AUGUST 2021 EDITOR'S NOTE: A REBIRTH (OF SORTS)
When should you step back from something you love doing and accept that you cannot succeed? What is the appropriate amount of time to give yourself to make the things you want in life happen? How long can someone work on something before they burn out and begin to hate the things they are creating? Why do we, as human beings keep hoping and working even when there have been so many moments when we have failed time and time again? When nothing has come of our hard work?
This past month, these questions have become more common, for all of us. 2020 signified an epochal change, with the pandemic accelerating the cracking of an already fragile world. For many of us, 2021 was a fresh start in the truest sense of the word: being locked up at home for a whole year, many of us decided that this was finally the time for change. We would no longer hold back, we would pursue the things we had always longed for. For me, making this magazine was exactly that. But recently, it hasn't felt that way. It's become more tiring and time consuming than I had ever anticipated.
It has been 6 months since I started this magazine, and I thought by now I would be successful. By this point, The Aether was going to be a huge publication with thousands of readers all over the world and I would have a magazine that mattered. But Rome wasn't built in a day was it?
"Madness", the theme of this month's issue, hints at the state of this magazine as well as the unpredictability of the world we live in today. It has forced us all into a crisis of meaning: have I lived a life worth living? A doubt that permeates through the present with a sense of dread and trepidation.
French philosopher, journalist and author Albert Camus, the second-youngest recipient of the nobel peace prize for literature, has been held responsible for continuing the discussion on the meaning of life in the modern world. In his 119 page philosophical essay, The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus uses the Greek myth of Sisyphus, who is condemned by the gods for eternity to repeatedly roll a boulder up a hill, only to have it roll down again once he gets it to the top, to argue that life is essentially meaningless. For Camus, Sisyphus is a metaphor for the individual’s persistent struggle against the essential absurdity of life, and only once we accept this joyfully can we gain a definition and identity for life.
And that's what this month's issue is: my own joyful acceptance towards the struggles. It's the realisation that this magazine is something I'm passionate about, something that has offered myself (and hopefully many of you) a place of comfort and acceptance. It's a place where I have been allowed to express myself freely and not be judged or prejudiced against. It's a space I've come to really love and enjoy. If the inevitable fact of life is that we are all going to die, and everything we do in-between is to fill the time between birth and death, then I don't mind doing this to pass time. So, I welcome you to the re-rebirth of The Aether Magazine.
A new look, more content, a diverse range of writers and so much more, The Aether has changed for the better. It's been madness the past few months, wanting to give up and trying to come to terms with the fact, but then realising that this was not the end, but another beginning for me. Another beginning for us all. I can't promise that this will be the last beginning The Aether goes through - there will probably be many more to come - but all I ask of you, my dear readers, is that you stick around for the ride; that you stay with us through the ups and the downs this magazine will go through; that you continue to read and talk and discuss. That you continue to make a change in your own way, for a better future.
There is so much time to fill with the things you really want to do, so pandemic or not, go out and do them. Stop waiting for the end of the world before you go out and do the things you want to do. Go bungee jump and eat ice cream for breakfast and ask your crush out, because while life is long, it ends, and in order to live a life worth living, fill it doing the things you love and nothing less. I promise that I will put my all into this and create content that I am fulfilled by, I hope you all like the new look.
And with that, I leave you. Welcome to the rebirth. Welcome to The Aether. Welcome to Madness.
