Magic Monday No. 1
Welcome to a little bit of Magic Monday. Alas, poor Monday, it is not usually a day associated with magic, indeed it can have quite the opposite effect. To ballast the unpleasantness that Monday can sometimes touch on the challenges and delights of falling down internet rabbit and offer a gentle reminder to keep in mind when determining if the mental filed trip is a diversion worthy of our attention.
Astute readers will note that the format of this email looks suspiciously like Rabbit Hole Wednesday. You are not wrong! But, alas, there is magic in them there holes!
Oh the places you will go!
For a perennially curious person, the internet, with its billions of pages of content can be a veritable rabbit hole. Start off in search of a mushroom soup recipe, and hours later you might find yourself reading about the information networks of mushrooms, then onto plant communication, and deadly mushrooms, before revisiting the Blue Marble images taken aboard Apollo 17.
Before you know it, hours have passed, and there is no soup recipe to be had, but somehow that dopamine hit of discovery is equally satisfying. The internet can be an amazing place. It can also be challenging, the internet is a rigged game to capture and keep our attention, one click at a time. Cat videos, potato chip gifs, whateverthedistraction, the effluvium of all human thought is as astonishing as it is sometimes mesmerizing. So what is a curious person to do?
Be intentional.
Wander.
Get lost sometimes...
I mean really, what is the point of having access to this abundant world of information, if we don't take some delight in it? If we don't indulge? Indeed, if you have a smart phone, it can be so hard to get lost these days. If our bodies can't wander, then let's at least let our minds.
...get utterly lost when looking.
Quote from Alice in Wonderland in white letters set against a blue background with a photo looking up from the bottom of a hole.
Shall we wander?
Grab your headphones.
Behold the Nature Sound Map, which is, exactly what the title suggests: a clickable map of nature sounds from around the globe.
I was particularly giddy when I found my way into this world. Here at my desk, I was able to travel to the Melaleuca Swamp in Cape York, Australia and eavesdrop on birds making a ruckus, then on to the Frogs at Meghuan Lake in Taiwan, and so on.
Go. See where you end up.
You can even make a playlist. If you are in an area lacking in nature sounds, create a soothing soundscape for yourself.
It is recommended that you listen with headphones for the optimal experience. Pro tip keep the volume down lest you be startled by sudden sounds and duck as if a real bird were flying around in your space. Alternately, if you are in a shared space, well couldn't that be fun and surprising to add that to the home or office playlist?
And maybe I should've put this sentence at the top in bold letters
DON'T CLICK THIS IF YOU DON'T WANT TO GET LOST IN MULTIPLE WAYS
Because I know that given the perilous state of the world, this site can feel like a fire sale of sound. Let us eavesdrop on this rapidly disappearing world. Listen before this too is gone.
There is a complicated convergence. The beauty of these soundscapes. The exquisiteness of these sounds. That they exist. That they were recorded. That they are there captured in some magnificent acoustic cabinet of curiosity. That they exist in the resin of this moment. Who knows what the world to come will sound like.
And thus in this wander, I found the wonder.
Helping is connect to this sense of wonder is part of the purpose of the project as noted on the Earth Fm website:
"Based on empirical evidence as well as numerous recent studies from all over the world, listening to natural soundscapes (particularly mindful listening) has a great positive impact on our wellbeing, and potentially on our respect for nature. However, these soundscapes are increasingly scarce as we humans continue to destroy the natural ecosystems which produce them.
That’s where earth.fm comes in: as well as sharing a new natural soundscape every day, we’re actively helping the community to go out in nature more often and discover a deeper, more direct connection with the wonders around us, which can lead to more well being on individual and collective levels."
Screengrab of Earth.fm website
Scrolling vs. Rabbit-Holing?
Perhaps there is a distinction to be made between scrolling (that mindless haptic act of searching one swipe at a time) and rabbit-holing (where we are looking for something and just keep looking).
In Alice in Wonderland, Alice was sitting on a river bank with her sister when the white rabbit appeared. She noted:
"There was nothing very remarkable in that, nor did Alice think it so very much out of the way to hear the rabbit say to itself "dear, dear! I shall be too late!" (when she thought it over afterwards, it occurred to her that she ought to have wondered at this, but at the time it all seemed quite natural); but when the rabbit actually took a watch out of its waistcoat-pocket, looked at it, and then hurried on, Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket or a watch to take out of it, and, full of curiosity, she hurried across the field after it, and was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge. In a moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again"
Perhaps scrolling is motivated more by boredom and a desire to relieve ourselves from whatever it is our attention is avoiding. To be sure, Rabbit-holing can be its own form of avoidance but it is one rooted in curiosity, and discovery, to let our minds wander and in doing so see what wonder we might discover.
