What we call modernity is characterized by a ceaseless material, technological, and social expansion, so that the way in which we actually interact and relate with each other is informed by vast distances, not only in time and space, but also in the forms of that interaction, which are also constantly changing: a traversal of the various forms opens up a certain distance of its own, as those forms have to be decoded to interface with each other. For example, an 80 year old person scratching their head, asking, "what in the hell is a Tik Tok? and why can't these kids just sit at the table and talk" and so on.
The result is that the products we share with each other - and the Internet has certainly changed this dynamic quite a bit, but not entirely - tend to have to be shared fully formed and sculpted, and in a significant way, manipulated for the best effect. On the Internet you do see more personal and intimate creative exchanges that can be easily scaled out given the medium, but what you also often see is that as soon as these phenomena begin to gain traction and attention, and the money notices and commodification sets in, then this stuff is further spun and refined so as to achieve that coveted escape velocity.
Part of this has to do with the intense competition of the interconnected modern world: if one has ready access to the limelight with a computer, then there will be a whole lot of aspirational activity to sort through and make sense of, so the stuff that rises to the forefront - and bids for more advanced commodification, which in this society, is the most obvious pathway towards economic and social security and stability - does tend to be carefully manipulated to achieve the aims of its interested parties, both by its creators and its beneficiaries in their various forms. One thinks of the smothered understory shooting up tendrils of vine, branch, and leaf as far as the energy allows to capture what light that they can.
The other part of this dynamic is that the repetition of the dynamic itself eventually carves out certain socially acceptable standards which are internalized, policed by sticks of intense fear of failure and ridicule and carrots of fame and regard and wealth. As beautiful as a great work is, there is a lot of pain built into it; certainly the nature of the beast as they'll say. We could look to the simple illustration of the ambitious perfectionist parents looking upon their child's crude drawing and shaming the child that it is not very good, and the drawing could be much better.
We have to be careful here of course: there is nothing inherently wrong with quality and standards and criticism and even nice or great things. But how and towards what end and for whom? You may be darting back and forth on airplanes to shout over others into microphones powered by huge amplifiers to be published across the electric web that climate change is coming and we have to do something right away, and good for you, good message, and the delivery itself could be quite impressive and great, but also, ah what the hell is that about? When the means involve burning petroleum, you don't have to issue stern warnings about "ends justify the means" thinking: the means are the ends.
I myself will readily admit to being both perfectionist and ambitious, and just as equally antagonistic to what that means and entails given our collective context. Enough of this! We've been striving for long enough, and like the Romans, with each new generation there are new borders of striving to topple, collectively defined and standardized borders etched in by the ready availability of energy and resources, which must be pumped and squeezed further from the exhausted ground. Now is the time to harness all of that imaginative energy to strive against the striving itself.
Here I want to point out that yes, I have in the past struggled with a bipolar affect and creative writing cycles, vagaries of the available energy and resources accompanying relative poverty, depression and aimless wandering, illness and a damaged body, and the turbulence associated with transitioning into a lower energy consumption lifestyle, and it all comes out in the writing, both in quality and frequency.
Here I like playing with form and putting out something considered and refined and of quality, but I've also intentionally left it a bit messy and intentionally revealed some of this dysfunction to reflect the totality of this project. Here we have some typos and some vague and confused writing and some lapses in post and some meanderings and contradictory intentions, mixed in with some stuff that I really quite like and am proud of.
I'm sitting here speaking of energy and slowing down, and indeed, I personally am now using much less energy than I used to, and in relation to much of the industrialized world, but by whole world standards, I am still using quite a bit of energy, much of it out of sheer inertia. Shame on me, but then so it goes for us imperials. I am trying.
This is what the totality of the work looks like anyway, just as a completed building - with its swarming construction workers hidden behind work zones and privacy fences, cussing as they smash their thumbs with hammers and chipping parts of their fingers off with routers and saws, having messy shits in the porta potties after quick and cheap lunches - forms the totality of that work too.
I'm talking here about this work as making up a constant process of Becoming: there is something high and suspended about the Become and something low and earthy about the Becoming. Becoming is what is constantly happening in the soil, the stuff we've been trying to get away from for so long, suspended high above it, drawing from its energies to maintain suspension and beat back whatever else is coming up from it and vying to challenge us and consume us. Neat trick; cool! But we know from experience that that party eventually comes to an end.
Part of that process for me means turning away spiritually from the collective and modern industrial conception of the great as a finished and tradeable product, striving ever higher and away, and turning back towards what is perpetually being birthed right here in front of me, for better or for worse.
This is nothing new, radical or special, and indeed, revealing some vulnerability is something all sorts of people do all the time, and it doesn't move mountains by itself by any means. But it is certainly an important part of the work I see myself as trying to do; it is an important part of the ritual. It is too easy to engage in virtue signaling now to try to walk some kind of earnest "path of virtue," but if one can see with any clarity what is really going on, one should do what one can to become further aware of those dimensions and at least angle in that direction.
