The day is August 2nd. This is Manu writing in for the second of a thirty-part pop-up newsletter called Natural Conversation, inaugurated yesterday by my partner in crime Cody.

I’m out, walking the dog—I’m always out, walking the dog—and currently sitting on a bench, my back against the back wall of a centuries-old church, my sight set on the mountains right in front of me.

It’s another country, the one I’m looking at, but it feels all the same from up here. Mountains are mountains, trees are trees, the wind is blowing the clouds across the landscape, they see no borders beneath them. It’s a lovely view, and it’s the view you see in the picture right below.

Well, it’s 17:54 and if I don’t start to write something now, this little pop-up newsletter will be off to a perfectly typical start for me. (Manu would likely be upset with me, too, and he then may not finish my website.)

This is Cody Schultz, and I’m starting Natural Conversation off with a bit about noise.

Eric Bennett writes, “If our environment is quiet enough, our senses are amplified. But the environment we live in is not getting any quieter. The world is only getting louder” (Space, Stillness, Silence, 2024). If I hadn’t realized this before, I most certainly realized it today.