Some years ago, during a period of wandering in Andalucía, I made the acquaintance of a man called Lorenzo in a café in one of the remoter villages of the Sierra Nevada. After some conversation passed between us, he was kind enough to offer to host me at his cabin, situated in its own secluded valley a mile or so above the village. I accepted, and spent a week or so there with him.

Lorenzo is a rare sort of individual in the modern age. He leads a genuinely meditative life dedicated to learning, contemplation, and writing for their own sake, and has no interest in status or financial gain.

He cultivates a garden. He takes long walks in the mountains. He is a collector of books, which are both his pleasure, and his study. On the lintel above his cabin’s door, he has carved words from ‘The Keeper of Sheep’ – a work by the Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa, written under the heteronym 'Alberto Caeiro':

Since my stay with him, Lorenzo and I have kept up a semi-regular correspondence. By choice, he does not own or use a computer or phone (let alone social media). Therefore our correspondence – along with the rest of his communication with the world beyond the village where he lives – takes the form of type-written letters, sent by post.

In our most recent letters, we’ve been discussing the role of learning; of writing; and — in relation to these — of technology.

This was sparked by an essay Lorenzo had read by Samuel Johnson (of English dictionary fame), titled ‘The Role of the Scholar’. In it, Johnson begins by defending "the necessity of reading, the fitness of consulting other understandings than [our] own", before qualifying this with the following consideration:

He continues with an admonishment:

Judging from the letter I received at the time, Lorenzo had clearly been deeply affected upon reading these passages. I was aware that he had worked as an itinerant lecturer in his younger years, and had published a number of well-received (though somewhat abstruse) academic papers on subjects including expressions of madness in the plays of Shakespeare, the philosophy of Heidegger, and the emergence of the periodical essay in 18th century England. Since then, however, his studies have been almost exclusively a 'solitary meditation'. He has not sought publication, but rather has amassed three large drawers' worth of notes and writings, using his own version of a Zettelkasten system.

Reading the above passages, he had had the sudden sensation that Johnson was speaking directly to him, across the centuries – "calling me to account for my life and my work", as he put it in his letter.

There followed a series of letters between us about why we read; about what books are good for (and what they're not good for); about the value of writing – and more recently, about the changes that technology is effecting on communication, the sharing of ideas, and on thought itself.

Of course, we are each coming at these questions from quite different situations and perspectives – at least in terms of our relative levels of engagement with technology. Lorenzo's knowledge of social media, for instance, has come mostly through my explanation of it to him, or through articles he's read in contemporary magazines to which he is subscribed, such as the London Review of Books. But this is one of the reasons I find Lorenzo such an invaluable interlocuter.

His way of thinking has a certain groundedness to it; a kind of clarity that can only be achieved through long stretches of silence, solitude, and thought, uninterrupted by superficial concerns or distractions.

While we haven't necessarily arrived at any solid conclusions on these issues, our exchange has undoubtedly brought us both new insights and perspectives – new avenues for inquiry. Indeed, from my end, our dialogue certainly contributed to my starting 'Garden Thinking'. And for Lorenzo – while he is still committed to a life without digital technology – it has nevertheless led him to consider how he might more "widely diffuse" and "agreeably impart" his learning.

In light of this, I asked Lorenzo whether he might like me to write about his way of life in the valley – and to publish excerpts of our correspondence – via this newsletter. This would allow his ideas and his writing to reach a wider audience, whose comments I might then feed back to him through our correspondence. He was enthusiastic about this proposal, and has very kindly agreed under the condition that I preserve his privacy and anonymity, which I have committed to do.

I'm excited to start sharing some of Lorenzo's writings this year, and I hope they will hold some of the same fascination for you as they have for me. In the short term, I'll endeavour to create a number of posts drawing on the backlog of our correspondence, and will include excerpts from up-to-date letters as and when they arrive.

Thanks for reading! Do subscribe if you might like to read more of my writing. I send it thoughtfully and sparingly.