Reading the Fog
An antidote to fragmented thinking.
Dear reader,
I am fascinated by fog. It sets a sort of boundary onto the landscape, creating a cinematic intimacy. Nature transforms into vague shapes and silhouettes; a single, seamless whole.
Walking through the fog forces us to focus on our own steps. It forces us into the Now.
The fog, then, diffuses both our sight and our thoughts.
In 1621, Robert Burton observed this dual nature in his Anatomy of Melancholy. He writes that a “thick, cloudy, misty, foggy air... is unwholesome, and engenders melancholy”. Yet, demonstrating the paradoxical nature of the veil, he also notes that some scholars “suppose that a thick foggy air helps the memory.”
This is the paradox of the fog. We get lost in it, but at the same time it confronts us with ourselves and our thinking. It forces us to see more clearly.
That fog, to me, represents the dualities of modern life quite well.
Society has a tendency to focus on specialization and the singular topic. We compartmentalize our lives, our work, and our interests into separate, rigid categories.
Information is available in abundance, but we somehow lack the coherence to connect its layers. We suffer from Cognitive Fragmentation.
We can frame this fragmentation through the Stoic principle called the dichotomy of control. There are the things we can’t control (the overload of fragmented information) and there are the things we can control (how we deal with that information, and how we decide to connect it).
This is the fog I’m talking about. And we seem to be roaming in that clouded reality.
But here’s the question: what are the practical steps to navigate this fog?
To find our way, we need to rethink how we think. And as it turns out, learning to navigate the mind is a lot like learning to navigate nature.
Three Ways to Read the Fog
If you want to learn how to read the physical landscape, I recommend the work of Tristan Gooley. In The Walker’s Guide to Outdoor Clues and Signs, he provides us with the proper tools to recalibrate our compass, when lost in a fog.
It comes down to this sequence of actions: Stop searching for the destination. Read the micro-map. Practice vertical escape.
1. Stop searching for the destination.
Only by accepting that we are lost, and thus without a destination, we can truly start to learn. Indeed, being lost is part of the process of learning. It sets the recalibration process in motion.
The art of being lost was actually embraced by the Stoics. The destination lies in the future and our external goals. But these are things we do not have control over. So clinging onto a fixed, final destination generates panic, not progress.
2. Read the micro-map.
Only when we accept this, we can start looking for a new map. In this case a micro-map of the specific and immediate. We can focus on what we still can see: the grasses below our feet.
By reading which way the tallest grass is bent (by recent winds) versus the shorter grazed grass (by prevailing winds), we can orient ourselves without a horizon.
Let’s translate this to the realms of re-learning and thinking. When our thoughts feel fragmented and clouded, we should focus on the immediate signs in front of us. What is working today? What small patterns are still visible?
This means focusing on the Now.
In the words of Marcus Aurelius:
Neither what is past nor what is to come need afflict you, for you have only to deal with the present. Now, this is strangely lessened, if you take it singly and by itself.
The map reveals itself when we start navigating toward the individual steps of our goals, not the goal itself.
3. Practice vertical escape.
All these little steps add up. They are the small patterns that rebuild and reconnect our bigger picture: the vertical escape.
But we need to alternate between looking at our feet and the sky. From the singular to the whole.
To predict where the fog might end, we need to keep monitoring the horizon.
If we can spot thinning patches or signs of a blue sky, we know the fog is clearing. It means we’re heading in the right direction, and we’re navigating calm and steadily out of the fog.
Seneca describes this sensation of breaking through: when a balanced mind accepts the present, “the soul looks forth from lofty heights and laughs.”
Focus on the details on the ground, but never lose sight of the broad overarching patterns. The fog above you will clear.
All of these, then, are steps for learning.
The Road and the Destination
I admit the fog inhabits my mind too. Take this newsletter, for example. Isn’t my scope too broad? Do people really want to read about both bees and ideas? Maybe I should write about gardens only.
All those uncertainties trouble my vision. In the honor of Burton I could baptize this the Melancholy of the Mist.
But I found it helps to return to those three steps.
Stop searching for the destination. Read the micro-map. Practice vertical escape.
Every new skill I learn starts in the mist. Every new endeavor feels like an isolated quest. But the more I keep walking the more the total map starts to reveal itself.
That map runs from the apiary and the garden through ecosystems, a bit of multimedia work and some history and philosophy. Those aren’t separate topics stapled together; they are the traces I follow. The whole is bigger than the sum of its parts.
And the fun thing is, the longer this chain of connection grows — the knowledge, the skills, the insights — the easier it becomes to navigate uncharted territory.
And that, then, is true for everyone.
A Personal Braided Map
We each carry a specific mix of habits, knowledge, obsessions, and half-finished ideas. Most of us just haven’t learned to read the connections between them.
That is what rethinking our thinking is about: learning the language of the ecotone; learning to navigate the mist. Your mix can become your personal, braided map.
In the end, we all face the same choice: we can either learn to read its traces and navigate the fog, or we can remain eternally stuck inside its hazy labyrinth of division and separation.
To understand these steps, to use the words of Marcus once more, means understanding that nothing can “stop the course of reason, or hinder a thought from running in its natural channel.” And like “a cylinder on a smooth descent”, we start to move steadily, focusing only on the immediate contact with the ground, while trusting the larger forces to do the rest.
You cannot out-think the fog. You must out-feel it.
In the Archive
This node connects to:
Escaping the Mental Monoculture: Thinking through systems and seasons
On Ecotone and the Art of Stitching: How ‘edge thinking’ can re-link our ideas.
Inspired by:
Robert Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy (1621) · Tristan Gooley, The Walker’s Guide to Outdoor Clues and Signs (2014) · Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (+/- 170 AD) · Seneca, Moral Letters to Lucilius (+/- 62 AD)
Embrace the Patchwork
If these thoughts spoke to you, subscribe to The Perennial Workshop and follow my search into Rethinking our Thinking across Systems and Seasons.
I really enjoyed this. So much great advice. You articulate it much more beautifully - but it reminds of how when I'm feeling overwhelmed, focusing on tidying up my house helps me to see my way forward. By just picking up each item right in front of me - by the time I'm finished I can see clearly again and feel much better.
Thank you for these recent entries. Much beauty, richness, and food for thought — and none of the patterns you describe boil down to clichés. As both grateful reader and editor by trade, I very much hope you carry on in this vein, without limiting yourself (or not just yet). Aren’t ideas are just more bees — those that get into one’s bonnet?