In everyday life you will find that your boss, your lover, or your government often try to manipulate you. They propose a “game” to you in the form of a choice in which one of the alternatives appears definitely preferable. Having chosen this alternative, you are faced with a new game, and very soon you find that your reasonable choices have brought you to something you never wanted: you are trapped. To avoid this, remember that acting a bit erratically may be the best strategy. What you lose by making some sub-optimal choices you make up for by keeping greater freedom.
David Ruelle, Chance and Chaos
Month: April 2023
therapy’s going great
what’re you trying to say that it’s only possible to achieve greatness if you cast off the inhibitions imposed by sanity who cares if Freud was a cocaine addicted cigar puffing basket case what does saying Jung was psychotic mean for the ways he shifted the world Joyce may or may not have been manic depressive but there’s no disputing his broad knowledge of language history politics literature art science you’re just trying to box me in what if I want to be insane what if I want to pursue every last ambition with the doggedness of a heat seeking missile what do you mean heat seeking missiles explode what do you mean que es la significa amiga maybe sanity is a prison and the only way to get out of this situation is to lose it a little huh huh how about that don’t tell me to calm down who’s paying who here huh watch me brandish my piercing intellect like a disgruntled postal worker driven the end of his lonely patience and forced into drastic measures to see the effect of his existence on the world I will swallow the world like a serpent with unhinged jaw (get it? unhinged??) I can do it all I can do it all and you’re one of those agents sent to check me when my ambitions get too high they don’t want me to win [dj khaled voice:] DJ KHALED! because if I win they lose and they can’t lose they always win what am I going to do what am I going to do the guards are closing in lashing whips like Inquisitors burning witches like Puritans killing heretics like Templars blackmailing radicals like the FBI but I’m not a witch heretic radical I’m just a boring nobody whining in his therapist’s office
Mircea Eliade’s The Sacred and the Profane
a quick little primer on how we’re still living in a world haunted by rituals and a yearning for the sacred. what would Eliade have to say about the number of times you checked your phone today?
beer-prompted details
he waited until after last call to ask about the book I had been reading. neither of us ordered another round, me because I finished my Frank Bidart collection and was almost done with my beer, him because his glass was still 4/5ths full. “do you enjoy reading that sort of thing?” I did; it wasn’t exactly world-shifting, but it was a poignant poetry sequence, a meditation on the poet’s relationship with his alcoholic, womanizing father. “are you looking for girls?” “what do you mean. like, in general?” “yeah, like…” “no, not right now.” “so you’re not reading poetry at the bar in the hopes that girls come up and ask you about it?” “well if girls came up to me I wouldn’t be upset about it, but no that’s not why I’m reading poetry. I have a girlfriend, but we have an open relationship, but no, that wasn’t my goal for the evening. is that your goal?” “no I’m drowning my sorrows.”
he introduced himself and asked me about myself, and I entertained his questions. sometimes it’s not so bad being candid with strangers. then I asked about his sorrows.
“well, you know, just like, relationship stuff. it’s hard. relationships are hard. in a lot of ways, the relationship I’m in now, it’s the best relationship I’ve ever had, but in other ways, it’s the worst relationship I’ve ever had. I don’t know, do you know much about psychology?” I tilted my head side to side, similarly waving my hand in a “I guess so” gesture. “my girlfriend, she has borderline personality disorder.” I lifted my eyebrows knowingly. a volatile situation, especially for someone who describes himself as “rational.” “she’s gotten a lot better, but it’s like, how much better, you know?”
when you’re a rational person, convincing yourself you should be grateful for what you have is a lot easier than admitting you’re unhappy. he tells me more about himself, that he’s not usually a relationship guy, when he was younger he was, in his words, “a real scumbag,” he’s had some childhood trauma, and his own experience with “cluster b personality disorders,” so on and so forth. maybe not so rational after all.
“it’s not, no it’s not hot and cold, it’s always hot. she can be, yeah, aggressive. but it also makes me feel alive, you know? drama and passion. but she lived with me for about three months, and she got kind of violent with me. I’m like, you know, physically stronger than her, so like, but, you know….this sounds really bad huh.”
I laugh. “No it doesn’t sound good.”
(what is it about me that’s so easy to open up to am I such a blank canvas that anyone in the right moment can project all their psychic turmoil onto me sure this guy is clearly amazed he picked the right person to talk to in this moment a person who would love to believe he’s had some effect on the world even if it’s just helping someone realize they clearly do not want the life they’re currently living but you and I both know we want to do more than ask the right questions we want to project a world where we’re the protagonist)
it’s hard being in that kind of relationship, when you see the potential in someone, and because you love them you think you can be the one to help them reach that potential, and also you somewhat selfishly want to be there for that narrative pay off, to be present for the redemption arc. but life isn’t like that, is it.
“yeah. fuck man. do you charge by the hour?”
non-monogamous dating app profile
Hey beautiful human creatures 👋
5’7″. 🍑 Sagittarius sun, Pisces moon, Leo rising: basically I’m a big slutty crybaby who loves attention 🤭
Outgoing. Adventurous. Dynamic. Introextrambivert. Reiki healer, artist, Lemurian, entrepreneur. 333.
Looking for like-minded spirits interested in meaningful casual connections with the potential for LTR.
Love music. Love art. Love food. Love life. Love Disney.
🍃🍄🦄✨🚯
Switchy-sub bratty pillow princess with a heart of gold. Tie me up?? Gangbang me???
No cops. No MAGA. No cis men. Smash the patriarchy.
Big dicks and queers to the front.
Quintuple vaxxxed (💖Pfizer💖) and STI free. Except HSV1, but, like, c’mon everyone has that.
)°(
kik lusciouslyndzee88
Herman Hesse’s Narcissus and Goldmund
I read this on the suggestion of my therapist, because within me is two wolves: a hedonist, romantic flake and an austere, self-denying square. yesterday she mentioned in a different context The Sun Also Rises, which coincidentally sits right next to Narcissus and Goldmund on my shelf. synchronicities, curious synchronicities. not exactly surprising that she recommended this book since it’s overtly informed by Jungian analytic theory, which is what she specializes in.
the book’s a little, ah, didactic in the presentation of its ideas, but when it gets out of its own way it’s very moving and evocative. I learned a lot about art & psychology following Goldmund’s pursuit of the sensual life on the pretense of a search for the archetypal Mother. probably don’t really need to study Jung as I was thinking of doing: besides, studying is what Narcissus would do. instead I should try to fuck a bunch of women. that’s the lesson here, right?
jinx’s détournement
détournement is an artistic practice, first developed by the Letterist International and adopted by the Situationists, that utilizes preexisting cultural artifacts and repurposes them into something intended to draw attention to the contradictions of the original production’s milieu. it is a form of artistic propaganda that turns the language of bourgeois society against itself. to even contemplate détournement as a viable artistic project in 2023 is a little quaint: a common example mentioned as counterargument is how graphic designers at AdBusters often wound up working for the very advertising agencies they lampooned.
I’m not someone who wants to give up the game so easily. the oscillation between subversion and reification is just that: an oscillation. anyone who thinks that avenues of refusal, rebellion, and resistance have been permanently sealed by the coronation of neoliberal capitalism is only spinning Francis Fukuyama’s End of History into a scolding leftist critique.
that being said, I’m also not someone who believes art ought to be propaganda. this is the position held by Debord and Wolman in their essay “A User’s Guide to Détournement”. as I often like to say to myself, I’m not an activist, I’m an artist: think what you will of that. nonetheless, I reserve more disdain for nihilist aesthetes than I do for anyone who views art as a vehicle for ideology, so I’m interested in methods for artistic production that are engaged in some kind of political or moral struggle. but I reserve the right to leave you guessing what exactly I believe. my sympathies should be obvious enough.
anyway, revisiting the Debord/Wolman essay, I got some ideas for my own projects, but more interestingly, I was reminded of one of the few “content creators” I truly admire: jinx.
he repurposes clips from films, news footage, pop songs, wikipedia articles, and internet ephemera–the cultural material of networked capitalism–into provocative political education of an alternate history, with the intention of estranging the viewer from preconceived notions. he’s also very funny, if sometimes offensive.
my original thought was to talk more about this, but I’m not that interested in doing, idk, critical theory or art analysis or whatever. then I wanted to post the Tim Russert edit but trying to find specific jinx edits is nearly impossible.
Détournement is less effective the more it approaches a rational reply
Guy Debord & Gil J Wolman
Terence McKenna on the situation we find ourselves in
I think that a conscious decision was made by the American establishment at the close of the 1960s, and what they said to themselves was, “This idea of universal education, and an educated citizenry, this, we don’t like. We see now what happens when you educate your citizens: they figure out the game, and they come to you with their plans for reform, and how to make it better.” So I was, at least at the University of California, I was among the last people to go through that university where the goal was to inform you about the nature of the enterprise called “Western Civilization.” And after that, what they got into was this MBA, data entry, all this stuff. The universities became trade schools, and what they give you is video games. They give you TV, video games, and they give you a skill. They say, “You’re a level three data enterer. We’re gonna give you $35,000 dollars a year, and please shut up about it. That’s it. You’ve been brought inside. But we’re not interested in your opinions. We’re giving you a life, we’re giving you a trade, and we’ll be giving you some orders downstream, and by God you better snap to when the moment comes.” This has nothing to do with democracy. This is fascism, is what it is….Everything is commoditized. People these days want to be secure. I don’t really understand that. You need a certain critical mass to give that up. It’s great when you and all your friends agree you don’t care whether you starve or not because you’re going to have so much fun doing it, but it’s hard to reach that place by yourself, because it’s not very much fun. There is a problem in that we are manipulated, and we are not empowered, and those who are empowered, it wouldn’t be so bad if they had a plan. But their plan is, you know, another house, another Mercedes, a deeper swimming pool. This is no plan. And so it’s up to the creativity of ordinary people.
Terence McKenna
SAMPLE SPRING #4
this one is to see how minimal I could keep things and still make it interesting. no bass, just a programmed drum track with small variations and a flute raga sample I ran through a bunch of effects until it sounds like a shoegaze guitar. turned out pretty good, though if I were to want it to be a real song I’d have to add some flourishes that I’ve been kind of afraid to figure out how to use, like sound bites and such. so obviously the thing to do would be work on that next.