Three thoughts crossed my mind this week, and I’d like to share them with you. Two came from texts I’ve read, while the third is part of a rumination I’ve been having about my professional future.
Before starting, however, here is an image of foxes in an impressionist style created by artificial intelligence.
Before starting, part two: Every time I use AI-generated images, I find myself thinking about how much it highlights a lack of repertoire and care for human artists, whose creations I could be sharing instead of generating random images with a tool that copies and mixes other people’s creativity. I do this when I’m in a hurry, and I’m in a hurry when I don’t have time, and I don’t have time because work consumes me.
And that ties into the third reflection of today.
Meditation
Yesterday, I meditated. I turned off the television, turned off the computer, left the phone far away, sat on the couch, and took a deep breath. I closed my eyes – in front of the couch I have a bookshelf filled with books, and the temptation to distract myself by re-reading the titles was too great to stare it on a first try. I focused on my breathing, focused on bodily sensations, observed thoughts here and there; some surprised me, others are regular visitors. I was grateful for my aphantasia, because I imagine that sitting in silence and observing thoughts must be much harder when you have a cinema inside your head.
After a while, I stopped. By “a while,” I mean two minutes. For yesterday, it was enough, especially since I was aiming for one minute. I read a text about meditation, and it talked about starting with just a minute. When I read it, I thought, "Oh, right, one minute also counts," and so I decided to try it out.
It is in Portuguese, and I suggest reading it with the aid of translation tools if you need. It is called What I learned meditating every day for one year.
I like meditating, but I’ve never sustained the practice. The closest I got was writing and publishing every day for a period, maybe three months in total? It’s not the same thing, but it’s sort of the same thing, only different.
Today, I plan to meditate again, even if it’s just for a minute.
Photos on Instagram
“Please post a lot on Instagram because I want to know about your life in Japan,” that’s what basically everyone told me. Japan is an idea that fascinates the rest of the planet, and because it’s a distant and expensive country compared to Brazil, knowing someone who gets close to that idea feeds into people’s curiosity.
Everything I publish, not just images but also texts, has two purposes: to serve as a reminder to my future self, and to connect with others. They are things I don’t want to forget or I want to talk about. This logic informs both my writing choices on Substack and my Instagram posts.
I started thinking about this after reading a text about photos that don’t make it to Instagram, and what they can mean. Like the previous article, this one, called My photos are not for Instagram is precious and deserves a translation assisted reading if you don’t speak Portuguese.
But to be honest, most of the time I simply forget to take pictures of things—which is why I write much more than I photograph, and if I had more time, I’d go back to writing and publishing every day.
Community
Ten years ago, I created the Ninho de Escritores (Writers' Nest – but please keep in mind that “nest” in Portuguese evokes a very heart-warming feeling, similar to “home”). At first, I introduced Ninho as a “project for improving writing through nurturing.” Over time, I left that explanation aside because I realized that while improving writing is both a goal and a consequence of our gatherings, what truly interests me and sustains projects like Ninho is something else.
I have found three elements that permeate my activities and projects involving forming groups and hosting communities:
Connection – Sharing experiences is one of the best ways to connect with other humans, and when a meeting is designed with the intention of fostering connection, it becomes easier for friendships to flourish.
Fun – Laughter and play are among the most fabulous experiences humans can share with each other, whether through board games, jokes, or simply companionship to share the load of life.
Creation – The emergence of something new as a result of a group of humans coming together is something wonderful, whether it’s a story shared in an RPG session, new knowledge on a specific topic, or works of art.
In the future, I want to dedicate more time to creating and sustaining communities that foster connection, fun, and creation. I’m still not sure what form this desire will take, but I wanted to share this insight and also the current challenge: fitting this aspiration into my current life.
Once again, the enemy is the scarcity of time, energy, and access produced by the capitalist system we live under, and since a revolution isn’t in sight for now, the way will be to find cracks on the wall for these initiatives to pass through.
I will seek them—or create them—and continue sharing here.
With love,
Tales