Notes from the Grid

What if we rediscovered our own privacy, our own hidden life, a place where our opinions and ideas didn't need to be constantly proclaimed, seen, and approved? What if we understood that the only real problem is meaning, and where we choose to find it or create it? What if we sensed that none of our categories or attempts at identity can completely represent or explain us? What if we accepted our own complexity? What if we were taught that the world cannot be perfected, that irregularity cannot be overcome, that ambiguity cannot be ironed out? What if we found ways to live in a difficult and uncertain world, instead of being overwhelmed by its imperfections? What if we reconsidered what all of this could mean for how we live with culture and religion, education and technology, and how we view the past and live in the present?

First begun in 2006, Notes from the Grid has been following behind its author ever since, and has emerged as a kind of Tao Te Ching for our times: a brief account of how we are living now, and how we might, just might, live differently. Notes from the Grid also exists, in a slightly different and sometimes expanded form, as episodes on the podcast Human Voices Wake Us. You can listen to each episode here: https: //wordandsilence.com/notes-from-the-grid/.