So we arrive in the 21st century with technological tools, and on technological platforms, that are based on binary code. All the while, we are faced with existential global challenges that require us to transcend either/or thinking as a matter of survival and to grapple with complexity at a species level if we are to flourish.

In this light, I have been holding a certain despair around the possibilities for transformation of the technologies we’ve come to depend on so rapidly and comprehensively. James Bridle explores the real-world consequence of this contradiction, and also a few unfolding alternative and possible scenarios. 

One of the most enthusiastically marked up pages of my book — and one of the ideas which has stayed most alive in me — introduces an origin story of binary code that cracks it, in my imagination, wide open.

I take very seriously the origins of a thing — an organization, a person, a situation. Origins are a force in all that follows, rippling through time in mysterious ways, even after circumstances change beyond recognition. Perhaps I should have learned somewhere in school that the 17th century polymath Gottfried Leibniz had a role in the development of binary numbers. But I did not. He was deeply religious, and for him, “the purity of the one and the zero were symbolic of the Christian idea of the creation ex nihilo” — out of nothing, something. In other words: emergence. I learn from Bridle, too, that Leibniz found in ancient Chinese mathematics another reflection of his “belief in the eternal, sacred nature of ones and zeros.” I am letting this roll around in my imagination: binary code is itself, in its DNA, a language of emergence, and in conversation with ancient theology and philosophy and moral imagination.

To the playlist this week, we’re adding Daniel Kahneman, the social psychologist who changed economics — and changed me and others — in so wisely and matter-of-factly bringing home that none of us is as rational as we believe ourselves to be — none of us is an equation that computes. We’re adding a conversation I had with a philosopher of our lives with technology, Kevin Kelly. We’re adding Maria Popova, the singularly wise and wonderful curator of beauty and complexity in digital spaces. Finally, we’re adding the conversation I was so fortunate to have with the late, exquisite Mary Oliver. I read her poetry side-by-side with Ways of Being last summer. Her way of seeing and living is one way into why poetry (which I seem to circle back to with regularity) matters existentially. It, too, confronts and beguiles us with the mysterious complexity of reality and how that can bring us ever more alive.

A final note, as we've landed at poetry. The Poetry Unbound book is, very frustratingly, out of stock on Amazon and bookshop.org as I write. You might be able to find it at Barnes and Noble or an independent bookstore. It is truly a wonderful holiday gift. In a recent conversation with the actor/woodworker/writer Nick Offerman (spoiler alert: for the next season of On Being in the making) he recommended making handmade cards, however simple, for those you love. So may I recommend ordering your back-ordered copy of Poetry Unbound and making a handmade card with a promise of a copy of this lovely literary treasure chest in the new year.

Finally, be on the lookout this coming week for a December reflection from me in your podcast feed — and an announcement and invitation, too.

On December 21st, On Being and Theater of War Productions are collaborating to present Antigone in Savannah. The production will take place in Savannah, Georgia, and will also be streamed live online for our wider community. This event is an offering to allow the timeless resonance of the ancient Greek texts to help us consider ourselves anew in history. We invite you to RSVP to join us online, to consider the questions of Antigone in the context of our life together.

Thanks to all who wrote in this week or tagged us on socials. Krista and our team have so enjoyed reading your reflections, and will surface a few each Saturday, right here. Notes lightly edited for length and clarity.

From Peggy:
Here are some thoughts on Chapter 5, Talking to Strangers: 

The enchanting transitive verb “to joik” (page 149) is explained by Bridle: “One does not joik about a place, one joiks it directly.” Think of the evocative phrases from the American songbook: “Cry Me a River” and “Sing Me Home.” Those transitive verbs literally convey the listener to a place. Emojis can also be conveyances. When I choose to punctuate my email or sign a text message with icons expressive of emotion, my purpose is to send across cyberspace an extra-linguistic heart connection with the recipient’s heart, on the theory that we need all the heart-connecting we can get.  

Bridle writes of “an efflorescence of language. Freed from the constraints of the language police – teachers, parents, exam boards and academies” (page 153). Our K-12 educational system for too long insisted on children’s use of (or [yikes!] “mastery” of) “standard English,” which is sort of like trying to keep the Mississippi River from changing its course. (Chapter 6 spoiler alert!) Remember Ocean Vuong’s lament that he and countless other children are excluded when our systems demand conformity with one and only one way to speak and write English. He said to Krista, “language is always changing.” 

From Rich:
I, too, have a passion for language. I have dozens of books that talk about the origins of our words, phrases, and rituals. They all fascinate me! Currently, I am re-reading the book, The Tyranny of Words by Stuart Chase (written in 1938). It is all about looking at words we use and how the same word can mean different things to different people. For example, he asked ten of his friends to define "Democracy" and he got ten different answers!