A Year in Reading: Restraint as Wisdom

My New Year’s resolutions are rarely the “go to the gym” variety.

我的新年决心很少是“去健身房”。

I ask complicated questions, especially since becoming a parent: How do I raise a child in today’s world?

我会问一些复杂的问题，尤其是在成为父母之后：在当今世界我如何抚养孩子？

Can I live sustainably and ethically in a culture of excess?

我能在过度文化中以可持续且合乎道德的方式生活吗？

Sara Michas-Martin’s Orion essay “Mother Load,” one of the first pieces I recommended in 2025, set the tone for my year.

Sara Michas-Martin 的 Orion 文章《Mother Load》是我在 2025 年推荐的第一批文章之一，为我的这一年定下了基调。

She writes about the wilderness of motherhood on a polluted planet, where we consume, both knowingly and unknowingly, human-made hazards and microplastics.

她描写了在一个被污染的星球上母性的荒野，在那里我们有意无意地消耗着人为的危害和微塑料。

I came away from the piece heavy with anxiety, contemplating the broken boundary between our bodies and our toxic world, and how easily we overlook what enters our homes, our routines, and ourselves.

看完这篇文章后，我充满了焦虑，思考着我们的身体和有毒世界之间破碎的界限，以及我们是多么容易忽视进入我们的家庭、我们的日常生活和我们自己的东西。

I kept returning this year to stories that explore the violation of limits.

今年我不断地回顾探索突破限制的故事。

Stephanie Krzywonos’s “Museum of Color,” for Emergence Magazine, describes the invasive processes used to make pigments like bone black and Tyrian purple.

斯蒂芬妮·克兹沃诺斯 (Stephanie Krzywonos) 为 Emergence 杂志撰写的“色彩博物馆”描述了用于制造骨黑和泰尔紫等颜料的侵入性工艺。

Each vignette traces stories of violence and exploitation, revealing how color has a cost, and how we routinely treat the earth, and beings on it, as bottomless resources.

每个小插曲都追溯了暴力和剥削的故事，揭示了色彩如何产生成本，以及我们如何常规地将地球及其上的生物视为取之不尽的资源。

Since toxic practices still linger in the colors we use, eat, and wear, her piece made me reconsider my own consumption, especially in the small decisions I make each day.

由于有毒的做法仍然存在于我们使用、饮食和穿着的颜色中，她的作品让我重新考虑自己的消费，尤其是在我每天做出的小决定中。

Both Michas-Martin and Krzywonos show what happens when we treat bodies and landscapes as if they have no limits.

米哈斯-马丁和克兹沃诺斯都展示了当我们将身体和风景视为没有限制时会发生什么。

One intimate, one historical, these pieces sit in quiet conversation, reminding me how deeply destruction is woven into daily life.

这些作品一件件亲密，一件历史性的，静静地交谈着，提醒我破坏是如何深深地融入日常生活中的。

I’ll balance these heavier reads with an Atmos interview that brought me new perspective.

我将平衡这些较重的阅读与给我带来新视角的 Atmos 采访。

In “Why One Geologist Thinks We Should All Pay More Attention to Rocks,” Marcia Bjornerud invites us to contextualize our existence within geological time, a span of billions of years.

在《为什么一位地质学家认为我们都应该更加关注岩石》一文中，Marcia Bjornerud 邀请我们将我们的存在置于数十亿年的地质时间背景下。

Human-made systems run on speed and growth, and “technologies keep us trapped in the moment in a consumptive cycle,” she says.

人造系统以速度和增长为基础运行，而“技术让我们陷入消费周期的当下，”她说。

But Earth operates on a drastically different clock, and if we are able to think about its present and future across a longer timescale, we might combat the shortsightedness that drives many of today’s crises.

但地球运行在一个完全不同的时钟上，如果我们能够在更长的时间尺度上思考地球的现在和未来，我们可能会克服导致当今许多危机的短视行为。

Deep time itself is a lesson in limits.

深度时间本身就是关于限制的一课。

“People have no depth of field,” says Bjornerud, “no understanding of how long ago different historical and natural events happened, and no idea of how long phenomena like the mass extinctions of the past took—and how long it took to recover from them.” The wisdom held within ancient rocks urges us to listen to Earth and accept its boundaries instead of manipulating them.

“人们没有景深，”比约内鲁德说，“不知道不同的历史和自然事件发生了多久，也不知道像过去的大规模灭绝这样的现象花了多长时间，以及需要多长时间才能从这些现象中恢复过来。”古代岩石中蕴含的智慧敦促我们倾听地球的声音并接受它的边界，而不是操纵它们。

After thinking about limits at this scale, I eventually turned inward.

在思考了如此规模的限制之后，我最终转向了内心。

I wanted to pay better attention to the natural world this year, but the reality is that I’ve been emotionally exhausted.

今年我想更多地关注自然世界，但现实是我已经精神疲惫了。

I don’t have the bandwidth to do what I need to do at work and at home.

我没有足够的带宽来完成我在工作和家里需要做的事情。

And rarely do I allow myself to do less.

我很少允许自己做得更少。

Every external signal tells me that’s not acceptable.

每个外部信号都告诉我这是不可接受的。

This is why Elena Mary’s Aeon essay, “‘I Awoke at ½ Past 7,’” struck a nerve.

这就是为什么埃琳娜·玛丽（Elena Mary）的 Aeon 文章“‘我在七点半醒来’”触动了人们的神经。

We live in an age of over-optimization, and it might seem like smartphones and social media ushered us into this period of endless noise and expectation.

我们生活在一个过度优化的时代，智能手机和社交媒体似乎将我们带入了这个充满无尽噪音和期望的时期。

But, as Mary writes, this impulse to optimize isn’t new: Victorian diarists practiced meticulous self-monitoring and performative self-improvement, responding to the rapid progress of the 19th century.

但是，正如玛丽所写，这种优化的冲动并不新鲜：维多利亚时代的日记作者实践着细致的自我监控和表演性的自我改进，以应对 19 世纪的快速进步。

Mary draws astute parallels to our heavily tracked, anxiety-filled modern lives.

玛丽敏锐地把我们的生活与我们被严格追踪、充满焦虑的现代生活进行了类比。

Today’s technologies have only intensified the pressure to perform, stretching our attention past reasonable limits.

当今的技术只会加剧执行的压力，使我们的注意力超出了合理的限度。

As I researched dumbphones and more ethical apps this year, I wondered: Is it possible to escape algorithmic feeds and constant surveillance?

当我今年研究哑电话和更道德的应用程序时，我想知道：是否有可能逃脱算法提要和持续的监视？

Is it okay to stop optimizing?

停止优化可以吗？

I often feel paralyzed when I consider how I can meaningfully contribute to this world.

当我考虑如何为这个世界做出有意义的贡献时，我常常感到不知所措。

I’ve slowed down, paid more attention, widened my perspective.

我放慢了脚步，更加关注，拓宽了视野。

But I’ve also wondered what might happen if I narrow my lens: apply constraints to my days, focus on the choices that actually shape my world.

但我也想知道如果我缩小视野会发生什么：对我的日子施加限制，专注于真正塑造我的世界的选择。

If Bjornerud offered a change in perspective, Nylah Iqbal Muhammad, in “An Optimistic Quest in Apocalyptic Times” for The Bitter Southerner, offered a shift in practice.

如果说比约内鲁德提供了观点的改变，那么尼拉·伊克巴尔·穆罕默德在《苦涩的南方人》的《世界末日时期的乐观探索》中则提供了实践上的转变。

Muhammad reflects on hunting and reconnecting to the land.

穆罕默德反思狩猎和重新与土地建立联系。

I was moved by her hunger for knowledge and her quest for survival and rebirth into a new world not dominated by capitalism and a white patriarchy.

我被她对知识的渴望以及她对生存和重生进入一个不受资本主义和白人父权制统治的新世界的追求所感动。

She writes about ecological collapse and understanding both the earth’s and her own limits.

她写了关于生态崩溃的文章，并了解地球和她自己的极限。

“Even as this world burns,” she writes, “there are people learning how to build the next one.” Her approach to hunting, grounded in communion rather than conquest, feels like a model for living within limits instead of pushing past them.

“即使这个世界在燃烧，”她写道，“仍然有人在学习如何建造下一个世界。”她的狩猎方式以交流而非征服为基础，感觉就像是在限制内生活而不是超越限制的典范。

I’m not a hunter, but the piece stayed with me, and even nudged me to reconnect with the land in my own small way: to build raised beds in my backyard so I can grow my own food again.

我不是猎人，但这件作品一直伴随着我，甚至促使我以自己的小方式重新与土地建立联系：在我的后院建造高高的床，这样我就可以再次种植自己的食物。

Muhammad’s reflections pair well with Ash Sanders’s Believer essay, “The Last Resort,” about Bombay Beach, a community at the edge of California’s Salton Sea that has already reached its limit.

穆罕默德的反思与阿什·桑德斯 (Ash Sanders) 的信徒文章《最后的度假村》(The Last Resort) 非常吻合，该文章讲述了孟买海滩 (Bombay Beach)，这是加州索尔顿海边缘的一个社区，已经达到了极限。

The town, Sanders writes, “lives at the terminus of all our logic, caught inside everything we’ve ever done and all that has ever happened.” She visits during the annual Biennale, when eclectic artists converge and transform the town into performance art.

桑德斯写道，这座小镇“生活在我们所有逻辑的终点站，陷入了我们曾经做过的一切和曾经发生过的一切之中。”她在一年一度的双年展期间参观，当时不拘一格的艺术家汇聚一堂，将这座小镇变成了表演艺术。

Bombay Beach is a portrait of environmental ruin, yet within these constraints, people gather to philosophize and dream, creating freely in the face of devastation—or, as one artist puts it, “commiserating with collapse.” It’s an account of what happens when a place hits its breaking point and what might emerge from the wreckage.

孟买海滩是环境破坏的写照，但在这些限制下，人们聚集在一起进行哲学思考和梦想，在破坏面前自由地创造——或者，正如一位艺术家所说，“对崩溃表示同情”。它讲述了当一个地方达到临界点时会发生什么以及从废墟中可能出现什么。

This piece, like Muhammad’s, feels like standing at the edge of civilization, seeing the past and future of our fragile world at once.

这件作品，就像穆罕默德的作品一样，感觉就像站在文明的边缘，同时看到了我们脆弱世界的过去和未来。

Together, these essays on time, collapse, and resilience whisper the same truth: Earth is finite.

这些关于时间、崩溃和复原力的文章共同讲述了同一个真理：地球是有限的。

I am finite.

我是有限的。

They give me permission to say, It’s okay to do less, to work with what I have, to care for myself first.

他们允许我说，少做一点没关系，利用我所拥有的，先照顾好自己。

And I can apply this restraint online, too.

我也可以在网上应用这种限制。

In “The Last Days of Social Media” for Noēma, James O’Sullivan explains that today’s apps and platforms, “optimized for attention rather than meaning,” have pushed past the limits of genuine human connection.

詹姆斯·奥沙利文 (James O’Sullivan) 在 Noēma 的《社交媒体的最后日子》中解释说，当今的应用程序和平台“针对注意力而不是意义进行了优化”，已经超越了真正的人际关系的极限。

Much like society’s expectations of us IRL, we are first and foremost consumers online, designed to engage with an infinite scroll.

就像社会对我们现实生活的期望一样，我们首先是在线消费者，旨在参与无限滚动。

But he proposes that the death of social media could lead to a better internet: smaller and slower platforms, private spaces with real people.

但他提出，社交媒体的消亡可能会带来更好的互联网：更小、更慢的平台、有真人的私人空间。

A rewilding of the web, transforming it into a more diverse, healthy, and resilient ecosystem.

网络的复兴，将其转变为更加多样化、健康和有弹性的生态系统。

If O’Sullivan hints at the limits of online life, Frank Chimero’s “Beyond the Machine” explores the limits of artificial intelligence.

如果说奥沙利文暗示了网络生活的局限性，那么弗兰克·奇梅罗的《超越机器》则探索了人工智能的局限性。

Reading his piece on AI and creative agency— originally a talk given at a Brooklyn web conference—felt like a light at the end of a challenging year.

阅读他关于人工智能和创意机构的文章（最初是在布鲁克林网络会议上发表的演讲）感觉就像是充满挑战的一年结束时的一盏明灯。

Chimero considers the use of AI in terms of spatial relationships and compares the work of professionals across creative industries, from music producer Rick Rubin to filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki.

Chimero 考虑了人工智能在空间关系方面的使用，并比较了从音乐制作人 Rick Rubin 到电影制片人宫崎骏等创意行业专业人士的工作。

In a discussion of Spirited Away, “a film that wrestles with identity and imitation, appetite and satisfaction,” he focuses on No Face, an insatiable spirit that eats everything.

在讨论《千与千寻》这个“一部与身份与模仿、食欲与满足感角力的电影”时，他重点关注“无脸”，一种吞噬一切的贪得无厌的精神。

Even after it consumes something, it’s still hungry and wants more.

即使它吃了一些东西，它仍然感到饥饿并想要更多。

Chimero ultimately suggests that we can collaborate with the machine mindfully, rather than surrender to its infiniteness.

Chimero 最终建议我们可以用心与机器合作，而不是屈服于它的无限性。

“AI needs boundaries, and so do we,” he argues.

“人工智能需要边界，我们也需要边界，”他辩称。

His insights crystallized the idea that limits aren’t constraints but guide rails, especially in a culture obsessed with more.

他的见解具体化了这样一个理念：限制不是约束，而是指南，尤其是在痴迷于更多的文化中。

Limits can guide how I engage with the world, especially my immediate, physical one.

限制可以指导我如何与世界互动，尤其是我眼前的、身体上的世界。

We can do less, but do it more fully.

我们可以做得更少，但做得更充分。

These eight longreads remind me that resisting the dominant mode of more and faster is not failure, but wisdom.

这八篇长读提醒我，抵制更多、更快的主导模式不是失败，而是智慧。