Inner circle | Editor’s letter #26

Things that are close by, things that seem far away… there’s a difference. Or rather, an indifference: to the baby chicks rolling off the production line, the lamb in the deep-freeze, the crowds blocking our way to the gate, or the person we see through the barrel of a gun.

Raeanne Rubenstein, Andy Warhol, 1976, © Raeanne Rubenstein/The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum

We feel no connection to things that are distant. It’s all just soulless meat, meat that we’ve learned to slaughter as efficiently as possible: using cluster bombs, or carbon dioxide gas. Until that brief, special moment when something attracts and holds our attention: the chicken in the garden, a dog curled up in a basket, or the soft skin of a loved one beside us in bed.

We feel an inextricable connection to the things in our inner circle, and an incredible sense of loss when they leave us. It is empathy that bridges the gap between what is close by and what is far away, the realisation that others are just as alive and soulful as we are – humans, animals, plants, the earth. What could it do for us? To embrace the whole earth, bringing it into the arms of our inner worlds?

– Nicole Ex,
editor-in-chief

This is the editor’s letter of See All This #26, summer 2022.
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