The Worlds Within Us
The Worlds Within Us
I’d be lying if I said I never freak out over the little things. Little things like realizing, due to an error in my air-tight schedule, that my work is piling up more than I thought. Little things like my computer slowing to pre-historic speeds when I’m almost done with a project. Little thing like my hereditary hanger that sneaks up and gets the best of me.
In these moments I get impatient and red and refuse even the kindest offers of help from those closest to me.
But give me a crisis? You can count on me to be very, very calm.
What conditions allow my inner world to be an eye amidst these dark storms? Is it my perspective? Is it emotional distance? Is it denial?
This week, as friends and family reach out asking “how are you?” I’m embarrassed to say… well, I’m fine!
Like, what the fuck is wrong with me?
Maybe nothing?
My world isn’t rocked nor my reality shattered because, to be honest, I’ve come to expect so little out of the things we make out to be so big. How many wake up calls does it take to see that we are living in a fucked system that's functioning exactly as its always intended to? One where imperialism, classism, fascism, a caste system, a capital-dominated political landscape can continually pass itself off as “democracy”— representative of all. Do we really give so much power to this system that a symbolic decision sends us into despair? Where has our despair been?
We must accept some essential truths:
- This government has never been for all the people.
- Most people are at the bottom of a generational string of disadvantages.
- Suffering must be faced or displaced, someone will always have to pay the toll for our "freedoms".
- When a system is toxic, inclusion is no less violent than exclusion.
- There is no magic door to a utopia before capital, we must create something new from within our present reality.
Our reality, our sense of time, our identities, and even the genesis of “desire” as we know it are all shaped by the dogmas of our external systems. Our understanding of desire is rooted in scarcity. We are programmed to look around and see what we don't have. From this viewpoint, can we even imagine what a post-capitalist desire would look like?
Close your eyes for a moment and start to picture your inner landscape. What lives among your daydreams? What desires surface in your fantasies? What narratives do you hold to be true? What future do you desire? Now take a deeper look— see this inner world as it truly is. Do you see the pain of existence? Do you see the suffering we all share? If not, where did it go? Pull out a little— where in your inner landscape do you displace discomfort? How do you pull yourself away from a reality that can hold conflict and pain?
Is it possible to cultivate, prune, and grow our imaginative consciousness? Can we scan our inner worlds and attempt to remove hierarchy, power, social symbols, identity? Can we strip our programming and create a new architecture for these inner landscapes? A programming of care and connection. A new truth that holds pain, experience, beauty, and repair. We live on a planet filled to the brim with different expressions of being alive. Look under the soil for mycelium networks. Is bacteria a model for connection? Even the trees have their own gesture of communication. Look at the people. What are we doing? How do we interact? What do we need?
These are the questions we must ask, if we want to get close to imagining a post capitalist desire. David Wojnarowicz said “one of the last frontiers left for radical gesture is the imagination.” Imagination connects us to our inner worlds, in which we form pathways to the collective, to spirit, and to the magic that transforms you and me into us. We must claim and take charge to protect our imagination. If we don't, I promise they will seize that land too. Our capacity to dream may be the only thing to relieve the crushing weight of our existence.
I offer a manifesto of sorts for this mission:
- We reject an excess of desire, and a desire of excess.
- We accept longing, or its twin sister, envy, without needing to feed it.
- We embrace all parts of ourselves and seek to know them.
- We take responsibility for the barriers we create in and outside of us, and seek to dismantle what is self imposed.
- We represent and hold our pain as a collective.
- We take action to create and commune with the worlds we want.
Time is full of potent moments, whether in this minute or the next. Time can be our most useful tool of creation. We are only bound to it when we let it create us.
My intention as an artist is to be a creator of worlds.
November 8th, 2024.
Written in collaboration with Adi Kwiatek for the 8th In Our Own Spaces salon.
The Worlds Within Us
I’d be lying if I said I never freak out over the little things. Little things like realizing, due to an error in my air-tight schedule, that my work is piling up more than I thought. Little things like my computer slowing to pre-historic speeds when I’m almost done with a project. Little thing like my hereditary hanger that sneaks up and gets the best of me.
In these moments I get impatient and red and refuse even the kindest offers of help from those closest to me.
But give me a crisis? You can count on me to be very, very calm.
What conditions allow my inner world to be an eye amidst these dark storms? Is it my perspective? Is it emotional distance? Is it denial?
This week, as friends and family reach out asking “how are you?” I’m embarrassed to say… well, I’m fine!
Like, what the fuck is wrong with me?
Maybe nothing?
My world isn’t rocked nor my reality shattered because, to be honest, I’ve come to expect so little out of the things we make out to be so big. How many wake up calls does it take to see that we are living in a fucked system that's functioning exactly as its always intended to? One where imperialism, classism, fascism, a caste system, a capital-dominated political landscape can continually pass itself off as “democracy”— representative of all. Do we really give so much power to this system that a symbolic decision sends us into despair? Where has our despair been?
We must accept some essential truths:
- This government has never been for all the people.
- Most people are at the bottom of a generational string of disadvantages.
- Suffering must be faced or displaced, someone will always have to pay the toll for our "freedoms".
- When a system is toxic, inclusion is no less violent than exclusion.
- There is no magic door to a utopia before capital, we must create something new from within our present reality.
Our reality, our sense of time, our identities, and even the genesis of “desire” as we know it are all shaped by the dogmas of our external systems. Our understanding of desire is rooted in scarcity. We are programmed to look around and see what we don't have. From this viewpoint, can we even imagine what a post-capitalist desire would look like?
Close your eyes for a moment and start to picture your inner landscape. What lives among your daydreams? What desires surface in your fantasies? What narratives do you hold to be true? What future do you desire? Now take a deeper look— see this inner world as it truly is. Do you see the pain of existence? Do you see the suffering we all share? If not, where did it go? Pull out a little— where in your inner landscape do you displace discomfort? How do you pull yourself away from a reality that can hold conflict and pain?
Is it possible to cultivate, prune, and grow our imaginative consciousness? Can we scan our inner worlds and attempt to remove hierarchy, power, social symbols, identity? Can we strip our programming and create a new architecture for these inner landscapes? A programming of care and connection. A new truth that holds pain, experience, beauty, and repair. We live on a planet filled to the brim with different expressions of being alive. Look under the soil for mycelium networks. Is bacteria a model for connection? Even the trees have their own gesture of communication. Look at the people. What are we doing? How do we interact? What do we need?
These are the questions we must ask, if we want to get close to imagining a post capitalist desire. David Wojnarowicz said “one of the last frontiers left for radical gesture is the imagination.” Imagination connects us to our inner worlds, in which we form pathways to the collective, to spirit, and to the magic that transforms you and me into us. We must claim and take charge to protect our imagination. If we don't, I promise they will seize that land too. Our capacity to dream may be the only thing to relieve the crushing weight of our existence.
I offer a manifesto of sorts for this mission:
- We reject an excess of desire, and a desire of excess.
- We accept longing, or its twin sister, envy, without needing to feed it.
- We embrace all parts of ourselves and seek to know them.
- We take responsibility for the barriers we create in and outside of us, and seek to dismantle what is self imposed.
- We represent and hold our pain as a collective.
- We take action to create and commune with the worlds we want.
Time is full of potent moments, whether in this minute or the next. Time can be our most useful tool of creation. We are only bound to it when we let it create us.
My intention as an artist is to be a creator of worlds.
November 8th, 2024.
Written in collaboration with Adi Kwiatek for the 8th In Our Own Spaces salon.
