Monday Notes #4

Disneyland for exhausted parents, Meta glasses, and Indonesian tree snails.

Note on the notebook: Monday Notes are a weekly writing routine: part journal, part forced writing practice.

Alongside Monday Notes I publish essays on society, culture, technology, creativity, and parenthood.

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The resort unfolds downwards, towards the beach. It’s a sequence of grey stone terraces, thatched roofs, and blooming Bouganvilleas that melt over each available edge like Neopolitan ice-cream.

It’s evening, and the sun has just dunked itself into the ocean under a twinkling necklace of fishing boats on the horizon. The resort itself is lit by small stone lamps, and the occasional, quick flash from the restaurant below. Phone cameras gobbling up the first bite of each perfectly presented meal.

There are hungry cameras everywhere. Some selfie sticks and GoPros, but it’s mostly tourists posing in pools and and bars, carefully curating the evidence of how good a time they had. It’s almost a ritual - and passersby are respectful enough to stop mid-stride and wait, or duck under the firing line of another impromptu photoshoot.

I’m in Bali, at a resort in Ubud. It’s stunning. In that way that these sorts of resorts are: an orchestrated, manicured, and artificial experience full of extremely friendly and warm people. It’s also the kind of place that loves kids, which is exactly the reason we’re here at this Disneyland for exhausted parents.

I can’t help but wonder what this will look like in a few years, though. If Meta has their way, it’ll be swarmed with people in thick-rimmed black glasses, recording everything in sight like a convention of spies. Meta glasses are intended to be the next big thing and for a world obsessed with capturing everything - I post, therefore I am - this might just work.

On the other hand, we’re entering an age of exhaustion with artificiality. We might end up seeing a rejection of this kind of sharing culture. Less posing in pools, more handwritten notes on the experience, collages, and collected ephemera to show you went - but without the need to suck in bellies.

Note: Meta has spent more than $80bn on VR and it didn’t work out. There’s a good reason they’re not giving up on it though, and a good reason why their glasses are such a big deal. I’m working on a piece about this - Pocket Dimensions - that’ll be ready later this month.

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On my bedside table

Remains of the Day - almost done.

I could only fit this in my travel bag though, so I’ll need to find something else to read here. I hope the gift shop has books…

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Field notes

This is an Indonesian tree snail.

What’s unusual about Indonesian tree snails is that they grow shells to either left or right. Most snail species, apparently, are lefties or righties. But these snails are both.

I had no idea snails grew shells to one side. I had no need to know this. I probably will never need to know this.

But, out on a pram walk with my baby son, I spotted this banana yellow shell attached to the tree and snapped a photo. An image search later led me to learn that this was indeed a snail, and its chirality. Which is apparently the word used to refer to shell direction - dextral (right-handed) or sinistral (left-handed).

I almost didn’t stop to take the photo. But I did and now I know this.

I’m not sure this enriches my life in any measureable way, but it probably does enrich it. What is the point of life if not to experience unexpected things and learn facts about snail shells?

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Good things

I’ve discovered Pretty Girls Eat Guts on Substack. While I’m not a pretty girl I do enjoy food and love good writing. This has both.

This note in particular won me over. But if you want food history and great wordage - this is the go.

-WSS

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Happy Monday.

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