Let a thing remain a worry stone
Last year, when the lockdowns were coming down on us everywhere, Ethan Marcotte occasionally posted short updates to his website, accompanied with the mantra, let a website be a worry stone.
For the uninitiated, a worry stone is a smooth, polished stone you can hold in the hand. It has an indentation along which you can run your thumb. The weight of the stone in your hand, the soft repetitive action and the tactility of it are soothing. Like a stress ball, a worry stone is a judgement-free receptacle for worry.
Personal projects and personal spaces are often worry stones. Faced with an excess of emotion, I might reorganize my space at work, tinker with my bicycle, or spend time on a generative sketch.
I think the two adjectives I used are key – receptacle for emotions, and judgement-free. Digital hobbies sometimes try to slip away from one or the other.
What if you sold your art, or made people pay for access to your journal or newsletter? I think it’s how we often trick ourselves, and turn what should be a worry stone into a worry source instead.
To undertake an activity that’s personal, open-ended, maybe even pointless, can be the whole point. It’s a form of liberation.
🖤 Loved lately
Matt Deslaurier recently announced a beautiful art game – part visual piece, part poetry – called Wayfinder. It’s beautiful and relaxing. I love the soundscape in it too. Give it roughly ten minutes so you can wander and compose a few poems.
Everyone Is Beautiful and No One Is Horny, by Raquel S. Benedict for Bloodknife. Cinema today is an industry that plasters our screens with characters made of perfect bodies and, an absence of sexuality. And there’s a larger point made about our relationship to our own body and health.
And the reason for my intro: Let a website be a worry stone, a blog by Ethan Marcotte himself, as well as This used to be our playground, by Simon Collison later this winter.