Onward

Of circles and spirals

The dizzying speed at which things seem to be moving (funding freezes, climate catastrophes, the AI industry, a Whatsapp chat group about local crime in my neighbourhood) are making me feel stuck, like a fly trapped in the amber of time, spiralling and summoning its own demise.

I remind myself that the last time I felt this way was soon after I moved countries three years ago. A few months after arriving in the UK, I learned that BuzzFeed News was gutting its newsroom, and simultaneously, that I personally was on the brink of a severe burn out.

Historic recurrence, or the theory of why and how empires rise and fall relies on an understanding of the body politic cycling through inevitable phases. My favourite cycle goes like this:
a society with virtue creates peace
peace leads to idleness
idleness causes disorder
disorder leads to ruin
and through ruin we build virtue once again.

I’m not crazy about the phrasing but what I do find reassuring is the idea that cycles are normal and necessary, even when they are uncomfortable. The pattern I constantly return to in nature is the Fibonacci spiral (which inspired the comic above) and moves in ever-widening spirals away from the point of its origin, never returning to the same point.

The Fibonacci spiral tends to show up often in nature — in the crests of waves, in the shapes of saplings, in snails and seashells and in the shape of our inner ear. It also shows up in my work a lot, and is the way I make sense of growth: growth includes feeling stuck, spiralling, going through the same lessons over and over again. (The image above was one of the logos I developed for former-BuzzFeeder and internet-genius Rega Jha’s podcast. The podcast is still brewing but Rega has a fantastic newsletter you should check out here. )

In Buddhism and Zen, repetition is essential — for building habits, unlearning patterns of the mind and simply, to learn whatever it is the universe wants us to understand. In my case, the lesson I learned three years ago is here to remind me once more: Get offline and touch grass. The world is bigger than the worldwide web. The broligarchy can buy and sell what they like, but how much space they colonise in my brain is still my choice.

Finally, ask the world for what you need, and learn to listen to the voice inside.

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Watch: Filmmaker Adam Curtis has been joining dots through patterns of recurrence for decades and his documentary Hypernormalisation, made when Trump was last elected, is relevant once more. The entire video is available on YouTube and linked above, and here is a trailer if like me, you like to know in advance what genre of horror you’re settling in to watch:

Listen: Journalist Aman Sethi and openDemocracy have a new podcast out and I loved this episode about what’s happening in Syria post-Assad and why there is reason to hope. YouTube link below and Spotify link here. (disclosure: I think Aman is the coolest).

Absorb: I recently saw Lynette Yiadom-Boakye’s incredible paintings at Corvi Mora gallery and cannot recommend her art enough. Tender, fierce, animated and poetic — a glimpse of that magic from an older exhibition at the Tate below:

And this exquisite and chilling work in progress titled Fortress from the artist Janine Shroff, which always reminds me that no matter what is coming, tend to your gardens, your community and your cats (your peace of mind will follow).

A final circle before I leave you this week, in hope that you feel your feelings and remember that no matter how stressful, they too will cycle into the next one, and then the next.