As I "accidentally" stayed up all night completing the campaign for One Piece Pirate Warriors, I was listening to episodes of The Why Files. Any marathoning of media makes it easier to recognize patterns, and this was no different. The host talks about different conspiracies or cultural mythologies, relaying the story as you're likely to hear it from someone who believes what is being said. Most often, the answers to a conspiracy question land on aliens or government disinformation.
He asks in each episode, "Is this true?" and the reports on any debunking information or explains the criterion that would lead him to sympathize or trust what's being said. Maybe it's a trusted impressively careered professional being consistent and composed, not looking to profit, relaying their story and it corroborating with information from FOIA requests.
Today, I got another "basic" response to one of my blogs saying I was either an AI bot, or need psychiatric intervention. The thought that sprung up as I reflected on this comment, predicted in the post itself, was, "The fight is the point."
We want to hear ourselves talk. We want an adversarial identity. We want the noise of exchange. That means something in and of itself. That's why we maintain or viciously fight for our unhealthy relationships. A body - to fuck, to drive around, to talk at, is what we "need" first. If they can be bothered to share our interests, listen, "love" us , or refrain from causing undue harm, that's a bonus.
I think I underestimate this at my peril. It's framework that explains the fakeness in polite exchanges about hopes and wishes and excitement. It's even a thing you could use to understand animals fighting or playing with each other. You don't ask "why" the cat bit the dog's tail. You know. You know you bite tails all day, and you love it. I think this sentiment helps inform why there's so much moral fogginess and unnecessary "grey" on things that are pretty well figured out. It's the standing predilection to "two-sides" issues.
It's more insidious and deeper than just our brain trying to take shortcuts for the sake of condensing information. It's an animating force. How many times can I describe myself as a "spite engine" and not see myself deriving motivation from fighting for the sake of fighting? How much do I "really care" versus how much do I wish to be understood as someone who will fuck you back, harder, and well past any grasp or memory you have as to why?
Our platforms are default uninformed, hateful, combative, judgmental, and addictively exhausting. They're also overt tools of propaganda and control. That's the point. The point is algorithmically defined engagement. The point is if Trump pisses you off, he gets all of the attention points, packaged in any way that predicts that much more.
The point is explicitly not to make peace, get smarter, get connected, or share anything in earnest. It's to consume and be consumed by a level of emotion that keeps you clicking, arguing, or scrolling. The Why Files points out that NASA or "the government" doesn't even need to "disprove" its knowledge of aliens or "impossible" technology, they just have to keep you confused and arguing about it.
There's only so much room in your head. This is especially the case if you make no habit of attending to what gets in there, how long it stays, and what it's turning you into. I had to slowly recognize and make peace with the fact that my brain was going to operate in a "nag me with a blog a day at least" kind of way. I recognize that my baseline operating condition is overwhelming and exhausting to most people by default. There's a certain "fight" I'm in with my ideas and my next course of action that I'm actively navigating from almost the moment I wake up. Every day. I can't turn it off.
I also refuse to pretend like I'm not thinking. I can't smoke or drink my problem away. I can "flow," sometimes, a few beers or mixed drinks in, a little easier, but the brain doesn't stop swinging. My underlying animating force needs direction, explanation, and attention. It needs A LOT of it. I'm never convinced any moment I occupy, good or bad, is "enough" or "the truth" of what I "should" be or be doing. Unless it's this.
I think we'd rather have a diffuse, unsolvable and undefined, problem, than none at all. Not having a problem betrays conditioned "common sense." You still don't have enough money, right? You're not in perfect health. Your body in the next room has something to say about your attitude recently. You're still a laborer and can't exude the excruciating values of the leisure class. With the point being to keep the fight going, the invitation to reframe and consider "problems" as more "opportunities" or "evidence of your awareness or potential" feels empty or like it's missing something vital.
Actors might ask, "What's my motivation?" to learn how to fuel an embodied act. What's yours? What motivates you to maintain your "deepest" convictions? What are you really really acting like? What do you want your audience to believe about you? Or, what does your audience expect?
I'm driven by a great deal of hatred and sense of powerlessness. I resent how hard it is to look or sound "respectable" in what I find to be exhausting and insincere exchanges. I start more sentences with "I fucking hate," at least in my head, than I do any other way. I hate the idea of ever getting so tired and complacent that I wouldn't find the words, or take the time, or do the work to avoid acting like all the things I hate.
I'm not a man of "conviction" insofar as, if you have the better argument, I'll change what I think and work to alter the behavior. I'm committed to asking questions. I'm committed to practicing patience, with myself, and with the vast majority of people I'm prepared to bite their head off in an instant. For me, the point isn't to fight. It's to search. It's to account. I'm invited to fight by default. Fight for my attention. Fight to not be afraid to say or try something. Fight for the ability to exist in a standing state of qualified evolution.
I can't say what I'm "really acting" like because I don't feel like I'm acting. An actor is pretending, maybe tapping into an old real memory to evoke "more real" expression, I'm not pretending. I'm literally taking action when and where I can. I'm not "more hateful" than I profess to be, nor "more stressed" than the height of whatever needs to be written about next. I want my audience to throw "beliefs" about that, or me in general, out the window and see or contribute to what I'm working on.
Unfortunately, I don't think I have much of an audience, nor that if I did they'd have any real expectations of me. The 4 people who might consistently read me likely expect I'll continue to write, hang out with them, work with them, and beat my head against walls of indifference and confusion, but I'm happy to let them speak for themselves. My "secret" audience certainly doesn't.
I think you have an incredible amount of work to do on yourself, that won't be done, if you can read a digression like this (or pretend to read it,) tell me you "skimmed it," and the proceed to dole out nonsense "advice" about my "needs." But that's your point, to keep the "fight" going. It's to say your piece, because everything exists for you to engage with it in an inflaming way, not a sincere way, or patient way, or with a eye and ear towards meaningful exchange. Is there any real way to escape? Would you even want to?
No comments:
Post a Comment