Meaning in the Missing
We don’t fully appreciate some things until they’re gone.
We might intellectually know that we’d miss them, and may even recall a previous absence that struck us like a bell, reverberating through seemingly disconnected aspects of our routines and priorities and lifestyles—but that’s not the same as viscerally, presently experiencing an omission.
I recently had to set aside coffee for a few weeks, for instance, and a morning cup or two of simple, black joe is a ritual I enjoy as part of a larger collection of routines I also enjoy.
The dearth of coffee itself is non-ideal, as mild withdraw symptoms can result from cold-turkeying caffeine. But the loss of that little cup to sip on, that tiny burst of implied energy and wakefulness, that hot bitterness I’ve come to associate with reading and writing and learning and starting my day: that was the real casualty.
The same is true of exercise, which I haven’t been allowed to perform for the past week or so.
The workout itself is worthwhile for many reasons, but the larger role it plays in my life—the many strings that connect it to other rhythms and moods and sensations and habits that are disrupted, altered, or rendered useless in its absence—that’s the vacuum I feel on a visceral level. Which is connected to, but distinct from, the deprivation that’s intellectually understood but not experienced firsthand.
Most of us experience this type of ache at some point in our lives, whether it’s for something relatively mundane, like a beloved beverage or habit, or something far more structural like a home left behind, a job lost, a relationship severed, or an entire lifestyle cadence rendered arrhythmic.
Some absences are pockmarks, others are craters.
Some maintain the shape of painlessly extracted tent stakes, while others collapse into the cavity left by now-missing, massively interconnected root systems.
Some such voids replenish with time or are laboriously reconditioned, while others—a lost loved one, an irreversible decision—remain forever modified.
We don’t always have control over what changes and when, but we do have the ability to perceive such transformations as evolutionary transition points rather than inherently burdensome mutations.
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I found this gem here at my parents’ house: quite possibly my peak awkward-phase. Though I’ve probably been in such a phase my entire life, by some measures.
Projects
This week on Brain Lenses I published an essay about the Wisdom of the Crowd, and a podcast episode about Theory of Mind.
This week’s episode of Let’s Know Things is about Normalizing Relations in the Middle East, and supporters got a bonus episode about Painkillers & Risk.
Interesting & Useful
Some neat things:
Brilliant Maps(this is squarely within my cartographical wheelhouse)
The Figurine in Diorama(research paper w/ abundant photos about mini animal figures and the diorama scene)
r/specializedtools(subreddit about very specialized tools)
Shifting Smoke(nicely illustrated piece on California wildfires)
From Rotterdam to Amsterdam(10-minute, 4K timelapse of a Dutch boat journey)
X Minus One(complete archive of a science fiction radio show from the 50s)
Uncommon Ephemera(YouTube channel of commercials, educational filmstrips, and other random bits of media from the 1940s-1980s US)
For more interesting things of this kind, pop on over to Curiosity Gadget.
This, on the other hand, would appear to be Peak Cool Colin (yes, it was the early 90s).
Outro
My first week of post-surgery healing is out of the way, and after a check-in with the doctor, I was assured I could have a cup of coffee, start working out again, and slowly begin to reintroduce a few other cherished habits and activities I’d previously taken for granted, as well.
I appreciate all the well-wishes this past week! I’m fine: it wasn’t pleasant, but it also wasn’t the end of the world. The anticipation was worse than the procedure, in some ways.
Everything went great with the surgery, and I now have a lovely titanium screw in my jaw, which I’m pretty sure makes me a cyborg—so this whole situation is ultimately a win (though I’m a little peeved that the screw doesn’t even get WiFi; this isn’t the cybernetic future I was promised).
I’m still taking it easy for the next few weeks, and it’ll be another handful of months before the bone has fully mended.
That said, I feel incredibly fortunate to have been able to get this surgery done in the first place, and to be in a position to rest and recuperate when my well-being requires it—two things not everyone is able to do, but both of which everyone should be able to do.
How’s your week been going? Getting up to anything interesting in October? Have any photos of your peak cool or peak awkward phases you want to share with a stranger from the internet (bonus points if you share one of each)?
Also: how’re you doing in general right now? Family and friends okay? You okay?
I respond to every email I receive, and I’d love to hear from you—whether it’s a quick introduction and hello, a journal-like narrative of your current situation, or a list of hopes and dreams or worries and concerns that you just want to tell someone, anyone about.
Whatever the case: you’re not alone and I’m cheering for you from here in mid-Missouri :)
You can say howdy by responding to this newsletter, or at colin@exilelifestyle.com.
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If you’re finding some value in what I’m doing here, consider supporting my work by becoming a patron of my writing or my news analysis podcast, buying one of my books, or subscribing to Brain Lenses. You can also keep it simple and buy me a coffee.