An Introduction
Whatever it is that you do, it’s probably a process. Most things are. I was a barista while in college. Making a latte is a process. Learning to make a latte well is a longer process. In time, you can pull one thousand shots of espresso with perfect crema, steam one thousand pitchers of milk to the perfect temperature with steam wands submerged at the perfect angle, pour said milks into said espressos without breaking said cremas and make one thousand perfect lattes simply because you were taught how to do all these things. But if you never grasp the fact that a wrongly submerged steam wand creates too much foam in the milk, thereby messing up the espresso:milk:foam ratio, then you will never understand the exacting difference between a latte and a cappuccino. Learning why a well made latte is made well requires a different kind of process: processing the process.
Too often, we rush through our lives without processing anything. We go through the motions of what others tell us and what we tell ourselves to do and never think about why it matters or what it means. Beyond the routines of work or school or home, we increasingly do even our recreational activities out of habit, obligation or the nagging feeling of trying to keep up.
I live in Manhattan, an island that wouldn’t be able to keep up with itself if it weren’t the giant slab of sedentary sedimentary rock that it is. Culturally, it’s the Promised Land for the best of the best, and there are new bests every day – gallery openings, menu tastings, Pulitzer readings, debut symphonies, one-act plays, fashion weeks. But not everyone who reads The Riveter lives in New York, and not everyone who lives in New York has or makes time to add extra activities to their iCals. So rather than the happenings themselves, this column will emphasize the processing of them – why they exist, what their creations mean – bringing in modern science and research to give fact backbones to their profundities.
(For example:) A series of studies done during the course of the past 20 years showed that, by some kind of miracle, we do our most important mental organization when we’re asleep, not thinking at all. Our brains filter out all of the loose bits of information that we accumulate every day, weakening connections we made that it didn’t find pertinent enough to retain, such as a phone number briefly memorized or a fortune cookie’s promise. But facts and experiences that either were akin to our preexisting memory banks or made deep impressions – those synaptic connections are strengthened. Those, our brains keep. And thank goodness, because when otherwise would we – do we – make a conscious effort to do this level of information processing on our own? When do we take the time out of our iCals to think about how what we do connects us to our individual selves, and then, to the greater collective of us?
Or, conversely, are we sleeping with responsibilities that we shouldn’t? If our mindful selves never process anything enough to impress our unconscious selves, do we unknowingly let go of so much we initially intended to keep?
One of Truman Capote’s most artful short profiles is of the baroness Karen Blixen in her old age, still alight with all her intellect and charm. Perhaps you know her as Isak Dinesen, the pseudonym under which she wrote Out of Africa to mask her gender back when women’s writing was not yet accepted with respect (re the mission statement of The Riveter). Capote ends with the following: “Her own answer has been a yes to life, an affirmation her art echoes with an echo that will echo.”
Our lives are cave mazes of echoes. Culture echoes the news; the news echoes our belief systems; our belief systems echo in our relationships; our relationships echo in the relationships we have with ourselves. By nature, echoes are processes. But they’re subtle, and without taking the time to attune to how each sound is softer or brasher, closer or further away than the last, the echoes in our lives turn into one monotonous stream of noises that we end up literally sleeping through. In the manner of both Capote and Blixen (and Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen…), this column – the writing of it included – is an exercise in processing the culturally connective processes we go through. I hope it will prove a thoughtful and informative reflection on all the things to which we say yes, an affirmation of all the connections between the echoes we hear in our daily lives. Or, at the very least, a reminder to process them during our waking hours.
Gabrielle Lipton is a freelance writer living in Manhattan. Previous publication includes Slate, IndieWIRE, Paste and Relapse; side projects include her website and concocting unusual flavors of homemade ice cream.
