I made this collage a few years ago, combining images and text from one of the later League books by Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill, when I was doing a survey of Moore’s work for my own interest.
It came back to mind today as I thought how frustrated I am with myself and how difficult it’s become to speak sometimes, like shouting over the howl of my internal wind. Trying to see in every direction at once, torn apart by predictive text misfiring and failing to present suitable options. The simple answer is that I am worried, unhappy, and deeply uncertain about a handful of things, and that’s made talking through a lot of things very different. I’m trying my best to clear the debris and build a buttress against the wind.
But maybe, instead, I need to build an instrument for the wind to pass through, that can shape its screaming into song.
I had a really hard time today not feeling disgusted with everything human-related. I passed through several train stations, airports, and in-betweens, and everywhere I looked was messy, greedy, thoughtless humanity. Including in myself.
It took me all day to come back around to trying — trying! — to turn disgust into empathy. Everybody’s just making it up as we go. A lot of people inherit problems and do the best they can with them. Others inherit power, and often do their worst. Other people exist in between, navigating complex structures with incomplete training.
(None of this is disgust re: service industry people; everybody working at the airport is just trying to do their job and I appreciate everyone who has to be somewhere for work and put up with everybody else.)
Anyway. I’m having a bad brain time. But I’m trying my best to practice what I’ve learned about nudging uselessly-grim thoughts toward something helpful. Yeah, it’s correct to notice that humanity has made a fucked up mess of this whole beautiful planet; but there are a lot of ways to proceed from that observation.
People need support, resources, and infrastructure. There are a lot of people suffering and struggling under capitalism, and it takes a toll that expresses itself in lots of ways. We’re in this thing together.
Moreover, my imbalanced personal disgust doesn’t need to be projected onto others. Nobody deserves that.
And whether it’s worth it or not, I did get to observe the ocean-foam gathering of clouds from above, and the merciless gold of a satisfied sun. Thanks to all this human mess. I just want us to arrange things more peacefully and respectfully.
Thanks to a brief look at a small list of my friends on twitter, I saw this tweet, linking to a poem by one of my favorite poets (and my internet friend), Wasim Salman.
...
“I am the luxury of power.”
…
“Something like a person built with poems.”
…
Read “Bloodborne: Metroplex” here. Then read the rest of his poems, please. If you’re here, you’ll love ‘em!
Lately text-based communication has been really overwhelming and difficult for me. Keeping up with texts, emails, etc has made me feel really panicky and stressed. It’s essential to my work and relationships so I’m doing everything I can to relax about it; and I’m reducing my intake of things like Twitter (I have it blocked at a network level for most of the day every day now, which has really been helping me focus and redirect my brain) and trying to just respond in any way rather than wait for the “right”-feeling response. That’s a deeply-rooted anxiety for me, for various reasons.
In any case, I’m sorry to my friends who haven’t heard as much from me lately, or who have had to wait an obnoxiously-long time for replies both casual and important. I have not been in a good headspace, but I’m trying to improve it and not let you down.
And if you really need me in a time-sensitive way, please just call me. That’s easier somehow.
I had intense dreams last night, of encounters with a new text by mark danielewski that he was selling for $120 plus more for DLC, and of other texts and descriptions that i came across and were absolutely overwhelming. there’s a no reason to type any of this so vaguely, except to say that my nighttime imagination has been more visceral lately, and I’m glad. for a while I had nothing approaching an interesting dream, and in recent weeks I’ve lived days and lives in a single night.
Hello, friends. I've made myself a little place to Post that isn't a major social media platform. I feel better in myself when I don't visit those places as often; and I don't want you to have to go through them to find me. I also appreciate the space to think out loud and at more length. You already know the rationale.
I'm planning to add an RSS feed, and then to automatically tweet a link to each new Post, since I'd like you to be able to keep up however you like. I also don't see this as the final design; it doesn't matter too much, so I'm just shipping it for now.
I've wanted a personal blog-type place for a while, but there are a surprising number of ways you can be self-conscious about presenting yourself. I want to get outside the confines of the big platforms, and post my jokes as well as longer explorations about what I'm reading, playing, and thinking. I want to give myself room to dream, to be both an idealist and a realist... and this is a small part of that.
