“Listen! The wind is rising, and the air is wild with leaves. We have had our summer evenings; now for October eves!” – Humbert Wolfe
Autumn is still fighting off the last vestiges of the mid-west’s second summer from time to time, but she’s winning and there’s finally a chill to the air every once in a while. This month I went on Substack to browse and posted a few notes about my ‘personal curriculum’. Somehow these became slightly popular and in the terminology of a new writer ‘I was perceived’ and now beholden to my small cadre of followers; I have to actually write now… I’ve been putting it off via potent mixture of adhd and brain fog which has been gathering strength with the fluctuations in temperature. The colder it gets, the more sharp I am. So hopefully this winter, if not too hectic with the holidays, will bring forth several essays.
I’ve also been spending more time outdoors when I can with the dogs. I think this week alone I’ve been to the woods three times. Even if it isn’t for long, it helps to slow down the mind and offset that feeling of always having to do something, read something, comment on something. That always ‘on’ dopamine addiction that the internet has become is rapidly driving me up the wall. It’s like cabin fever. I’ve got to get out of it and sometimes that means literally running off to the forest for a while.
If you’ve read my last piece you’ve seen what this ‘digital fever’ of the mind has resulted in. I’m cutting off more and more time from being online. I’m sick of it. It’s a bore. A monotonous space filled with clickbait, paywalls, and A.I. slop. I’ve been reducing where I go for information and what websites I still value. I might write more on this in the future. Perhaps I’ll create a list of websites that still hold value in the age of enshitification. But until then, I’m going to read a lot of books, complete my 65 days of Rilke challenge, and plan a few intellectual deep dives to share with you all. I have at least four I want to get to soon. One of which I hope to get started within the next month.
Links:
- The dawn of post-literate society – with Jared Henderson and James Marriott
- Always Tired, Always Curious: The Paradox of Modern Thinking
- How to Read & Annotate an Academic Article Like a PhD Student
- Queen Victoria’s Childhood: bookworm, artist & writer
- A Brief History of Naturalists’ Notebooks
- Whiteness as Enemy: Irish Assimilationism and Sinners (2025)
- 100 Classical Music Masterpieces
- Study like it’s 1971: the Integrated Humanities Program
- Shakespeare in a Year |This is a plan to read the complete works of Shakespeare within one year.
- Pearson Integrated Humanities Program
- The Reclamation: A Name for Our Time
Reads:
- ‘The Ghost Map’ Steven Johnson *(completed)
- ‘Modes of Thought’ Alfred North Whitehead *(completed)
- ‘Green Pharmacy’ Barbara Griggs (completed)
- ‘Killing The Dead: Vampire Epidemics From Mesopotamia To The New World’ by John Blair
- ‘Duino Elegies’ by Rainer Maria Rilke *(completed)
- ‘Sonnets to Orpheus’ Rainer Maria Rilke