<ADMIN>
Let’s just start by saying I find it annoying when Substack writers “humbly” post some flattering comment from someone else about them. I swear to God I will never do that. Bragging always is and will forever be gross. AND when they mostly restack other people’s writing. Fine, repost SOME stuff you actually love but if that’s mostly what you’re doing, I’m going to unsubscribe. I’m there for YOU, not these other whim-whams you’re posting, no matter how good you think they are; it’s like having a friend who is constantly trying to “connect” you with other people because they’re “a connector”. I know, I restack on occasion too. But you can smell when this is done sincerely and when it isn’t. Clear networking strategies are inherently aversive. I’m not (that) stupid. Throw out all the stuff you learned in that marketing “course” you paid way too much for and just be real.
But what do I know?
Self-aware Yawn Alert: This is all probably because I want to be Real. Because I’m tired of being a stuffed velveteen (which is way too close to Velveeta, which is also super fake and even a made-up-plastic word and thus all-around appropriate) in the ways that I am, I suppose. See? Yawn.
Okay.
Full disclosure (and yes that’s funny to me every time): I have to let you know that the subtitle here is also fake. It just sounded good. I’m not going to give you some program to quickly write something just to be writing, even though I could have (and ages ago, would have). Writing just to write is generally pointless and stupid, except maybe just as a writing-improvement practice. Or for fun. But maybe you don’t need to subject everyone else to it. I don’t know. They also don’t have to read it I suppose. You can probably tell what kind of mood I’m in by now. You should probably also know that I write mostly for the fun of it and just to write. And I’m subjecting you to it.
<ADMIN OVER>
I started writing on and reading Substack when everything else known to man was censored. I’m sure it still is, I’m just not participating much in that world anymore. Everything was “Breaking News!” and you were so relieved to see that other people were interested in what you were interested in (mainly the handbasket and where we were going in it). Now that several years have gone by, it’s mostly just depressing. My life changed, most people’s lives changed…some people became more spiritually-based, others went dark, many of us just tried to keep our heads above water and out of the insane asylum, bereft of the familiar worlds we once inhabited.
And what with being grounded and banished from life, there was time to write, theoretically (but the kids were all home from school, so…). There’s still time to write. Here and there. I’m writing here about writing which is so meta. Back before meta was Meta, before megalomaniacal imbeciles transformed an Actual Thing into registered trademark, thereby nullifying any actual meaning it once held. Murderous.
But what do I know?
I guess what I’m saying is that I’m disenchanted. I’m disenchanted with the mostly colonized, corrupted and fake “space” we call the internet. With the concepts we mistake for Life. With the brain-changes screens have wrought—here I am writing this on my screen, people!—even in myself (I’m also annoyingly disenchanted with the concept of myself—argh). Idea-things like this. I want to run over (and over) my phone with my car. Chop it neatly in two with an axe. Bend my laptop screen over until it snaps off. I want the Real to smash through the Unreal. But that kind of absolutely warranted tantrum would mostly just result in a well-planned, self-induced, further isolating inconvenience.
I know, I’m so edgy it’s dull.
But they’ve really got us by the balls now, haven’t they?
It’s different than ennui, you Edward Goreyphiles.
But what do I know?
While I’m re-enchanted with my daughter, my home, our guinea pigs and fish, actual people, soil…oh and plants—with the REAL**and you really have to work with the addicted brain to cultivate any actual presence at all to even be with the Real, don’t you? Via, of course, the addicted brain…don’t fuck it up in the first place—how I wish I’d not**—I find myself (that kooky girl) treading water with almost everything else.
What happens when you don’t care about what used to absorb your entire life? I suppose that then, everything changes, because perception changes. But Brave New World, Huxley knew too much about you for me not to drag my feet and dig my heels in. Feet feet feet.
But what do I know?
My heater broke, so I’m using my fireplace, and space heaters. The fireplace seems more real than the heater anyway, and being cold is more real than having radiator face. But how far do you take it? Real is also succumbing to hypothermia in a wintery river and eating wet leaves because you won’t kill a squirrel and there’s nothing else around. Real is all kinds of things I’d rather avoid, thank you. But here I am, marking time with, IN, the Unreal. I should be out feeding homeless dogs or those squirrels. Or something. Luxury means time to think about how meaningless most of your life activities actually may be.
But what do I know?
Speaking of, always wanting to do the BEST thing, make the BEST decision, spend time in the BEST way, is a trap (and a great distracting addiction at that—let me tell you about it!). It presumes access to an all-knowing eye. And we know who THAT is: that stupidly insignificant Wizard of Oz. Who is a….big fat “NO”. Go with the gut. Flow mentally with whatever moves this body (almost impossible—and why try? Just for less pain? Is this a worthy aim? IS there a worthy aim? I suspect my only worthy aim is possibly maintaining my health and becoming as aware as possible of my own pot-holes so I may send my daughter out onto the seas of life with as much love and sincerity and as little trauma as possible so she can be a re-do for me—or at least a freer version of the human animal—no pressure). At the same time I know this is Not True. I know the quiet joy of just BEing and how everything that is. Just allow me my tantrum here for a moment, please.
But what do I know?
I used to think I could write about things that were obvious to me that seemed invisible to many others that if they only understood, would “save the world.” I still write those things, but…I don’t know. It’s not just that the conceit is so apparent to me these days. It’s also that the fire behind it is mostly quashed by the obvious: everyone is busy, we have a million things to do and a million things to read and watch and (hopefully) consider and care (or not care) about—death by a thousand paper cuts. Death by dilution.
But what do I know?
Maybe these things matter in a definition of “matter” that actually matters.
Likely, tomorrow, or in an hour, I’ll feel differently. Everything is always in flux. Change is inevitable. Everything changes. But not, perhaps, everything, at least all at once. I see things moving in their little patterns, circling around and back, changed, but still the same.
And then, poof. Gone.
But what do I know.
One man I married and one I was engaged to died within the last year. Poof. Gone.
Where did they go? Were they ever here? Am I here? What IS here?
We don’t know anything.
Which is why my instinct is to stay close to the ground. To watch the raven. Taste the dirt. Tend the plants. Listen to the river. To go the way of David Abram—who has somehow managed the miracle of writing without writing.
But what do I know.
🤔WeLL...
i
JUST
LiKe*YA*🧜
"K0✨0KY"
🌳😉🌳🙃🌳
HUGsSs💫
🧝~wiLL0wY~🎈
I am so here for all of this. Disenchantment - check. Wanting to write things that people will understand and I can help save the world - check. Wanting to be noticed for my writing, my speaking, my very existence. It's a drug, isn't it? This wanting to be noticed, floating above the flotsam and jetsam of life. We all just want to matter in some way, right? You matter to your daughter. I matter to my partner. We're all matter - one day here and the next gone. I do sit and ask the universe what to do - what next? What will make a difference? I don't have any more hopes and dreams. Nothing I need, or want, to pursue. Is it enough to just be? Like you, this will shift after I hit "post" - but for now, I simply am. Breathing, existing, trying to not worry if I gain or lose a "follower" or how many people read my posts. We're all wrapped up in ourselves - maybe that's why it's special when someone else, who is equally wrapped up in themselves, takes note of us. Maybe if we take note of others more ... hey, maybe that's something to write about. But, I ramble ...