Now I am quietly waiting for
the catastrophe of my personality
to seem beautiful again,
and interesting, and modern.
- Frank O’Hara
Augmentation Until We Die
The other title of this section was something like “mimetic desire made me do it” but I think I’ll leave that to Alex Danco.
Yesterday I bleached my hair. My mother is upset, but it’s definitely better than getting a tattoo in her book. So I think she’ll live.
I’ve wanted to do something different to my general aesthetic that felt both radical yet extremely in line with how I view myself. Pushing myself, as we all do across different parts of our lives, towards the more romantic version I hold of myself.
Inside of me, there is some misunderstood artist that acts out and is eventually rewarded. As the genius of myself, I know that my actions demand applause. And it is consistently frustrated by the ignorance of others. “Why don’t they get it” he yells and pounds his fists on the table. “Maybe tomorrow they will understand.”
The answer is they don’t get it, because the action itself is done. They are left with the residual. Art is, the vast majority of the time, not the residual. I believe this is why people have so much trouble in museums. The mental leap of visualizing the act of creation is too much.
We are also skeptical of the process itself when we are only left with a residual, which is why Instagram is easily shoved off as filtered reality. I also believe this is why we love video, particularly live / documentation. The documentation of bleaching my hair on Insta-stories had the highest view count I’ve ever received.
In the end, art is an act that takes place everywhere and is ephemeral. Once it happens, it cannot be recreated. What we are left with is the residual of the act. So we are left with a feeling, that is then iterated on by us as we go forth continuing the act we first came across. And so, beautifully we are connected to acts of art from people we will never know.
Awareness
I believe our sense of awareness demands us to seek attention. What is our awareness without an audience to realize us. To not be seen, is to not exist.
When we become aware that we are driven by accruing other’s pausing of their own awareness, things get really interesting. This relationship to act in our awareness, for the crowd’s consumption is the basis of all theatre.
After the theatrical moment, we all return to our individual awareness. We are simply then left with the high of understanding that for a brief moment, we were allowed to freely act without needing our daily sense of agency.
What’s At Stake
As I’ve written before, I like to pose things as fictions. I encourage others to write in such a manner as well. This morning, I asked myself a different question in relation to building Eternal. Simply put, “what’s at stake?”
I’ll let you decide where you take the question, but making this the starting point was interesting for me this morning. Maybe it’ll be interesting for you as well :)
The Paranoia Of Subplots
Something I’ve been working through is the release of trying to connect all the subplots that I believe I’m aware off.
I think this paranoia from my sense of analyzing all social behavior I come across, and then fictionalizing the parts I don’t know. But taken to its extreme, it is very unhealthy and damaging to my sense of why I think people may be doing what I think they might be doing.
Obviously, this is just unproductive. But speaking honestly, I think many of us do it. The only way I’ve helped myself stop this, is being aware of when I sense my fictionalization trigger pulled…. and internally screaming at myself that YOU’RE FUCKING DOING IT AGAIN YOU IDIOT YOU STOP THAT RIGHT NOW.
You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.
- Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
Cancelled - Un-cancelled - Cancelled
As a one off note, I (and some of my friends), believe that cancel culture feels a bit off the rails. The hyper reaction bubble of attention seeking simply fuels someone justtttt bold enough to act out on leading the mob for a cancelling. Despite the merit, but the social reward for this performative wokeness is worth it for many.
That said, I love the fact that Tyler The Creator went from hella problematic rap, to sad boy that had a same sex experience, and is just trying to figure it out through his deconstruction of traditional hiphop structures.
Which led me to feel like a fun side project would simply be a website that tracks the cancelling and un-cancelling of people. I think it would just be hilarious. Could probably just start as a Twitter account. If someone wants to do that, let me know and I’ll throw some ideas at you.
Also his new album is simply incredible, currently sitting as the album of the year, and you can fight me on that if you want.
That’s it for today. Thanks so much for giving me your attention. I hope it was worth it, if not… unsubscribing will not hurt my feelings, and will give you back time you literally cannot have back.
Much love.