a lot of google translating Chinese/Taiwanese hypebeast blogs, i stumbled on plateau.
wang zhihong doing whatever this is??
idk who tf this dude is, but i came across his stuff on twitter. good stuff Wang, good stuff.
Take A Break - Sven Wunder
i found this song on a set that i watched earlier last week. the whole album “Late Again” was a pleasure to listen to. it’s got this textured jazzy sound that sounds distinctly cinematic. what i mean past these buzz words is that when you listen to this track and close your eyes, you can almost imagine yourself in an A24-esque color-graded scene driving down W Pico in Los Angeles in one of those old candy painted cars at night. it’s a vibe.
Thanks for reading this edition. Share this with your friends, your grandma, or your neighbor. And if you made it to the end of this essay and you didn’t just scroll, dm me the word “octopus” on either twitter or instagram. or leave a comment! As always,
Sincerely,
Haroon
P.S. Check out my previous newsletter if you’re curious: Cool Stuff I Found #30