Kyla, thank you for this piece! The way you boil down all the complexities affecting society, how it compares & contrasts how these complexities were in the past, and how you weave together the thoughts & ideas of other brilliant people and data is awe-inspiring. I feel inspired to focus on physically being around people and forming connections, or at least being a person that can "cultivate ease, joy & fun" by meaningfully being with people.
I am always amazed at how few kudos you get for your brilliant writing.
I pay Heather Cox Richardson for her historic perspective, Ricard Reich for his political perspective, and Joyce Vance for her judicial perspective as I try to have some perspective into how our species is being dragged into a chaos of our own making against our will.
You are less frequent (I do occasionally look at some of your other modes of communicating, but I'm in my 80th decade and refuse to engage in that BS "social" media crap) and more expensive.
Love It! And I will look for another way to reward you for the personal value you have gifted me.
A poem that has had deep communal significance in my life is from an unlikely source of humorous and often deeply meaningful poems:
Listen by Ogden Nash
Listen…
There is a knocking in the skull,
An endless silent shout
Of something beating on a wall,
And crying, Let me out.
That solitary prisoner
Will never hear reply,
No comrade in eternity
Can hear the frantic cry.
No heart can share the terror
That haunts his monstrous dark;
The light that filters through the chinks
No other eye can mark.
When flesh is linked with eager flesh,
And words run warm and full,
I think that he is loneliest then,
The captive in the skull.
Caught in a mesh of living veins,
In cell of padded bone,
He loneliest is when he pretends
That he is not alone.
We’d free the incarcerate race of man
That such a doom endures
Could only you unlock my skull,
Or I creep into yours.
Ogden Nash
in Many Long Years Ago
I always feel that you are digging deeply into that existential isolation that lies at the very basement of our search for meaning.
Great piece, I’ll probably read it again to digest. I wonder how large language models are going to influence language evolution as the LLMs enter commerce - I assume customer service type jobs are going to be forever changed. Because the models are recycling what they’re reading, they are going to necessarily pull us toward stagnation, when language evolution is something probably necessary and good. Those customer service interactions, happening between human individuals, may now happen between man and a machine regurgitating a shit load of memes. Should be interesting.
Loved the poem at the end! Great write up Kyla. Thank you for taking the time to write it.
We need to repopularize in person communal gatherings. No amount of discord communities or zoom chats will alleviate our need for in person interaction. I think the Apple Vision Pro is a physical representation of the tipping point we are reaching as a culture.
One thing I've thought about: doomscrolling and making time for your phone in isolation is popular amongst the boomers, gen x, and millennials. This came about because phones and hyper-connectivity were like a novel virus that our immune systems had no recognition of, so as a herd we are enthralled. When you read things about gen z eschewing smart phones in favor of flip phones it kind of gives you hope. Every generation has a counter culture and maybe us oldies have made living through your phone so uncool the younger generation will rebel in a return to traditional interpersonal relationships. The only worry is: has the matrix gotten so powerful we've forgotten collectively how to have real relationships and care about each other in a genuine way?
If I'm a younger person there's no way I could look at how millenials are living and say: "they are doing it right, I want that for myself."
Great article! One thing I was reminded of, was an interview I listened to with Researcher Gary Lupyan on Brain Inspired (Available here: https://braininspired.co/podcast/164/) where he shared that we currently use so many abstract words that, if you were to remove abstract words from any text, you'd be unable to understand its meaning. Abstract words refer, in this context, to words that denote something that you cannot point at with a finger ("Table" is a concrete word, "Government" is not.) And because we take their meaning for granted, we do not check what their actual meaning is, and keep talking to one another as if we were all on the same page, when, in fact, we are not. One Italian philosopher, Igor Sibaldi, observing the decline in overall vocabulary used actively by the Italian population over the last twenty years, has also pointed out that, whenever vocabulary shrinks, because we tend to think about things in less nuanced ways, we are more prone to fall prey to totalitarian regimes. I really appreciate how you broke this down in such a way as to illuminate the way this happens and the impact it has on society as a whole, especially in terms of how much we trust each other.
Thank you, ms. Kyla, for sharing your words and thoughts with us. I was lucky to grow up with a mom who played piano and sang with me and my sisters from "The Fireside Book of Folk Songs". It was normal to sing folk and patriotic songs in the grammar school I attended, a remnant of the oral tradition of storytelling. When my mom retired from teaching, she became "the Singing Sub" who would bring her portable piano to class since uprights were disappearing. The currency of the day is "time and attention" which we imagine is an infinite resource. Finding and holding community is challenging but we have no choice but to continue working towards that goal. Some urgency is warranted.
Great article Kyla! You might find the book Orality and Literacy by Walter J. Ingram interesting. As it seems post-literate culture is more similar to oral culture in function, than it is to literate culture.
Leaving a comment saying the title is almost too suspicious to even click through to read. Will report back if/when I work up the courage. Always beware of sneaky snakes.
This was a fantastic article, it’s something been on my mind a lot recently and I may have had an eerily similar rant with my therapist about this very topic last week 😂
absolute banger, thanks for writing this
Kyla, thank you for this piece! The way you boil down all the complexities affecting society, how it compares & contrasts how these complexities were in the past, and how you weave together the thoughts & ideas of other brilliant people and data is awe-inspiring. I feel inspired to focus on physically being around people and forming connections, or at least being a person that can "cultivate ease, joy & fun" by meaningfully being with people.
I am always amazed at how few kudos you get for your brilliant writing.
I pay Heather Cox Richardson for her historic perspective, Ricard Reich for his political perspective, and Joyce Vance for her judicial perspective as I try to have some perspective into how our species is being dragged into a chaos of our own making against our will.
You are less frequent (I do occasionally look at some of your other modes of communicating, but I'm in my 80th decade and refuse to engage in that BS "social" media crap) and more expensive.
Love It! And I will look for another way to reward you for the personal value you have gifted me.
A poem that has had deep communal significance in my life is from an unlikely source of humorous and often deeply meaningful poems:
Listen by Ogden Nash
Listen…
There is a knocking in the skull,
An endless silent shout
Of something beating on a wall,
And crying, Let me out.
That solitary prisoner
Will never hear reply,
No comrade in eternity
Can hear the frantic cry.
No heart can share the terror
That haunts his monstrous dark;
The light that filters through the chinks
No other eye can mark.
When flesh is linked with eager flesh,
And words run warm and full,
I think that he is loneliest then,
The captive in the skull.
Caught in a mesh of living veins,
In cell of padded bone,
He loneliest is when he pretends
That he is not alone.
We’d free the incarcerate race of man
That such a doom endures
Could only you unlock my skull,
Or I creep into yours.
Ogden Nash
in Many Long Years Ago
I always feel that you are digging deeply into that existential isolation that lies at the very basement of our search for meaning.
This is so nice, so well thought. Last poem heavy reminds me of something Dylan wrote in Last Thoughts on Woody Guthrie
And there's something on yer mind you wanna be saying
That somebody someplace oughta be hearin'
But it's trapped on yer tongue and sealed in yer head
And it bothers you badly when your layin' in bed
And no matter how you try you just can't say it
And yer scared to yer soul you just might forget it
Great piece, I’ll probably read it again to digest. I wonder how large language models are going to influence language evolution as the LLMs enter commerce - I assume customer service type jobs are going to be forever changed. Because the models are recycling what they’re reading, they are going to necessarily pull us toward stagnation, when language evolution is something probably necessary and good. Those customer service interactions, happening between human individuals, may now happen between man and a machine regurgitating a shit load of memes. Should be interesting.
Simply brilliant. Thank you for the remarkably thoughtful, honest, non-partisan, kind and even-handed piece. Amazing.
Loved the poem at the end! Great write up Kyla. Thank you for taking the time to write it.
We need to repopularize in person communal gatherings. No amount of discord communities or zoom chats will alleviate our need for in person interaction. I think the Apple Vision Pro is a physical representation of the tipping point we are reaching as a culture.
One thing I've thought about: doomscrolling and making time for your phone in isolation is popular amongst the boomers, gen x, and millennials. This came about because phones and hyper-connectivity were like a novel virus that our immune systems had no recognition of, so as a herd we are enthralled. When you read things about gen z eschewing smart phones in favor of flip phones it kind of gives you hope. Every generation has a counter culture and maybe us oldies have made living through your phone so uncool the younger generation will rebel in a return to traditional interpersonal relationships. The only worry is: has the matrix gotten so powerful we've forgotten collectively how to have real relationships and care about each other in a genuine way?
If I'm a younger person there's no way I could look at how millenials are living and say: "they are doing it right, I want that for myself."
Great article! One thing I was reminded of, was an interview I listened to with Researcher Gary Lupyan on Brain Inspired (Available here: https://braininspired.co/podcast/164/) where he shared that we currently use so many abstract words that, if you were to remove abstract words from any text, you'd be unable to understand its meaning. Abstract words refer, in this context, to words that denote something that you cannot point at with a finger ("Table" is a concrete word, "Government" is not.) And because we take their meaning for granted, we do not check what their actual meaning is, and keep talking to one another as if we were all on the same page, when, in fact, we are not. One Italian philosopher, Igor Sibaldi, observing the decline in overall vocabulary used actively by the Italian population over the last twenty years, has also pointed out that, whenever vocabulary shrinks, because we tend to think about things in less nuanced ways, we are more prone to fall prey to totalitarian regimes. I really appreciate how you broke this down in such a way as to illuminate the way this happens and the impact it has on society as a whole, especially in terms of how much we trust each other.
Thank you, ms. Kyla, for sharing your words and thoughts with us. I was lucky to grow up with a mom who played piano and sang with me and my sisters from "The Fireside Book of Folk Songs". It was normal to sing folk and patriotic songs in the grammar school I attended, a remnant of the oral tradition of storytelling. When my mom retired from teaching, she became "the Singing Sub" who would bring her portable piano to class since uprights were disappearing. The currency of the day is "time and attention" which we imagine is an infinite resource. Finding and holding community is challenging but we have no choice but to continue working towards that goal. Some urgency is warranted.
F*cking terrifying.
Good Read.
Have only just started this, but already thinking of the old James Brown number, 'Talkin' Loud and Saying Nothin'. Looking forward to the rest.
Great article Kyla! You might find the book Orality and Literacy by Walter J. Ingram interesting. As it seems post-literate culture is more similar to oral culture in function, than it is to literate culture.
Leaving a comment saying the title is almost too suspicious to even click through to read. Will report back if/when I work up the courage. Always beware of sneaky snakes.
Thick as a brick. Will continue to digest ... Biggest Thanks
This was a fantastic article, it’s something been on my mind a lot recently and I may have had an eerily similar rant with my therapist about this very topic last week 😂