I think a lot about communities. About the ones I engender, the ones I engage with, the ones I’ve been ostracized from, the ones I have contempt for. Whether it’s my fiercely-defended open mic family or my “all are welcome if you like us” ilyAIMY fan-base… I think about the context for those communities and the horror with which the online concept of “community” has dismantled any sense of joy I can get when there’s any gathering of more than 5 or 6 people, because it feels like that’s where Mob Mentality seems to edge in.
Shame that’s so opposite to what makes music financially viable.
I think a lot about knowledge. Sought after, ignored, falsified, verified. There are so many delicious conspiracy theories about what we’re “allowed” to know and yet people LOVE to talk, spill beans, eject felines from bags. We race to spread tales and knowledge almost as fast as we glean it, a race of gossips.
You only have to take a look at what we do with our knowledge platforms in order to understand that there’s no REAL reason for censorship and scholarly hoarding of truth. We have a History channel that’s discovered its MUCH more lucrative to tell mildly racist tales of ancient aliens than it is to discuss neolithic building techniques. YouTube has upset the whole of democracy demonstrating that people would more happily consume flat earth theories than NASA webcasts.
It makes me sad and weary.
Even Russia’s discovered it’s MUCH more effective to pay charismatic spouters of dribble than it is to silence on the ground reporting. People en masse, myself included, can’t face the world. They just want to while away their time and forget they’re going to die.
I’m exhausted and depressed by the world. By people’s joy of infighting. I remember my old friend Eric in grade school. He Loved Mariah Carey and he Loved painting and he Loved debating. Tired arguments about democracy and art and the death of culture brought on by trashy white guys with long hair and their heavy metal. Ferociously religious and fervently homophobic: his REAL come to God moment has led him to being a flamboyant gay man in the heart of Brooklyn’s club scene.
I wish we all had such freedom to find ourselves. Now we’re simply too immersed in other people’s stories to see ourselves clearly. Inundated. Even I can barely keep my head clear, seeing who I WANT to be rather than what the endlessly regurgitated stream of Reels and Stories and short-form video tells me I SHOULD look like, sound like, be like.
I can hardly cope. Time to be writing again.
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