Thursday, December 27, 2018
Holiday
The holiday season is ready to wind down, and there is a new year around the corner. These things are losing meaning for me for the time being, at least as they are recognized and expressed in our culture. But the natural season that "backgrounds" the holiday season never ceases to impress, and its movements take up some emotional space in the vacuum that has grown over time. Here are some older North American winter shots in Wyoming I dug up to express the "holiday" cheer I have in mind.
Writing Is Hard
I write both when I see something and then actually have the energy to articulate it. Sometimes I make notes on something I see and then wait to put it all together when I'm not so busy and/or tired. On top of that, when I'm not writing as much, the faculty weakens and I have to do work to bring it back on when I need it. As usual, it has been a bit quiet here because a variety of conditions are not being met, but I still have the intention to write. So on we go, and as usual, more to come, probably next year.
Winterscape
The snow shimmers atop the rolling hills, which appear as frozen waves on the landscape. The snow itself betrays its gradual motion as it is moved by wind; it swirls past obstructions like rock and weed. Every patch of land is dazzlingly complex, whether one looks at the soil and sparkling snow, or the bush that reproduces itself as it is pushed across the land by wind and settled into open soil, stretching on for miles in tessellations in every direction. And every patch of dazzling complexity is repeated in every direction endlessly, and so it is too upwards into the sky and downwards into the earth.
With such awe and reverence, the fence, which attempts to circumvent this landscape and impose itself into the consciousness as all that matters, becomes a hilarious sheen on the surface of it all.
With such awe and reverence, the fence, which attempts to circumvent this landscape and impose itself into the consciousness as all that matters, becomes a hilarious sheen on the surface of it all.
Tuesday, December 25, 2018
Crimp It Together
Alcohol and rock bands and holiday celebrations...what they all seem to have in common is a sort of artificial crimping together of those loose threads of belonging and ecstacy, across lines of biochemistry, culture, and tradition. We've discovered the power to evoke the feeling of harmony and belonging with the will and the intention to do so, at the cost of accelerating dissolution and discord over time as these projects mature, both on the personal and social level. And so the result is that these artificial crimpings need to be repeated again and again at an accelerating pace, until there is no longer the energy available to sustain the repetitions.
Saturday, December 15, 2018
It's Broken
There is a great amount of suffering, which largely escapes articulation, that is involved in the consequences of careless, thoughtless, and incompetent labor. Broken pipes and leaks, and dysfunctional appliances cause much consternation and aggravation which is inescapable as it occurs daily in one's own home.
In large and complex living habitations, where maintenance people of numerous specializations are coming and going, evoked and whisked away by unseen administrative bodies, there is no true recourse for people with disrupted homes and lives, but to vent anger at individuals closest to their reach. The systems that place all of these suffering people in direct conflict with each other remain elusive and out of reach, and as such, hum along.
When a given problem in the infrastructure is actually fixed, and the problem truly goes away, and there is no longer a danger of being ripped off or tricked - which is all too present in unscrupulous specialists that camouflage themselves in the complexity and obscurity of their activities - the pain relief is quite palpable.
In large and complex living habitations, where maintenance people of numerous specializations are coming and going, evoked and whisked away by unseen administrative bodies, there is no true recourse for people with disrupted homes and lives, but to vent anger at individuals closest to their reach. The systems that place all of these suffering people in direct conflict with each other remain elusive and out of reach, and as such, hum along.
When a given problem in the infrastructure is actually fixed, and the problem truly goes away, and there is no longer a danger of being ripped off or tricked - which is all too present in unscrupulous specialists that camouflage themselves in the complexity and obscurity of their activities - the pain relief is quite palpable.
Hand in Glove
Over time those operators of technologies like vehicles and heavy machinery become increasingly integrated into the equipment itself. (NOTE: fixed a pretty bad typo here that significantly changed the meaning of the sentence: from "operative technologies" to "operators of technologies.")
After a process of learning and habituation, the massive and lumbering tractor - an intimidating and alienating object at first glance - takes on the movements and intentions of the operator, and the operator identifies with it, feeding it fuel and caring for it with lubrication, and becoming despondent when it breaks down. The massive blades and hydraulic arms become extended appendages, taking on the character and quirks of the operator, which are more richly articulated over time with the increase of skill.
And in the same way, individuals become integrated and fit into classes of laborers, understanding the instincts and desires of those classes ever more.
After a process of learning and habituation, the massive and lumbering tractor - an intimidating and alienating object at first glance - takes on the movements and intentions of the operator, and the operator identifies with it, feeding it fuel and caring for it with lubrication, and becoming despondent when it breaks down. The massive blades and hydraulic arms become extended appendages, taking on the character and quirks of the operator, which are more richly articulated over time with the increase of skill.
And in the same way, individuals become integrated and fit into classes of laborers, understanding the instincts and desires of those classes ever more.
Lattice
This one turned out a little obscure and rant-ey, but I'm tired and it is what I got at the moment.
In this late and socially/technologically advanced stage of civilization, it is crucial to not only maintain countless tiers of complex technical and intellectual economic activity in perpetuity, but to also reinforce the body politic against the effects of its own intensifying exploitation and domination.
So it becomes necessary to instill authoritarian thought at a very young age, both through educational and political/social institutions and through instinctual relations in the home. There are only a few right answers, dependent on a centralized authority, and many many wrong answers, which must be programmed and disciplined out.
The powers of surveillance have increased alongside collective desires for control and anticipation, and domestic security has increasingly militarized in response to an increased perception of universal hostility, a hostility directed both inwards and outwards. As the bond between the organization of collective social ends and social labor is broken, it becomes ever more necessary to direct and force that social labor, force which is organized by a distant power that retains a monopoly on the imagination and realization of ends. And of course this process further severs the collective bond between ends and labor.
Now that we've brought everyone up to be sympathetic to authoritarian thought, we've provided ourselves with an interlocking and self-reinforcing lattice that amplifies and advances the ongoing waves of dysfunction. This lattice that we compose is necessary for holding in place the vast and tottering infrastructure of the world economy, but through this rigidity it loses its social dynamism and spontaneity; it must by necessity become increasingly brittle.
It must move as one great and rigid mass, or it mustn't move it all. Of course at the micro level the whole of it is always in motion, but much of the dynamic energy which threatens to disorder the market apparatus is either atomized and individualized, or crushed and dispersed through state violence and through starvation and the holding back of resources, which tends to be spontaneously arranged through private activity.
For some time - we should say it is a staple of the "modern era" - it has been the case that the body politic is viewed with great suspicion, as some dangerous, unstable, and explosive force which must be carefully contained and worked around for its own good. And through this belief it has become so. All of the violent transformational energy that the system itself produces through its operation, is stored throughout the body politic in various forms such as resent, latent violence, and all the like.
Universally, that transformative energy is repressed, and universally the destruction wrought from this fans out, spreading exponentially and reinforcing itself as the lattice seeks to reconstitute itself, producing fires that burn everywhere at once, and so on.
In this late and socially/technologically advanced stage of civilization, it is crucial to not only maintain countless tiers of complex technical and intellectual economic activity in perpetuity, but to also reinforce the body politic against the effects of its own intensifying exploitation and domination.
So it becomes necessary to instill authoritarian thought at a very young age, both through educational and political/social institutions and through instinctual relations in the home. There are only a few right answers, dependent on a centralized authority, and many many wrong answers, which must be programmed and disciplined out.
The powers of surveillance have increased alongside collective desires for control and anticipation, and domestic security has increasingly militarized in response to an increased perception of universal hostility, a hostility directed both inwards and outwards. As the bond between the organization of collective social ends and social labor is broken, it becomes ever more necessary to direct and force that social labor, force which is organized by a distant power that retains a monopoly on the imagination and realization of ends. And of course this process further severs the collective bond between ends and labor.
Now that we've brought everyone up to be sympathetic to authoritarian thought, we've provided ourselves with an interlocking and self-reinforcing lattice that amplifies and advances the ongoing waves of dysfunction. This lattice that we compose is necessary for holding in place the vast and tottering infrastructure of the world economy, but through this rigidity it loses its social dynamism and spontaneity; it must by necessity become increasingly brittle.
It must move as one great and rigid mass, or it mustn't move it all. Of course at the micro level the whole of it is always in motion, but much of the dynamic energy which threatens to disorder the market apparatus is either atomized and individualized, or crushed and dispersed through state violence and through starvation and the holding back of resources, which tends to be spontaneously arranged through private activity.
For some time - we should say it is a staple of the "modern era" - it has been the case that the body politic is viewed with great suspicion, as some dangerous, unstable, and explosive force which must be carefully contained and worked around for its own good. And through this belief it has become so. All of the violent transformational energy that the system itself produces through its operation, is stored throughout the body politic in various forms such as resent, latent violence, and all the like.
Universally, that transformative energy is repressed, and universally the destruction wrought from this fans out, spreading exponentially and reinforcing itself as the lattice seeks to reconstitute itself, producing fires that burn everywhere at once, and so on.
Saturday, December 08, 2018
Fulfilling Ends
There is a deep human need to fulfill various ends and aims as they come up in one's life. Where there is energy, resources, and social power available to achieve an end - whether it is a house, a car, a feast, or a national or international empire - and there is enough power in that socially or culturally inculcated aim, it will be marshalled for that cause. Otherwise it will be sought out in an intention as the aim temporarily goes dormant, which can outlast all kinds of calamity and disruption.
It is how an empire can take so long and tortuous a path to unwind itself. For that matter, it is how the seeds of empire can scatter after a collapse and produce new fledgling empires in due time. Or consider the bafflement of neoliberal anti-insurgency administrators as they watch the incentive seed funds pumped into their colonies produce runaway sectarian conflicts.
Empires initially tend to think throwing around their abundant resources and energy will unconditionally spread more copies of themselves, when what really happens is that old and long-running societies - which may have been torn asunder by various traumas or the empire itself - are reanimated with their own interests, aims, and ends, and then use the resources to attempt to rebind themselves in their own images, antagonistic to their benefactors.
This long-suffering human need can produce great beauty, and great suffering, and everything in between, depending on the aim and the circumstances surrounding it.
It is how an empire can take so long and tortuous a path to unwind itself. For that matter, it is how the seeds of empire can scatter after a collapse and produce new fledgling empires in due time. Or consider the bafflement of neoliberal anti-insurgency administrators as they watch the incentive seed funds pumped into their colonies produce runaway sectarian conflicts.
Empires initially tend to think throwing around their abundant resources and energy will unconditionally spread more copies of themselves, when what really happens is that old and long-running societies - which may have been torn asunder by various traumas or the empire itself - are reanimated with their own interests, aims, and ends, and then use the resources to attempt to rebind themselves in their own images, antagonistic to their benefactors.
This long-suffering human need can produce great beauty, and great suffering, and everything in between, depending on the aim and the circumstances surrounding it.
Shredded Labor
The work can really suck you in, simply as a paper shredder seizes upon paper and pulls it through its razor rollers. An old and large building can continuously pull labor into it, as the trauma caused by tearing through walls, ceilings, and floors, and sawing old pipe and soldering new pipe in, and draining plumbing systems and then recharging them, can finally rupture long-running weaknesses and vulnerabilities in aging infrastructure, and the building, full of paying occupants, seemingly cries out for attention itself.
Juxtapose such a state of affairs with a creaky and unstable economy, with its extremely loose and exploited labor markets, and its pathological drive for total efficiency and slashed labor, and you get a pattern in which daily labor is intensive, frenetic, and mind numbing, and then suddenly slacks off for given periods, which with fewer and larger operating businesses and the dearth of job opportunity, produces a climate of white knuckled desperation and the chasing of work wherever it appears, work that is everywhere forced into necessity for its own sake, at least wherever there is energy and resources available to produce it.
For obvious reasons, this culture has fixed a limited idea of labor and then elevated it to sublime and sacred heights in the moral imagination. No doubt, it takes hard work in many forms to produce most of what is worthwhile in this world. But as Thoreau pointed out in an oft-ignored throwaway comment, it is very true that hard work leads to hard eating, and for that matter it leads to hard resting as well.
Amid the frenzied pace of daily work, it is all too easy to spring for high calorie fast food or ready made food, and consume a constant supply of meat and carbs, which in its lower quality forms come chock full of various preservatives, toxins, and engineering. It is all very satisfying in the midst of a hard day - especially as one's stomach fills up with a bacterial ecosystem that, in the interest of perpetuating itself, sends signals of hunger and craving for more of its kind, signals that are irresistible upon being layered over the body's necessary cravings as it undergoes intensive workout.
Where there is not simply an abundance of fresh food by necessity and cultural custom, it takes willpower to eat well, especially as one must focus and discriminate, and most importantly, pay premium prices and take the time to prepare it.
When one rests, the mind wants to shut off completely and hibernate, indulging in sustained streams of media and sinking deeper into sinks of time and attention. This regime is hard on the body and mind, and of course the hard labor that necessitates it produces more of it and it becomes the cultural and economic standard.
Juxtapose such a state of affairs with a creaky and unstable economy, with its extremely loose and exploited labor markets, and its pathological drive for total efficiency and slashed labor, and you get a pattern in which daily labor is intensive, frenetic, and mind numbing, and then suddenly slacks off for given periods, which with fewer and larger operating businesses and the dearth of job opportunity, produces a climate of white knuckled desperation and the chasing of work wherever it appears, work that is everywhere forced into necessity for its own sake, at least wherever there is energy and resources available to produce it.
For obvious reasons, this culture has fixed a limited idea of labor and then elevated it to sublime and sacred heights in the moral imagination. No doubt, it takes hard work in many forms to produce most of what is worthwhile in this world. But as Thoreau pointed out in an oft-ignored throwaway comment, it is very true that hard work leads to hard eating, and for that matter it leads to hard resting as well.
Amid the frenzied pace of daily work, it is all too easy to spring for high calorie fast food or ready made food, and consume a constant supply of meat and carbs, which in its lower quality forms come chock full of various preservatives, toxins, and engineering. It is all very satisfying in the midst of a hard day - especially as one's stomach fills up with a bacterial ecosystem that, in the interest of perpetuating itself, sends signals of hunger and craving for more of its kind, signals that are irresistible upon being layered over the body's necessary cravings as it undergoes intensive workout.
Where there is not simply an abundance of fresh food by necessity and cultural custom, it takes willpower to eat well, especially as one must focus and discriminate, and most importantly, pay premium prices and take the time to prepare it.
When one rests, the mind wants to shut off completely and hibernate, indulging in sustained streams of media and sinking deeper into sinks of time and attention. This regime is hard on the body and mind, and of course the hard labor that necessitates it produces more of it and it becomes the cultural and economic standard.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)