Seven-ping Sunday (7)

In which the Tao of the ping factor is pontificated.

When you discover that tallying pings actually keeps you present and immersed. That it’s not about the ping itself, but the quality of your engagement with what is going on around you, inside you, above you, below you.

Quote of the week: “Everyone has their own version of deep immersion in the moment, of engaging with the world in an embodied and sensual way, whether it’s dancing or dog-walking, cake-decorating or dirt-biking. What does matter is that we are beset with the ideology of maximising having while minimising doing.” – “What technology takes from us – and how to take it back”, Rebecca Solnit, The Guardian

Kitchen pings: Sitting here in my kitchen (which, despite having a front room with ample desk space, is inexplicably my favourite workplace), I’m suddenly struck by how many odd items give me a ping when I look at them. The lovely Kalk Bay harbour calendar, Cape Town: an illustrated poem by Julia Gray, a 50th birthday gift from my mom-in-law, retro green and glitzy gold coffee jars gifted us by a friend in India after attending their son’s glitzy wedding, a very kitsch but very funky 80s sherry set left me by my mom, a Willow pattern cheese keeper left me by my dad left him by his mom, a bougie cookie jar from Kalk Bay craft market gifted me by my sister-in-law, and a pie-eyed doodle of a human on newspaper, which I often find myself doing in ‘between time’. Every now and then I’ll hit a flurry of sketches of people; my brother doesn’t understand why I didn’t follow that path, but I’ve only ever thought of it as a casual hobby.

What I watched: ‘How to get to heaven from Belfast’. A dark and hilarious comedy series with esoteric undertones in which three Irish school mates embark on an adventure which lands them in deep and murky water when a friend disappears.

Ping ping: Finance ain’t my thang, but my finance director niece does it with such integrity and flair, I can’t not quote her. Click here.

Dip of the week: Fish Hoek beach – where size, shape and designer label count for nothing. Pings are earned on warmth alone. As I rediscovered when seven of us, some out from the UK for my nephew’s wedding, converged on Human Rights Day on the Galley tea room for Sunrise breakfasts, assembled by the best fried egg maker in town. You might wait a while to get served, but that opens up the space for unexpected encounters – we were there on our anniversary and the couple next to us asked me to take a picture of them for theirs. I do love a synchronicity.

Read of the week: ‘Sunday dinner is not just Sunday dinner’. US romance writer Jheanell Westonberry on the deep import of Sunday family dinners and how it came about for slave descendants. Shades of ghoema and the domestic celebratory binding forces which kept Cape slaves, despatched, inter alia, from Madagascar, Sri Lanka, India, Indonesia, together. Click here.

Entranced as I always have been by the I Ching, it’s hardly surprising that Diamond-Michael Scott, author of the Daily Chocolate Taoist, often speaks to me. As substack evolves from a platform for thoughtful newsletters to a more contemporary space for daily engagement, I am left wondering whether my wee weekly pings, which started out as a fun series, wouldn’t work better as daily shots of reflection. In this entry, Scott ponders universal loneliness, which, in the technological age, seems to be more prevalent. I like to think of the ping factor equating to the description of the silent Tao, happy with vibrant emptiness, where it has the space to connect, rather than seeking noise to fill it up. All feedback gratefully received! Click here.