Why is everything so hard January 25, 2023
You may be wondering why I have posted nothing. This is a very fair thing to wonder. It is because the post I have been working on has turned into an essay. And essays, even ones featuring casual language to seem more approachable and authentic and less like essays, need to be perfect. Everything needs to be perfect because I am insane. Grammarly is telling me I sound “curious” right now. I don’t think I’ve ever sounded curious once in my life. I am too anxious to be curious.
Anyway, I thought it’d be good to do a scribbling-on-the-first-page-of-your-sketchbook kind of thing and just post some garbage so I can stop slaving over this. Blog is supposed to be fun and it will be fun. I’m still gonna post the essay and probably a lot of them. And I will slave over them but they will never be perfect and that will be ok.
Something I am thinking about right now is the three hours of Bojack Horseman I just watched. I’ve been hearing from some wonderful people whom I love and cherish that they could not do what I am doing because they do not have self-discipline. I promise that you all have more self-discipline than I do. Probably a lot more. I do things only when I feel like doing them. I don’t think self-discipline in the sense of forcing yourself to do things is real. I think it’s more of a misnomer for the skill of listening to the part of yourself that does actually want to do things. I assume everyone has that part of them, but at least one person has told me they don’t. What do I know?
Something else I am thinking after those three hours of Bojack Horseman is what it means to hate yourself. Especially that episode where it’s just his horrible internal monologue berating him for everything he does. “Stupid Piece of Shit,” I think it’s called. Anyway, I do not experience that. Lucky me! But I am afraid the more people know me the less they will love me. Does that mean I hate myself? I don’t think so, but it does mean that I think deep down I am extremely unexciting and have nothing of perceivable value to contribute. Fortunately, I might just be emotionally invulnerable enough for no one to ever see that.
That was a lot of very short sentences. Reminds me of Elle Baker. Shoutout to Elle Baker. That shoutout reminds me of Iris. Shoutout to Iris.
Yay first post! Yay thinking only a little and going with it
Grimes February 05, 2023
On glorious but increasingly rare days, I remember that Grimes exists. I put on some Art Angels in hopes of finally going completely insane. It doesn’t work, but it brings me a little closer. I think to myself, “wow she is just like me fr.” It’s ironic because I am lying. Maybe I watch some interviews where she talks about “spaghetti being the only reliable food” or “couscous sludge” or “acoustic guitar being too basic from like an ego perspective.” I feel that everything is wrong and right with the world.
The magic of Grimes is that she exists purely outside her own head. She does without being. She decides she’s going to make music and then she makes music. Is she a musician? She decides she’s going to post a terrible political take in defense of her ex-whatever and then does it. Is she a naive and insensitive person? Idk not really. She is nothing that she does and nothing she does has to do with what she is. In this way, we are complete opposites. You can disagree with all that. I already am, but I’m sticking with it until the end of this post.
The magic of the world is that contradictions are real and not real at the same time. Everything is everything else if you twist it the right way. Everything is also the only one. Point is, even Grimes can be exactly like me.
Honestly, I just wanted to post this Grimes quote. I dont know where its from im just gonna trust. I don’t know why I wrote all this. Guess it didn’t feel bloggy enough.
I wish everyone would read this and understand this is exactly me. except the drawing part because I’m bad at it. Love you all.
“I feel a lot of the time that I’m like, I can’t really express myself to other people (…) ultimately I feel like I am an extremely lonely person, I don’t really connect with anybody at all, even with my closest friends I feel a huge void between them and myself and I feel like art, like especially playing music but also drawing, is like the way that I mediate this. I am definitely separate from everyone and I think that will probably always be.”
sufjan stevens part 1 of ????? February 9, 2023
in my mind me and sufjan stevens are besties. not in a parasocial relationship sort of way more in a fundamental unspoken infinite understanding sort of way. its not like we’re hanging out. we’re just being the same.
why am i not the same as anyone in real life
Wide Open Spaces, an Attention Economy, and Powerlessness April 28, 2023
I had this as a draft for like three months and i dont really know what it is anymore so im just going to let it go. no it does not make sense whatever
Up until very recently, I believed I would need to live in a city forever. Further solidifying the total ADHD-ification of my (everyone’s) life, my fear of even momentary disconnection (freedom from meaningless information) drove me to cling to the hubbub of the Big City. I think I’m actually kind of lucky in this regard—lack of stimulation and loneliness don’t concern me much, at least not anymore. I don’t think I would feel all that deprived if I lived on some off-the-grid ranch in the middle of South Dakota or whatever, but I would feel anxious thinking that I’m not caught up on what’s happening in the world or that my isolation has denied me some great, life-making opportunity.
I feel like a fundamental assumption of our little busybody lives is we can consume infinitely and indefinitely, and at a consistently high quality. What is high quality consumption? I don’t know. But if I had to guess, I’d say it’s taking in information in an intentional and meaningful way, really thinking and integrating that information into larger systems of understanding. That seems pretty hard. Writing this is kind of excruciating, there’s no way I could think this much alllll the time and I’m not even thinking that hard. And we know this. We watch tiktok when were most tired and braindead so we can turn off our brains without protest. but if we cant consciously think then what good is it having this much information shoved in our faces all the time?
The title of this post comes from an episode of Sesame Street (maybe? totally unverified). But it’s really from how my dad and I would always exclaim “wide open spaces!” whenever we saw any metropolitan-understanding-of-middle-America-evoking deserted field. I should note that “spaces” is said with a Southern accent, so it sounds more like “spices.” I don’t think that was in the Sesame Street version. As we often said, we “made it our own.”
Anyway, that was mostly tangential (the main purpose was to make me sad), and I don’t feel like elaborating on the few ways it wasn’t. I’ll talk about America in another post, so I’ll save it for then.
I know im talking a lot about technology here, but i want to bring this back to the land. My point is, undeveloped land isn’t just a vacant lot awaiting construction. That’s obvious, and it’s cynical of me to act like it needs to be pointed out. But I am cynical, and I feel like that’s how we treat natural land even if we say we don’t. The Earth as it came is lacking—lacking in stimulation, in things to do, in places to be, in imaginary nonsense to fixate on and destroy ourselves for. At its best, nature provides a temporary respite from real life by taking away all our Very Important Real Life Thingies just long enough for some grounding exercises or whatever, and then we can return refreshed to our real lives where we inevitably go insane enough to warrant another little nature retreat the next year. That’s how I imagine my life working in like corporate America, anyway.
But these days, walking around the city that I found so vibrant, I feel like I’m eating plastic. Or that weird 3D-printed food they had in Star Trek. I feel so sick I think I’m going to vomit up everything I’ve ever eaten. It’s really weird. I’m tired of living in an attention economy. Everything always demanding that I notice it. I look up at the buildings and I feel queasy. I feel small and powerless, the same way I feel when i look at the sky at night. I think my brain sees the cityscape as part of nature at this point.
My favorite podcast host, Ezra Klein, often mentions the four months he spent living in a cabin somewhere. And he always says that he never felt so big. so powerful. And as per usual he’s so fucking right because what is more belittling than living in the city. Everything is loud and incomprehensible and the worst part is you can’t even take a minute to realize how loud and incomprehensible everything is because you’re in the middle of it and you need to keep moving or you will be set on fire and disintegrate.
In a shitty attempt to tie this all together because I dont really know what I was trying to say originally- I don’t think we can really consume all that much effectively, and the more we try to consume the more we fail to consume even one thing fully. Our physical environment reflects this. It would be one thing if the solution was just getting off that damn phone, but outside the phone is just as bad. Everything is so far, physically and process-wise from its origin. There is no time to pause because everything is pushing you to engage and watch and buy and talk and we are losing authority over our own lives because there’s too much information and we have no chance to consider any of it.
History is written by the person with a blog May 16, 2023
In my mind it will always have been me vs Nadia Cammisa. She was the incumbent and I was the challenger. And I lost. Was it even close?
Curiosity May 22, 2023
Earlier today, I was watching a Jacob Collier video (my first mistake), and it cemented my realization that perhaps my biggest problem is that I am uncurious (actually, it has been a lot of things recently, but Jacob Collier is better for the narrative here). I do not know how this happened.
I think everyone starts out curious enough; we’ve evolved to be curious children so we get most of our basic learning done before we have to function as adults. But most people seem to either lose too much of their curiosity or to lose it too early. Usually it’s both.
Curiosity seems pretty important to being happy. In my experience, depression is mostly an acute and chronic disinterest, which leads to hopelessness, fatigue, and the desire to not exist. Curious people are full of joy, sometimes annoyingly so, but maybe that’s my problem and not theirs.
There are two things I see as hindering my curiosity. Number one is stupid, and it’s that curiosity is cringe. Normal people are not curious. They do not want to engage. They do not want to question or wonder. I don’t mean to slight the general populace. I am the same way. To be curious is to alienate yourself. You become unrelatable and faraway and inaccessible. I don’t want any of these things.
The second reason is more legitimate, and it’s that it is just hard. It is hard to think, it is hard to wonder. A unique challenge of this time, I think, is that of parsing out what is valuable information and what is nonsense. We spend so much energy filtering there sometimes isn’t much left for anything else. It is so incredibly hard and frustrating to hear the desire to learn echoing somewhere in your brain but not having the activation energy to follow it. Honestly I don’t remember what activation energy is, but what I mean is that to follow this impulse would only take a little push, and then it would be smooth sailing from there. Maybe. But it is easier to consistently drain energy on nonsense than to pool a little more and expend it on making life better. As usual, the saying “hard choices, easy life” comes to mind. Oh, to be at ease. Trying to follow my curiosity is like approaching a doorway, but upon trying to enter, slamming my shoulders into it. And I am watching, like, a Christmas dinner take place and everything is alight and wonderful, but I can’t be bothered to just rotate and pass through because I’m too full of self-pity and despair and the belief that I am just not cut out for this (literally).
So this brings me back to the beginning. How did that happen? I guess it is the usual suspects: trauma. Actually, it is not an I guess. It is well-documented that this is the case. But what to do about it? I guess just try harder. But if any of you are struggling with this problem, here are some things I would like to try:
1. Accepting that you cannot be curious about all things, and that something is better than nothing.
2. Thinking and acting without strict intention.
3. Externalizing my findings. I feel like a problem for me specifically is that much of my thinking energy is spent vetting my own thoughts and feelings, which usually ends with me going in circles and becoming confused. I think I will have a better time investigating things that I can see and touch and feel, and that are also more foreign and less tied up in literally everything.
4. Zooming in and being present. I am not cosmically defined by every choice I make (this is one of the main problems with Christianity) and it is healthier for me to be spontaneous and non-judgmental than to think about all the implications of everything I do before, during, and after I do them.
5. Paying attention to when I am genuinely disinterested and when I am just being resistant to my own interest.
6. Accepting purposelessness. I do not need to gain or achieve anything. If I am anxious about this, I can remind myself that it will all affect me in some invisible way if nothing else. This may seem to contradict point four, but no it does not because there is no judgment involved.
I am feeling happier after doing the thinking required to write this. It was not much thinking, but it was something (see: suggestions one and three).
“I can change him” May 29, 2023
This post is dedicated to Anisa Jomha, the rightful leader of the movement.
Context: iDubbbz (Ian Jomha) is a YouTuber most famous for his “Content Cop” series. These videos were essentially hit pieces that often contained and/or led to harassment of the YouTubers they targeted. IDubbbz’s brand of humor was heavily based on mockery and offensiveness (deemed “edginess”), featuring flagrant use of the N-word and other slurs backed up by “reasoning” as to why these words were okay to use (he is a cis, white, able-bodied, and presumably straight man).
Since the Content Cop era, iDubbbz has married Anisa Jomha and transitioned to boxing, two decisions for which he has received backlash. He has been called a cuck, among other things, particularly for agreeing to Anisa’s presence on OnlyFans and for taking her last name (he was previously Ian Washburn).
About a week ago, iDubbbz posted an apology detailing his transition in values and content. Among minority viewers (those most affected by his content), it seems to be well-taken. I personally found his apology very good. However, there are plenty of iDubbbz fanboys who are not so pleased.
If iDubbbz has had any presence in your life, I encourage you to watch his apology: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRkCfOuW_u0
I want to take you back to approximately 2017: Imagine your worldview is a small, newly-formed planet caught in the gravitational pull of one Caleb Rader. You are peacefully journeying through the cosmos. But the alt-right pipeline has found your land, and it has polluted your skies until you are weakened enough to allow an iDubbbz video on your Youtube homepage.
How can you know what is right? Who can you trust to tell you? Not yourself, and certainly not your friends, but who else is there? Are you gonna trust your teachers? Fucking nerd.
So you click. You give time and space to opinions you have never heard or imagined possible. You ingest malicious takes coated in a thin layer of criminally basic reasoning. They put further cracks in your soil and acid rain begins to fall. But it’s all one big joke. You are so mischievous! So counter-cultural.
PEMSAM (Please Excuse My Shitty Ass Metaphors)
Instinctually, I feel the need to defend myself. It is easy to say that I would have always bounced back. That it was all just a lesson to learn and I learned it for the better. I am sensitive and convicted now. But I think this is false. To this day, there is a man in the dungeons of my brain who finds cruelty and mockery entertaining and is far too comfortable with hurtful things. That isn’t to say I am otherwise refined; playful mockery and apathy can be funny, and in some cases, insightful. We cannot give energy in the form of consideration to all things. Some items must be relegated to the third slot in the New York Times’ The Morning. But there is something wrong with me and I do not know if it will ever be repaired. That is a little dramatic, but that is what we do here on the blog.
So what to make of iDubbbz’s apology?
1. Everyone is the problem (but especially Ian).
Here is the question: Is it best to act according to how things should be or how they currently are?
If I were to argue that someone like Ian is not responsible for his audience of impressionable teenage boys becoming closeted racists (assuming that I believe he was in the wrong, which I sure hope I believe), I might say something like, “parents should monitor their children’s online activity more,” or, “online platforms should be more proactive and moderate content with more sensitivity.” And I would be right about those things, but I would still be wrong because it does not matter how things should be. I would also be wrong because taking responsibility promotes human freedom and flourishing. But whatever.
2. Everyone is the problem (for real).
See paragraph four.
3. We overvalue the “healthy debate.”
This is my conclusion after watching about three minutes of penguinz0’s first video on the matter. No, I did not watch the whole thing and I am about to tell you why.
If there is one thing I’ve really learned from my stint eastward on the political compass, it is that so-called rational discussion is the most bullshit (as in bearing no relationship to reality) standard there ever was. You do not need to respect everyone’s right to an opinion. You do not need to hear everyone out. You do not need to agree to disagree. In fact, you should not.
I am sure this is all obvious to you, my beautiful-wondrous-genius reader. When someone forces you to politely justify your existence to them and ridicules you if you do not mirror their insincere levelheadedness, they are being evil. But in practice, at least for my silly little brain, it is hard to accept that you must refuse these people. They will always think they have owned you. Know that you are better.
This brings me to the term “echo chamber.” Yay or Nay? I say Yay. That is all.
4. What does it take to change?
I must address the title at least a little. Here is another question: Are marginalized people obligated to teach their oppressors that oppression is wrong?
I think that is an easy one. I will make it a little harder: Is it in their best interest (assuming a unified cause) to do so?
I am reminded of a recent ContraPoints video on JK Rowling, and since I am a little in love with ContraPoints (NOT parasocial btw), I have to agree with her and say No. This is the opinion-forming process that got me in trouble in the first place. I don’t care.
Once again, you are allowed to leave people in the dust to further your cause. You do not owe people who hurt you an explanation. Please understand that I am stating all of this obvious shit for my own sake.
But, if you do want to change someone, how do you do it? Shockingly, a Lincoln-Douglas debate doesn’t seem to cut it. Change is violent. Change happens when you are revolted by yourself and it is plainly revealed how fucking awful you are. But plenty of people experience that and do not change. Sometimes they stay the same, sometimes they die (same thing?) I guess a caveat might be that it doesn’t hurt to have someone unusually kind and patient around who believes you have the capacity for goodness (seemingly, an Anisa).
I sympathize with Ian’s description of searing disappointment, but it was earned. And he changed. One can only hope the same is true for dear Caleb.
Spiderman + Loki June 07, 2023
I saw Spider-Man: Across the Spiderverse yesterday, and as I expected, it was good. But this is not a review. I want to discuss the central question of the movie, which I would put as, “is it better to do what is right or to be true to yourself?”
Here is what happens (big spoiler alert): Miles and the gang are in another universe, and he saves a policeman from being killed by a collapsing building. Miles is then reprimanded for doing so because, unbeknownst to him, all Spider-Beings must endure a police chief close to them being killed as part of their story, and he prevented another Spider-Man from living through that event. What are the consequences of Miles’ actions? Unclear, but similar avoidances of “canon” events have been catastrophic, so it’s probably bad.
Miles realizes that he must be destined to have a police chief die in his life as well, and it will undoubtedly be his father, who has just been promoted. It is revealed that soon-to-be-chief Jeff Morales will be killed in two days, right as he is given his new title. Panicked, Miles attempts to return to his home universe to prevent his father’s death.
This will not do. All the Spider-Beings in the area (they are at Spider HQ, so there are many) swarm after him, trying to prevent his escape. The meanest, most domineering one of them all explains that this is simply how things must happen. If Miles messes with fate, he may set in motion a cosmic disaster.
Even worse, it turns out Miles was already a problem because he was bitten by a spider from a different universe, leaving one universe Spider-Man-less while his universe got an extra (the original Spider-Man died like five minutes into the first movie saving Miles). Miles’ transformation has caused, among other things, the creation of the villain of the movie, a universe-jumping ex-man menacingly named “Spot.” In short, Miles is one big mistake and he will never be seen as a proper Spider-Man (a metaphor for racism, clearly).
So, Miles is given a choice: 1) Heed the warnings of those who have rejected you (Spider-society) and allow your father to die, potentially preventing your universe from imploding or similar. Or, 2) Reject your rejectors, save your father, and suffer the consequences. To Miles and the audience, the choice is clear. It is more important to be true to yourself and your life in this moment than to act in the name of some invisible, albeit greater, imperative.
Let me now turn to Loki, which presents a very similar scenario with a different solution. The main story of Loki is that the Time Variance Authority (aka the timeline police) are hunting down a Variant (someone who is fucking with the timeline) who is killing their officers and plotting to do who-knows-what. They enlist the help of a Variant Loki (our main guy) who escapes from The Avengers (sorry if I am losing you just hang on) to help track the fugitive down.
As it turns out, the Variant they are hunting is a “Loki” from another universe named Sylvie. Sylvie’s story goes like this: as a child, she did something small that apparently was not part of her predetermined story. For her offense, she was sentenced by the TVA to death-ish (as all Variants are), but she escaped. Ever since, she has been on the run trying to find out who is behind the timeline to get her revenge on them and abolish the TVA.
Sylvie is a lot like Miles. Both are underdogs who, without knowing it, have done something “wrong” and are being punished by a secretive, powerful group that only cares for the Big Picture. Spider-society does not care about Miles, it cares about keeping the universe (spider and otherwise) running smoothly at whatever personal cost. The TVA does not care about Sylvie, it cares about keeping the Sacred Timeline (the designated “true” path of events across the multiverse) intact.
At the end of the very-excellent-and-beloved-by-me series, Loki and Sylvie find themselves at the Citadel at the End of Time. Inside is someone referred to as “He Who Remains.” In an effort to prevent multiversal chaos, this man has pre-written the fates of every single being in existence. But, he says, he is tired, and he wants Loki and Sylvie to take over his position.
Sylvie is ready to kill He Who Remains (rightfully so, Jonathan Majors is a piece of work), but Loki restrains her. What if he is right? What if the multiverse implodes without someone managing destiny? After some struggle and a very controversial kiss scene, Sylvie boots Loki through a portal and presumably kills He Who Remains. In the final scene, things have already changed for the worse. Clearly, she has made a grave mistake.
So, I would say Loki‘s answer to the question, “is it better to be right or to be true?” is the former. Kind of.
I have to be honest, I have been misleading you a little bit. I am also getting a little sleepy so from all this summarizing so it is time to wrap things up.
Here is the difference. Miles’ decision goes like this: “It is unfair to expect me to allow my father to die, and everything that comes after that is secondary.” On the other hand, Sylvie’s goes like this: “The only way for me to find peace is to kill whoever hurt me because they are a cosmic evil.” I am oversimplifying, as I do, but I think the core difference here is consistency (and violence; Miles does not hurt or kill innocent people, and his goal is to preserve life. Sylvie is the opposite). Miles’ story is about owning your (and only your) narrative. He has to do what is right for him because there is no “right for the universe.” In fact, he does not really choose “true” over “right,” he acknowledges that what is true for oneself is all there is. Sylvie, however, mistakes her revenge mission for an objectively moral one. She believes that her story is everyone’s story, and makes the decision for others that the timeline cannot exist ethically. That’s not to say it can, but still, was it her decision to make?
In any case, what Miles and Sylvie have in common is that they do what I like to call “playing the game.” It is kind of a Noble Lie scenario. The “game” is identity, and there is nothing worse than when people refuse to play. Do not pretend you are god!!!! Do not claim to know anything but your own life!!! And, most of all, do not claim no life!!! Yes, Sylvie takes her feelings too far, but maybe she is just playing the game so fucking hard she went in a circle.
Unfortunately, those who are forced to self-sacrifice do not really get to play the game. And that is worst of all.
So, there you have it. Do your own thing if you can. Goodnight.
Self-Reliance June 14, 2023
I often wonder what could have happened in my childhood to make me cling to independence so desperately to this very day. Assuming that there was actually something, it must have happened very early on because one of my earliest phrases was “no my do it!” (grammar prodigy).
Sometimes I try to break this habit, but I am usually just reminded of why I shouldn’t bother. For instance, I asked my mom today, “what language should I study in college?” Her response was, “college sucks. Just take Spanish, don’t make it any harder than it has to be.” I replied, “I could take German,” in an attempt to prompt her interest in why I might want to do so. She said, “whatever” and went to her room.
Now maybe this was a one-off thing. It is late, she is tired, and we are both waiting for Franny to arrive and the waiting is causing anxiety. But it is not really a one-off thing. My parents, god bless them, have had very little to offer in terms of guidance. Perhaps they have a bit more to offer in practical help, but I am usually in need of the former. Unfortunately, a not-so-unique combination of being old, having no mental energy, and lacking any discernable life trajectory (and the feeling of failure that comes with that) have made my parents pretty shit at advice or any kind of proactive help, at least within the last 10 years or so. I can get assistance with getting insurance and a therapist, and that’s about it.
Unfortunately, my adaptation to my parents’ hands-off attitude has made me unwilling to ask for any kind of help from anyone, even the people who do have something helpful to say. Every time I have a problem, I assume that solving it is entirely on me. I do not wish to involve anyone else both because it is a burden and also because I simply should not need to.
This also has led to me sharing information with people on a need-to-know basis, which comes across pretty shitty, but I do it because I think that if I just handle everything by myself it will go smoother with the same or better results than if I work with others.
Strangely, despite managing my life decisions almost entirely on my own (I’m exaggerating but also not), I still have very little faith in myself most of the time. More specifically, while I believe I have the ability to handle myself, I somehow have no confidence in my own perception and judgment.
I don’t have a conclusion to any of this. I guess I am waiting for a time when it becomes clear that I really need to change, and that time is probably coming soon if it hasn’t already.
Concerning Violence November 19, 2023
Hello, people inside the blog. It has been a while.
I’ve been trying to come up with things to say on here. I have most of my days scheduled away, and the days I don’t I try to fill with college-worthy activities. Now that I am out of my gap year reality, I appreciate how time taken for one activity is time lost for another. This is obvious to anyone who is not me, probably, but you all know my family. Cut me some slack.
I confess (as one always does in writing) that I have been choosing to ignore real problems in favor of pseudo-productive ones. One real problem in question is the Israel-Gaza war. There have been a lot of protests going on here, and to be honest I don’t know exactly what the goal is, but maybe it is the wrong approach to criticize. What else are people supposed to do? My one concern is about truthful information. There has been some talk of endowment money going to Israel in some capacity, but it’s vague…
I have been reminded by my brain about a reading from Mr. P’s class by Frantz Fanon called Concerning Violence. I don’t remember much of it, and I do not have time to read it now nor the patience to read it and then write this, because then this will have to be more accurate and thought-out and I don’t want to do that. But I remember the message I took away from that reading, which is that violence–desperate violence–is a necessity in overturning colonial power. And I wonder how true that is, how true it must be, and how true it should be.
What counts as violence? Maybe I should just read the reading and I’d know, but for now I do not. That image of animalistic thrashing, clawing for a sliver of power, is that the same as a calculated attack? An attack on the innocent? As kidnapping? And would we feel at all that the attack was justifiable if it failed? If it were a group other than Hamas?
And how much violence is necessary? How can you know if you’ve committed just enough? And in the end, can it ever be justified? Even if it ensures freedom for the oppressed?
Apologies if this is grossly offensive or out of touch. What I am trying to get at is the question of when the fight for freedom goes too far or even turns into something completely different, such as a cold-blooded quest for vengeance, maybe. Because I do believe that Israel is responsible for the psychic destruction of Gazans. And I’m nervous that it will be responsible for some destruction of Jewishness. But there’s a Kibbutz on the border of Gaza, right near the Iron Dome, that I stayed at and the people there were in bomb shelters for over 24 hours. I know they had less than five seconds to reach them because they told me one morning while I was there. And people living in other Kibbutzim were destroyed and taken hostage and there is unspeakable mourning. I do not think those people hate Gazans, and I don’t think most Gazans hate Israelis. But Israel’s Government and Hamas are another story.
In general, I don’t know how much I love the distinction between the loss of the “innocent” and the loss of what I guess are the guilty. We are all complicit and it is all loss.
Perhaps there is a bigger problem with this question of violence to begin with. Who am I to evaluate “violence?” I am busy with my mourning and my panic. Here I am attempting to zoom out to God’s eyes. I cannot know what needed or needs to happen. I am greatly sympathetic to people who have no options left, but I don’t know if that is anyone in this war besides civilians. I do not know anything except my horror and my sorrow. And there is holiness in the first-person, I think.
Anyway, I am looking forward to seeing some of you soon, hopefully. I’ve missed being insufferable on this here blog.
I recommend the recent Ezra Klein Show episodes about the war.
The Message: a poorly wrapped fall semester
Mr. Hover put it well: form equals function.
Before Mr. Hover, Aristotle said a thing’s form is its construction, its definition, and really its essence, and a thing’s function, or telos, is the thing it ultimately aims at in everything it does. Form and function are 2/4 of his “four causes.”
However, 1) Aristotle is DEAD, and 2) in his rush to say that everything has a telos, he didn’t seem to care much about how the causes themselves give rise to each other. Or maybe he did, because according to my TA who doesn’t know how to vote ???, I don’t know shit about Aristotle’s causes.
Which came first, the form or the function? The answer is the material, the first cause. After that, your guess is as good as mine. Imagine the earliest form of life—some prokaryote floating around just living it up. It has a form, a particular way its material its organized to create the thing it is, which is a thing that aims at staying alive. So, maybe form came first? But then form was tailored to function. Those little guys mutated and either died off or lived long enough for their genes to propagate depending on their success at fulfilling their function. But then, maybe those who survived to reproduce and those who did not actually had different functions given by their different forms. One’s telos was life, and the other’s was death…
I get obsessed with phrases. A few weeks ago it was “The Greatest Gift.” Now, thanks to Ta-Nehisi Coates, it’s “The Message.” The Message, The Message, The Message. I don’t use it in speech, it just spins around my head, like a weather display on a skyscraper. That’s the thing about digital space, I guess.
Iris was telling me about Histrionic Personality Disorder. I think I know someone else who fits the criteria, especially the one about “vague and impressionistic speech.” Now I have another thing to be paranoid about. How do you learn to be better at giving examples?
I feel like everything I had the strength to say during the month of December is gone, but I’m still writing this, and in theory I will be writing two more papers before I can rest. So what will I be saying? What’s my message?
My old violin teacher once told me about his childhood. None of it seemed very good, but he had something to say, and that gave him music. And music gave him a better life.
What’s my message?
I’ve stopped trying to make violin my instrument. Voice lessons have been huge for me. It’s so much easier to walk onstage and say something when your sweaty palms aren’t involved. For the first time, it’s easy to be musical. I have an idea and I can make it real. My mom used to think I had no expression when I played. My voice teacher told me I only need to get some expression in my face, because it’s there in the sound.
I never understood sculpture, or really most visual art. This is just one of my many confusions in trying to understand my mother. I know what she was before she was a sculptor, I know what she is now, but that part in between…
Sculpture is about form. Music, too, is pure form. So is philosophy. So is everything, maybe.
The Confucian philosopher Xunzi said that ritual was the human way. Someone in my class said ritual was a poor translation, though. Li is better translated as order or good form.
Language is about form. Perception, too, is pure form.
Xunzi said that li is why the earth and sun and moon spin around each other. What’s their message?
The early atomist (and ethical hedonist) Epicurus thought that objects project outlines of their form towards other objects in space, and not just perceiving beings, but everything. My chair throws itself at the desk, the table throws itself at my wall, the wall throws itself at me.
Aristotle thought non-living objects had functions, too, but they were determined by their maker. This doesn’t seem right to me. Mahler’s first symphony was based on a tone poem about a heroic young man and all his trials and tribulations, but I never saw it like that. The piece threw itself at me, just like our conductor maybe threw himself at our concertmaster—I’ll have to review the recording.
Xunzi thought that li wasn’t important in a metaphysical way; the rain ceremony was the same whether rain came after it or not. Instead, it gave form to the human world. You take what’s inside and project it out, and that’s order. But that’s not telos, that’s The Message. The problem with telos and everything else in metaphysics is that there’s no one there to listen, but a message is made to be heard.
I remember at the one-week composition camp I attended that Melissa Dunphy, composer queen, told us that everything we do as women is political. I guess that’s why my (less than helpful) advice to Iris was just to “live harder.” You’re always sending a message.
To everyone I haven’t seen in quite some time, I miss you a lot. Thanks for reading.
Welcome to Neural Nirvana 