Kicked out of Narnia

And finding myself in Rivendell

At this point, I have to acknowledge that most of you are here for the “philosophy” half of this “fiction and philosophy” newsletter. Honestly this is OK with me. I want and need to keep writing about The Notebook Rule, and other points of personal concern on topics of truth-seeking and meaning-making, and I’m wonderfully encouraged that so many of you seem to care about this stuff as much as I do.

That said, I’ll still periodically share new fiction, update you on the progress I’m making with Arch/Eternal, and pressure you to buy Shadow & Fire, which is currently available on Kindle, and soon to be available in paperback.

I also won’t promise not to include disclaimers like this in the future. It’s hard to keep people oriented in a publication as adamantly uncategorizable as this one.

OK, on to this week’s thing.¹

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Rendition of Rivendell courtesy of the phantasmagoria (ie DALL-E)

Kicked out of Narnia

Two weeks ago, I shared Uncomfortable on Purpose, a heavily edited transcript of my conversation with Claudine Wolk.

The subtitle of that post — “A portal key to sublimity” — was inspired by this bit:

…the analogy in my mind, that I don't share with people, because it sounds really silly, is it’s kind of like I found like a portal key to Narnia, and staying in Narnia requires holding onto the portal key, and the portal key is using the Notebook Rule.

In the two weeks since, I’ve had a harder and harder time keeping The Notebook Rule, to the point that by the middle of this week, I had abandoned it almost completely.

And I gotta tell you, it feels a lot like getting kicked out of Narnia.

Back to Baseline

Time slips away.

I can’t remember anything from all those hours I spent watching stuff or reading stuff or listening to stuff.

I don’t feel any more meaningfully informed after spending who knows how much time scrolling news feeds.

And were any of those conversations I read on Discord really worth the time it took to read them?

Numbness, regret, fatigue.

What was it I was hoping to get done this week?

Ah, these familiar feelings.

Oh yeah, I’m married

I’m very lucky — exceptionally, annoying lucky — to be married to my best friend. We’re ten years deep into a relationship of mutual support and respect that neither of us take advantage of enough.

So when my wife said to me yesterday, at a local nadir of my digital dope addiction, that she thinks she might need to try out the Notebook Rule… well, you can imagine how that felt.

Great. Terrible.

We talked about it. I said something about how the Rule is either very easy (surprisingly easy! wonderfully easy!) or it’s impossible.

Lately, it’s been feeling impossible.

I realized that if either of us hope to do the thing, and keep doing it, we’re going to need to help each other out.

Anyway, our conversation got me thinking about why it’s felt so impossible lately, when it felt so simple and effective before.

Apple’s Vision Pro is a stupid waste of money
(a relevant aside I promise)

No, I didn’t buy one. No, I haven’t even tried it out.

But I don’t need to, and neither do you. The thing it does — overlay your experience of the world with the big dumb internet — is already happening inside your brain.

The “Internet” is an unending phatasmagoria, ever-teeming with corrosive delights, which has so colonized our minds that it usually seems realer to us than reality. We don’t need the ski goggles — we already live inside it. Our experience of the world, after all, is completely constructed by the mind. So if our minds are constantly thinking about the digital landscapes we occupy through our screens, then we are already living in the so-called “augmented reality” that the Vision Pro promises.

I had it backwards

The Notebook Rule isn’t a portal key to Narnia, it’s the thing I was using to keep the digital world from subsuming reality.

Because while there are all kinds of good and valuable and necessary things to be consumed and produced within the Internet’s World of Wonders (TM), it all exists within an infinite, roiling ocean of distraction that will simply wash away your intentions as soon as you enter.

The Notebook Rule is my protection against colonization. It’s a set of magic gloves that let me reach in and do or get what I intended out of the phantasmagoria, while also protecting my mind from being completely colonized by it.

Or, in other words, it’s a condom for my brain.

The world is already enchanted

I’ll be writing a lot more about this, but for now, suffice it to say that the world we live in — the actual, physical world of people, places, and things — is full of magic.

We already live in Narnia.

But if my brain is colonized by the screens I use, then the magic of the real world becomes obscured by digital phantasms.

Worse, in my endless pursuit of empty calories, I forget the enchantments that suffuse my actual world.

Or maybe Rivendell?

I’ve been re-reading Lord of the Rings², so I sort of wish I’d picked the House of Elrond for my metaphorical enchanted world. Can we switch? Let’s switch.

I imagine myself wandering through the beautiful halls of this ancient elvish enclave, talking with friends, reading books, standing outside to appreciate nature, or just relaxing into a comfortable chair in a hidden corner to explore my own inner space, and where it intersects with others’.

Wherever I am, whatever I’m doing, I can feel deep magic knit into the very timbers and tapestries. I can feel the love of all who have lived here and visited. I can feel the history, and my place within it. If I keep still, and listen, the veil between the seen and unseen thins, and I am reminded of the one truth every mystic who ever lived has sworn: everything is connected.

Here and there, sprinkled throughout the sanctuary, are little pockets of light. At any time, I can approach one to access bottomless troves of information, and connect to people all over the world. They offer opportunities to share art and ideas through space and time.

But these lights are dangerous. Anyone who touches them carelessly will be blinded in the House of Elrond, seeing only the furious wash of sound and color, becoming numb and insensible to all else.

Those who have been thus blinded wander the vaulted corridors and lush balconies with bent backs and disconsolate weariness, stalked by unquenchable thirst and insatiable hunger. In their ears is an unending noise that causes them to forget everything they knew before they touched the lights.

What can I do to avoid their fate?

I need me some magic gloves

To torture my indulgent metaphor just a little further, a set of magic gloves will allow me to interact with the lights without becoming infected by them. Only when I’m wearing them will I be able to reach into that world and get or do exactly what I intend, without becoming washed away by all the sound and color.

That’s what the Notebook Rule is. It’s my set of magic gloves. It’s my brain condom. My hazmat suit.

Here’s the thing though: if I’m inhabiting the phantasmagoria, how can I possibly convince myself to put on the gloves? All they do is make it harder to do all the things I think I want to do.

Only after my brain has been decolonized does it become easier to put on the gloves. Because it is only then that I can see clearly…

I live in Rivendell.

And so do you.

We all do.

The world is enchanted. The only reason it doesn’t feel that way is because you are blinded by the lights.

Unblinding

Have you ever actually done a digital fast? Even just for a day? It is remarkable how quickly the phantasms fade and the magic comes back.

Try it.

And if you’ve tried it, and you know, try it again. Notice how the substance of real life presses in on you, offering more than you can possibly take, promising to carry you upward on a river of meaning.

The great irony is that the phantasmagoria of corrosive delights must exert constant influence over us to keep us blinded and numbed. Even just a little distance, even for just for a little while, gives you the opportunity to remember what it feels like to be alive.

And then, to stay alive, put on a pair of magic gloves³ before you touch the lights again.

Commitment is Recommitment

A few weeks ago, in Commitments are hard, I pulled this great quote I love from an OK movie:

You cannot make a real commitment unless you accept that it’s a choice that you keep making again and again and again.

But recommitments also often means refinement, and the refinement du jour is some mutual support between me and my wife.

It’s not so much an accountability thing, though, as it is a reminder that we live in Rivendell. Our world is enchanted. We both know it. And we both also know how easy it is to go blind and forget.

So if we see each other touching the lights without gloves, or if we notice a stooped weariness that suggests one of us has been colonized by the phantasmagoria, we will work to pull each other back to reality.

Back to the enchanted world.

Back to life.

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Sharing time — yes that means you

1. For me it’s Rivendell. Where is it for you?

2. Have any good strategies for unblinding? What are they?

3. What are your favorite ways to fall back in love with the real world?

1. I nearly wrote “exploration of practical philosophy,” but every once in a while I figure I can put forth some token effort into sounding less pretentious than I actually am.

2. It’s been more than 20 years. Crazy.

3. Or slipping on the condom. Listen, I’m not here to dictate your preference of metaphors.