Thank you. But mainly I am just sad that you, or anyone else, has experienced it first hand. It should seem like an outlandish proposal, a crazy idea, for strangers to spend all day pressing keyboards to send missiles of ill intent well aimed to blow-up people's lives, people they do not actually know in the flesh. (Having a real life enemy is a totally different thing, based on them, say, having foreclosed on you, illegally evicted you, or deported your aunty.)
In fact it is a form of warfare of the machine-that-is-in-people-already. (The desire-production-machine and all those other 'ideas' are not under the control of the terribly clever thinkers of the concepts). In that sense, they are demonic, for want of a better word. Online harassers and 'cancellers', and anyone who spreads lies knowingly, are in my opinion the necrotising biological agents of the Machine. It is hard for the Technopticon to weaken healthy, settled people, as we exist in the embodied realm and it does not. So, willing humans, fuelled with the empty diet coke of infinite scroll, become the vectors of dis-ease, attacking those who are keeping faith with life, breadth of thought and richness of ways of living. Once we get ill, we can be picked off. It learned this from 'Life on Earth', like we all did.
So, the steadfast conviviality of friendships, family, community and affinity are then not just nice ideas. They are the nutrition that will prevent our sickness, and the remedy to it, if we succumb.
Hearty greetings from rainy Dorset, Rhyd. Thanks for the book club too.
I agree, I think many of us tend to wait for the perfect conditions to obtain or the perfect mood to settle on us before beginning something, when the activity itself will provide the transformation,
something I conquered with regard to exercise long ago, but find harder with writing!
I happened upon a few lines from a weel kent book, Ishmael, that I thought somewhat relevant. Maybe just to life if not your article! “There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with people. Given a story to enact that puts them in accord with the world, they will live in accord with the world. But given a story to enact that puts them at odds with the world, they will live at odds of the world. Given a story to enact in which they are lords of the world, they will act like lords of the world. And given a story in which the world is foe to be conquered, they will conquer it like a foe and one day, inevitably, their foe will lie bleeding to death at their feet, as the world is now.” We’re all on that beach, we just need to hear better stories.
Thanks for this. I have heard many time that Ishmael was a good book, Peter Michael Bauer speaks of it often as a big influence when he was a young man.
Caroline got there first- thank you! I have found it an influential book too. I suspect any book that challenges mainstream culture will struggle to make the NY Times best seller list!
Caroline, this is a rich post and I’ve read it twice already. I teach and practice The Happy Body, developed by the Gregoreks who introduced me to the difference between exercise and training. The former is entertainment, but training is training. And here’s to Tonic Youth!
This is so good. I was mentally highlighting and commenting ("yes!" "this!") on so many sentences when I realized I just need to bookmark this whole post. Thank you for this gift.
"mass semi-automated precision-targeted complete dehumanisation vendettas..."
Brilliant. As is the rest of it. :)
Thank you. But mainly I am just sad that you, or anyone else, has experienced it first hand. It should seem like an outlandish proposal, a crazy idea, for strangers to spend all day pressing keyboards to send missiles of ill intent well aimed to blow-up people's lives, people they do not actually know in the flesh. (Having a real life enemy is a totally different thing, based on them, say, having foreclosed on you, illegally evicted you, or deported your aunty.)
In fact it is a form of warfare of the machine-that-is-in-people-already. (The desire-production-machine and all those other 'ideas' are not under the control of the terribly clever thinkers of the concepts). In that sense, they are demonic, for want of a better word. Online harassers and 'cancellers', and anyone who spreads lies knowingly, are in my opinion the necrotising biological agents of the Machine. It is hard for the Technopticon to weaken healthy, settled people, as we exist in the embodied realm and it does not. So, willing humans, fuelled with the empty diet coke of infinite scroll, become the vectors of dis-ease, attacking those who are keeping faith with life, breadth of thought and richness of ways of living. Once we get ill, we can be picked off. It learned this from 'Life on Earth', like we all did.
So, the steadfast conviviality of friendships, family, community and affinity are then not just nice ideas. They are the nutrition that will prevent our sickness, and the remedy to it, if we succumb.
Hearty greetings from rainy Dorset, Rhyd. Thanks for the book club too.
Caroline, Beautiful work - both the words and the art. D
I agree, I think many of us tend to wait for the perfect conditions to obtain or the perfect mood to settle on us before beginning something, when the activity itself will provide the transformation,
something I conquered with regard to exercise long ago, but find harder with writing!
Ah, that's funny. I find it easy with writing, and very difficult with exercise!
I really like the buckskin pieces
Thank you. There were 4, I only have 'Blasted' left here, the others found homes, which is always heartening.
This requires digesting. A change in us is a change in the world is what I will sit with today. Thank you for lighting a path.
I happened upon a few lines from a weel kent book, Ishmael, that I thought somewhat relevant. Maybe just to life if not your article! “There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with people. Given a story to enact that puts them in accord with the world, they will live in accord with the world. But given a story to enact that puts them at odds with the world, they will live at odds of the world. Given a story to enact in which they are lords of the world, they will act like lords of the world. And given a story in which the world is foe to be conquered, they will conquer it like a foe and one day, inevitably, their foe will lie bleeding to death at their feet, as the world is now.” We’re all on that beach, we just need to hear better stories.
Thanks for this. I have heard many time that Ishmael was a good book, Peter Michael Bauer speaks of it often as a big influence when he was a young man.
V interesting. I’ve done a search for this book but can’t find it? Would you mind posting the full title / author or a link?
Here it is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishmael_(Quinn_novel)
Caroline got there first- thank you! I have found it an influential book too. I suspect any book that challenges mainstream culture will struggle to make the NY Times best seller list!
Thanks Martin, even reading the Wikipedia entry is giving me goosebumps here
Caroline, this is a rich post and I’ve read it twice already. I teach and practice The Happy Body, developed by the Gregoreks who introduced me to the difference between exercise and training. The former is entertainment, but training is training. And here’s to Tonic Youth!
Yes! I love those definitions, thanks for those. I could have done with them when I was teaching more.
This is so good. I was mentally highlighting and commenting ("yes!" "this!") on so many sentences when I realized I just need to bookmark this whole post. Thank you for this gift.
You are welcome, Shinehah.