Modern luxury is the ability to think clearly, sleep deeply, move slowly, and live quietly in a world designed to prevent all four.

– Justin Welsh

Featured artist: Helvetica Blanc

Dense Discovery
Dense Discovery
 

Welcome to Issue 319!

Dec 17 2024

The last issue of 2024! In what feels like a fitting close to these twelve months of reflection, I’ve saved one of my favourite recent essays for this issue – one that grapples with the notion of collapse. Though collapse might seem like an unlikely theme for the season, within this exploration lies a surprisingly hopeful invitation to reconsider how we live and connect.

In How I became ‘collapse aware’, Rosie Spinks articulates something many of us sense but struggle to name – that persistent feeling that we’re approaching the end of a particular way of life.

“It’s a nagging sense that has hung over modern life since 2020, or 2016, or 2008, or 2001 – pick your start date – that things are not working anymore. And that waiting for them to get better after the next Most Important Election of Our Lives, or another war to end, or a new economic recovery cycle doesn’t seem to be having the desired effects.”

It’s this shared unease that leads Spinks to explore the notion of collapse and how to respond to it: “To be collapse aware is to live with the sense that something about the way we live is coming to end. And then to ask the next obvious question head on: If the incrementalist approach of our existing political and economic structures is not up to the task of improving things – climate, society, inequality, injustice – what comes next?”

At the heart of her essay lies a simple framework that captures the dual reality many of us inhabit: There and Here.

There is where I earn a living, and it’s where I have a mortgage, and order groceries for pickup. It’s where growth is uniformly seen as good, and we’re told that social problems have to be ameliorated while still upholding shareholder value... It’s a place where most of us are very burned out, in a manner that mirrors the exhaustion of the earth.”

Meanwhile, Here is where I’ve internally accepted that infinite progress and wealth are not inevitable... Where life is less concerned with status, and more with sustenance. It’s a place where the entire economy is not based on getting consumers exactly what they want, where cheap flights and next-day delivery are not available... Where we adjust our lives accordingly, and rely on one another by necessity, rather than forging ahead pretending that everything is fine.”

What makes her essay compelling to me is her subtle reframing of collapse not as an endpoint, but as a transition from There to Here. Spinks reminds us that collapse doesn’t mean the end to “sustenance, shelter, security, pleasure, identity, and meaning – just that it’s an end to our ‘normal modes’ of acquiring all those things.”

This distinction seems crucial, especially when she notes that “a lot of people are already living under collapse. Throughout history to today, people outside the countries we call ‘developed’ have seen their homes and land destroyed, and have experienced no shortage of violence under this paradigm. Those people still manage to have rich lives as they fight for survival and meaning. They still have children, celebrate festivals, write stories, and fall in love. We have a lot to learn from them.”

From this view, Spinks points to a possibility – that being forced to move beyond our obsession with material wealth might actually present a chance for healing and a renewed sense of presence:

“While I believe my son’s life may be materially worse off than my own, I think about how it could possibly be better too – psychologically, spiritually, and collectively. I think about how many of the social problems we lament – the mental health crisis among young people, especially young men; the cruel isolation of new motherhood; the normalization of depression and anxiety; the growing number of homeless and destitute people in the richest cities in the world – would be ameliorated by the kind of collective consciousness change I describe above.”

Rather than a catastrophe to fear, collapse awareness becomes an invitation to reassess our relationships with consumption, community and care. As we enter a season typically marked by excess, perhaps there’s wisdom in pausing to consider how we might begin moving from There to Here – not in fear or resignation, but in somewhat hopeful recognition that different ways of living and connecting await our discovery. – Kai

(Thank you for your attention and support this year! DD will be back with issue 320 on Jan 7th! ❤️)

 

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Spreadsheet Problems?SPONSOR

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Grist →

Open-source collaborative spreadsheet

Spreadsheets are great. So great, in fact, that they often become too important to a team’s workflow. These load-bearing spreadsheets crack under the pressure. Grist is an open-source spreadsheet reinforced with the structure of a database that everyone can use, no code required.

 

Apps & Sites

Womp →

3D modelling in the browser

A browser-based 3D modelling software that wants to make 3D accessible for designers of all backgrounds. Its unique approach allows users to manipulate shapes with a ‘melty, goopy’ feel, using real-time Boolean operations like union and subtraction to combine and refine 3D primitives such as cubes, spheres and cylinders.

Otto →

Automated data research

Otto uses AI to automate and streamline data retrieval, enrichment and analysis. Using automated web browsing, data extraction and document processing, Otto can fill large lists with information it retrieves itself. Just give it a structure and clear instructions and let Otto find the data.

There →

Timezone tracker

A cute (and free) little macOS menu bar app that lets you set and display the timezones of your friends or colleagues for easy reference.

Travle →

Geography game

A simple, fun online game where you need to get from country X to country Y and name the countries you’re crossing to get there with the fewest guesses!

 

Favourite Books: Daniël van der Winden

Five book recommendations by software designer & writer, Daniël van der Winden

Bird By Bird

by Anne Lamott

“Writing and reading decrease our sense of isolation. They deepen and widen and expand our sense of life: they feed the soul.” This is a book mostly on writing, but its advice can be applied to many creative pursuits. It’s wise, warm and funny, and I love re-reading it.

Patch Work: A Life Amongst Clothes

by Claire Wilcox

Reading these memories, written by the curator of fashion at the Victoria & Albert Museum, feels like carefully lifting objects in a museum storeroom. Beautiful, delicate and intimate.

Grey Bees

by Andrey Kurkov

Published in 2020, Grey Bees is a novel about a beekeeper in war-torn Ukraine. He is one of his village’s two remaining residents, and has survived there for years. While that premise may sound grim, this book is a beautiful portrait of people amid senseless violence, through the eyes of a sensitive everyman.

The Living Mountain

by Nan Shepherd

In the most spellbinding ways, Nan Shepherd describes her walks in the Cairngorms, a mountain range in Scotland. Written in 1944, published in 1977, and an example to many a great nature writer.

Pond

by Claire-Louise Bennett

An elegant book of short stories unlike any other I’ve read, Pond consists of twenty stories detailing moments in a life lived in solitude in a cottage in an Irish village. A peaceful read that begs to be picked up time and again.

(Did you know? Friends of DD can respond to and engage with guest contributors like Daniël van der Winden in one click.)

 

Books & Accessories

When the Dust Settles →

Searching for hope after disaster

Disaster expert Lucy Easthope provides an intimate look into the world of catastrophe response, from tsunamis to pandemics, revealing how communities rebuild after tragedy. Her memoir blends professional expertise with personal reflection to show how we navigate life’s darkest moments and find hope in their aftermath. “When the Dust Settles takes us behind the police tape to government briefing rooms and scenes of chaos, looking back at the many losses and loves of a remarkable life and career. It tells us how we can all build back after disaster.”

Being with Busyness →

Zen ways to transform overwhelm and burnout

In this mindfulness guide, Zen Buddhist monk Brother Phap Huu and journalist and leadership coach Jo Confino examine the modern diseases of busyness and offer readers a way to transform burnout and overwhelm into balance and joy. The book provides practical tools for setting boundaries, grounded in the teachings of Thích Nhất Hạnh.

 

Overheard on Mastodon

Tired: me
Wired: also me, but with caffeine

@SrRochardBunson@universeodon.com

 

Food for Thought

How I became ‘collapse aware’ →

Read

Another thought-provoking piece by Rosie Spinks, in which she explores the concept of being ‘collapse aware’: recognising that our current way of living may be coming to an end. She argues that this awareness can shift our perspective, allowing us to focus on meaningful connections and practical actions rather than relying solely on progress and hope for improvement. “To be collapse aware is to live with the sense that something about the way we live is coming to an end. And then to ask the next obvious question head on: If the incrementalist approach of our existing political and economic structures is not up to the task of improving things – climate, society, inequality, injustice – what comes next?”

Here’s What the Fight For Your Attention Really Looks Like →

Read

A great piece by Julia Alexander about how the internet has turned personal joy into a competitive race. As we quantify our experiences, we lose meaningful connections and become overwhelmed by the pressure to achieve more. This shift creates a constant need for validation, turning our downtime into a form of ambition that mirrors our professional lives. “The problem with quantifying everything is that we can’t ever rest. Our end state is a growth state – a philosophy that defines corporate America boardrooms and shouldn’t inhabit our bedrooms or morning coffee.” (via)

The Multi-Trillion-Dollar Wellness Industry Is Making Us Sick →

Read

Jonathan N. Stea with an excellent deep-dive into the wellness industry’s many ‘alternative’ health products and practices that are fuelling conspiracy theories and skepticism about traditional medical treatments. “Baked into alternative medicine are moralizing attitudes handed down from the early evolution of the wellness industry. It has its own tropes to propagate distrust in mainstream health care – and its own fallacies to cajole audiences. It also shape-shifts in its name to sneak pseudoscience into the health care system at large.”

 

Aesthetically Pleasing

Japanese artist Kohei Ohmori creates photorealistic pencil drawings of everyday objects with astonishing level of detail. (via)

Pawel Kuczynski is a renowned Polish artist best known for his thought-provoking satirical illustrations that offer piercing commentary on modern society, politics and human nature.

Tiny Grandeaur: there are some beautiful details in the design of this small (53 sqm/570 sqft) loft apartment in Genova, Italy.

Rooted in the Grotesk genre, Granda is a sans-serif typeface with lively proportions that bring warmth to the text. Granda Reclined is a playful alternative, counterbalancing the italic.

 

Notable Numbers

81,987,181

In its year-in-review post, Wikimedia revealed that over the course of 2024, volunteer editors made a total of 81,987,181 changes on over 300 different language editions of Wikipedia.

60,000

By 2030, Paris will have removed 60,000 parking spaces and replaced them with trees. That’s one of the goals outlined in the French capital’s new 2024-2030 Climate Plan.

175

In 2023, Google earned over $175 billion (or 57% of Alphabet’s total sales) solely from search advertising. However, Google’s share of the search-advertising market is forecast to drop below 50% next year for the first time since tracking began in 2008. Amazon’s search-ad revenue surged by 17.6% over the same period.

 

Classifieds

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The Week in a GIF

Reply with your favourite GIF and it might get featured here in a future issue.

 

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