The tchk tchk tchk of the wren in the crabapple tree supplies the sound effect for my mind as it skips across the surface of things. I pick up another thought and skim it. It flies away too fast for me to notice where it sinks. No matter, another thought lies glistening on the strand, unconsciousness lapping centimetres away. I take another and throw it out across the morning lake, carelessly. When I look down, it’s still in my hand, how can that be? I throw it again and clearly see it fly towards the far shore but I can still feel its heft in my palm. OK, then. This thought is with me for the day. I pocket it, make some tea and then sit here to write to you.
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Unfocus
Separate screens in everyone’s hands are the dissipation of focus, literally, ‘focus’ being the hearth fire in Latin (Hestia, in Greek). Our screens are like millions of tiny flames, no good to warm anyone, easy to burn ourselves with; like lighters compared to the home fire, or even to the modern stove. Glittering devices with a flicker rate that somehow stops me from remembering anything I read on them, whereas I have no such problem with paper. Eleanor Robins pointed this common feeling out on her visit to my summer workshop and it explained the strange vacuity I experience after consuming writing on a screen, contrasting with the satiety I feel after devouring a book.
Even the television shared at least some of the hearth function when there was only one in each house which everyone had to gather around if they wanted to watch a programme. ‘With a coal fire,’ my sister said while we were camping recently, gathered around the firepit, ‘our backs were always cold so we huddled close by the fireplace.’ Since central heating arrived the dispersed heat feels subliminal and we do not know it in our bodies, it’s ambient, calorific, muzak. Proliferating screens are the death of story. Cold backs are the seeds of epics. The fear of being sent away from the warmth (physical, divine, metaphorical) developed our imaginative capacities. A good yarn to share in the hand1 or the mind2 was a sure way to a seat at the hearthside. My heart asks me to retreat from light emitting diodes and retrace my steps to the candle, the window and the hearth. Or better still, to walk out into the light.
This post was first published with full transcript, images, footnotes and links here on Substackon 29th September 2026.
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