Journeying in Time - Special Episode
The Eddy Network Podcast Episode 246
I am taking time away, not off, but away from things that typically occupy my time.
I read and reread writers like T.S. Eliot, William Shakespeare, William Faulkner, and J.R.R. Tolkien. The key in rereading them is in listening. Listening is different than reading. It is more like a conversation. Listening to the ramblings of Faulkner’s characters in The Sound and The Fury, you gain a visceral experience of what these children of a wealthy Mississippi family have. There is nothing appealing about their experience. It does, however, provide a foil in which we can make a real-world assessment of our lives and those closest to us.
Have you ever sat in a meeting where one of the participants gets sidetracked and just goes on and on and on about something that is not at all relevant to the groups purpose? I had this experience in trying to listen to Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises. I had a hard time finding the rhythm and the edge of story that would show me why this story matters.
I’d also recommend reading Hartmut Rosa’s Acceleration: A New Theory of Modernity and Resonance: A Sociology of Our Relationship With The World. For here is a key to how time and reality intermingled to show us a way through the many serialized simulations we encounter.
So, listen to audiobooks that force you out of your comfort zone, and help you gain a sense of connection to someone new. It will expand your sense of presence and help you find things that resonate in the past and for the future.
And take a long road trip. Long means patience and constant awareness of your surroundings. Do this as you listen to something that is not a repeat or a regurgitation of what you spend each day thinking. Whether you realize it our not, you, me, all of us are captured by “the simulacra of time.”
T.S. Eliot, William Shakespeare, William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, and J.R.R. Tolkien
The museum is the Elk Mountain Museum in Elk Mountain, Wyoming - https://www.elkmountainmuseum.com/
Hartmut Rosa’s Acceleration: A New Theory of Modernity and Resonance: A Sociology of Our Relationship With The World.
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Writer, Speaker, Podcaster, Social Catalyst
Website - https://edbrenegar.com
Writings - https:// edbrenegar.substack.com
Books - https://amazon.com/author/edbrenegar
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/edbrenegar/
The Eddy Network Podcast - https://tinyurl.com/42xx39ph
The Eddy Network WinstonSalem Persons of Impact - https://tinyurl.com/3n4mfup4
The Eddy Network Podcast First Conversations - http://tinyurl.com/yc278v49
The Eddy Network Podcast Poets - https://tinyurl.com/463nbyab
Circle of Impact Leadership 6 Video Series - https://tinyurl.com/ye29t258
My LinkedIn introduction to this episode:
One of the Circle of Impact Guiding Principles is “We are all in transition. Everyone of us. All the time.”
What if this is not a statement of effects, but rather a statement of intention.
The problem is that most structures are not designed for change or movement through time. They prefer to be inert, lifeless, and constraining.
Human beings are designed for change. We do not function well as sedentary creatures. We need change to bring all facets of life together. This is how creativity becomes something more than a special tool for occasional use.
We think of change as bad because it doesn’t allow us settle for the current state of being. We have been conditioned to life repetitive lives without a clear sense of meaning and accomplishment.
This is why money, power, and status can destroy creativity. They are about achieving a stationary state of comfort and settleness.
Movement through time and space demands simplicity, lightness, and constant situational awareness.
This is why I like road trips. I have to watch and listen. For me part of that listening is reading audiobooks. It is very different than sitting in a comfy chair in a quiet room. I am listening to the Fellowship of the Ring as they journey through Middle Earth as I journey through Middle America.
This is what this special episode of The Eddy Network Podcast is about. Listening with your eyes on the road and your ears to the conversation that we have with the author of every book. It turns a stationary exercise of reading into dynamic context of listening. Reading becomes conversational. And for me, when necessary, I pull off the highway and take notes.
For me, it is the perfect context for seeing the world differently and being in transition.
My advice go somewhere you have never been, on roads you’ve never driven, and with no plan until you arrive there. Do that for one day. Then go home. Do it once a month for a year, and see how the beauty of the journey through time will grow on you.