The affirmative nod with a furrowed brow
Sometimes I feel like I can’t post unless I have something prolific and important to say.
Like there needs to be some kind of gravitas or philosophical significance to making a statement else it just more dregs in the sea, more dross in the solution
Maybe I’m just feeding my egocentric need for engagement and to be heard.
But maybe it’s okay that things don’t have to be filled with deep ancient wisdom and insight?
Maybe it still matters if its just an affirmative nod.
A nod that says “I see you, I hear you, I am also experiencing those feelings, and I’m also afraid and confused”
A nod that says “Things are fucking insane and I am not prepared to resolve them internally and externally and I would absolutely love a simple answer, though I know it doesn’t exist.”
A nod that says “You are not alone in feeling desperate for direction”
I spent the 3 weeks after Christmas incredibly ill. Accepting that my auto-immunity will offer challenges that require more diligence in how I interact with social situations isn’t particularly exciting, but it is valuable nonetheless. This time allowed me to do a lot more reading and a lot more scrolling on social media.
I imagine you can guess which was the more valuable use of time.
On social media I ingested the endless toxic dopamine drip of bread and circus political theater parading as confronting the directed fascism locally and abroad. I watched endless opinions and bias affirmation on loop as tasks in my home piled up and my hopefulness dissipated.
So cruel a tool masquerading as community as it drains us our autonomy.
One of the books I’ve been reading is called “Your Brain on Art” by Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross. It is an exploration of neuroaesthetics and NeuroArt and how doing and perceiving art fundamentally impacts how your brain functions and physically changes, complete with dozens of clinical examples of how doing art or being immersed in art has positive aspects for wellness and cognitive capacity. Art helps you physically function better. Art helps you process more complicated ideas. Art literally rebuilds and creates more neural pathways and expands your ability to deal with information.
It got me thinking about art in a different way.
I’ve always viewed art as revolutionary in a philosophical way. Art is emotion manifested so of course the voices of the oppressed create powerful, important representations of that experience.
It got me thinking about the current state of the world.
Social media has spent billions on R&D to convince us that watching other people do things is as valuable as doing it ourselves (dopamine doesn’t know the difference), that our art should exist to be monetized, that we should each be a brand and that our validation comes only when numbers go up, no matter how much we know numbers are skewed, manipulated, and ultimately inconsequential to our value as human beings, or our ability to find community and support. They only matter if our only access point to those things is through them. AI, LLM’s and the ecosystem of prompt engineering has convinced us that research and understanding through our own cognitive process and capabilities isn’t as optimal as having limitless access to sometimes correct bias confirmation machines that will tell us a lie, apologize for the lie, then tell us how smart we are for catching the lie, all while we forget how to think and forget how to find a human being with the knowledge we seek.
Isolated, ignorant, powerless.
We will never be gifted autonomy by a system that profits off of our lethargy.
We must take it.
I’ve set a new rule for myself that my phone can only be on 12 hours of the day.
I’m intending to set a rule for myself that I can only spend as much time on social media as I do reading or creating.
I am surrounded by an abundance of beauty, community, and possibility.
Why do they deserve to take my focus from those things? Simply because they’ve engineered the optimal ways to produce the chemistry in my brain for attentiveness?
The world is full of ghouls and cruelty.
The world is full of so much more, tucked away beneath that veneer.
My intentions are to create art and be revolutionary.
My intentions are to facilitate others in creating art and being revolutionary.
When I sat down, I simply wanted to say “we are in this together, and I am searching for answers just as we all are”
I realize now that the answers don’t need to be huge and prolific.
The answers don’t need gravitas and philosophy.
The answers simply need autonomy.
The answer is autonomy.
The answer is as it always has been.
“Do the thing. Everything else will follow through”
Friends, comrades, consider this my affirmative nod to you that we are in this together, we will find the answers, and that we are all autonomous, beautiful possibilities.
Consider this my internal call to action to share what I know and what I learn so we all can take back our autonomy and capability.
An affirmative nod with a hopeful spark
An affirmative nod with a middle finger
An affirmative nod with a furrowed brow that says
"We’re in this together."
“I’ve seen the future. We won”
It’s not a big statement, nor a dramatic one, but it was what I needed in that moment.
I think we all can offer each other these moments.
These reminders of hopefulness
These reminders of possibilities
These reminders of autonomy
These affirmative nods.
-dsmsblk
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