Bullshit & bandaids
Adventures du jour!
This one is mostly a ramble about doubt.
I tend to take stock of my goals and ambitions a little later in the year (Groundhog Day), but I ran into something upsetting that prompted me to start doing so earlier. I *thought* I had a grip on it, but it hit pretty hard. And then I went to catch up with a friend email (erm) and the edge of it came bubbling out to her, and then again later, in weird ways.
So I’mma write about it here. I need to process it enough to put it in my fiction writing today. I’m giving myself one last pass through Three-Pointer’s posthumous letter to his friends, and it’s pretty dark stuff but could probably be darker (she said, cold-bloodedly).
I’m not going to go into what set me off originally. If I don’t explain it well enough for it to make sense, it won’t make sense. And if I do explain it well enough to make sense, I’ll worry about kicking people’s heads around as I oughtn’t.
But the idea was useful for ME. It’s going to take some time to stick things together again in my head, but I don’t feel disrupted or derailed so much as a bit of an internal bandaid got ripped off. Or more like I was told, “Hey, man. Bandaids, they exist, maybe they don’t need to go over, you know, your eyeballs and stuff.” Which means I’ve been picking at the damn bandaid because I don’t leave stuff like that alone.
Thing is, I deal in illusions and bullshit and–bandaids, as it were. I try not to believe in them, or at least to have a sense of perspective about them, but there it is: I’m a seller of illusions, whether it’s fiction or marketing or (now) stuff related to AI.
Do people really need bandaids like the ones I ended up picking at? Do I?
For example, I think of myself as strong agnostic or a gnostic agnostic (those aren’t the same and I’m both). I consistently experience a sense of the divine that I don’t personally believe in. (I think I experience it based on how I was raised, not because of any innate truth.) I know my sense of the divine is a bandaid. Do I need to experience it? Would I be able to endure life without it? Would I be a worse or–ugh–better writer if I didn’t?
Where does that experience mislead me?
Likewise, what does calling myself agnostic do to me? Does it help or hurt? Where does it distort?
I don’t know. I don’t even know whether I’m making free choices or not, because even the arbitrary way I see the world distorts everything I do.
–I can follow that whole train of thought so far and no further. At THAT point, for whatever reason, I no longer feel sad, or upset, or dejected or confused, but settled in mind and somewhat hopeful.
If I don’t know whether my choices are free or not, then I’m actually back in territory that I understand pretty well. When you don’t believe in something that you nevertheless experience directly, you develop a set of tools to use to help navigate fundamental levels of doubt.
“I don’t really know WHY I want to do X, but I’mma do X regardless. In the past, other people have done X and I felt inspired or ugly-jealous to do the same. OR I just want to piss someone off, or delight them, or cause mischief, or just be there for them. And that’s good enough for me.”
Life after death? Cool. I’mma do X. Nothing but oblivious after death? Cool. I’mma do X. Everything’s a software simulation and I’m a piece of code, only able to act in accordance with the sim’s overall programming? Cool. I’mma do X. I’m going to ruin my career. Cool. I’mma do X. Someone’s going to get pissed off. Cool. I’mma do X. It would be easier if I just did Y. Cool. I’mma do X.
And so on.
Then I run into something that makes me go, “What is X, anyway? It’s all just bullshit,” and it all gets knocked down and I have to start over again.
What I eventually came to this morning was that I keep going in circles over ideas like this. And maybe that’s okay. Maybe I’m never going to hit the truth of anything, but at least I should be aware of the layers of bullshit & bandaids building up, and get reminded to peel back as much as I can stand on a regular basis. Particularly if I’m going to keep dealing in bullshit & bandaids for a living.
Because what happened *yesterday* after feeling wrecked was that I spent most of the day getting my ass in gear to get stories out and published. Yah. Ripped off the bandaid that was protecting me from despair, found clear and hopeful action underneath.
So I’m a dumbass. What else is new?
Why, I got 200K on the WIP down. So watch that motha motha burn!
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An excellent article by author/pundit Corey Doctorow, on “Social Quitting,” or how some large social media companies are screwing themselves over. Please note, there is a negative mention of cryptocurrency which I support entirely. (I think crypto is madness and would add that inasmuch as crypto is stable, it is because of the backing of the black market. Yay! Drugs and human trafficking for the win!)
Midjourney LOVES enamel pins, it turns out.
Doesn’t this just remind you of a Muppet?!?