Charlie

funeral procession (miss you forever) I - IV, 2024, oil pastel on paper.

THINGS TO DO IN THE BELLY OF THE WALE

After all, if you want to buy absolutely nothing - if you want to create a way to live separate from society - you cannot do it like Thoreau; even Thoreau wasn’t doing it like Thoreau; you have to create an separate society, a self-sufficient community, and live in that.

And interestingly Seymour put his finger on “why communes fail.”

In his experience, which was deep and broad, experiments in self-sufficient communities/communes virtually always failed. And not because the idealistic fools weren’t capable of growing crops, or chopping wood, or whatever. It isn’t even the founders were stupid or ignorant or inexperienced, or because self-sufficiency only attracts dramatic personalities. No, the communities he observed consistently failed because they had no ability to resolve conflict. Every group of people will have to come to a tricky decision, resolve a sticky situation, have an awkward conversation or even just get along with unideal situations. They didn’t fall apart because a sheep fell in a ditch; anyone can get a sheep out of a ditch; they fell apart over the arguments about ideology, ditches, sheep and blame. It was always some issue of conflict or communication that broke these well-meaning, well-intentioned, well-educated people apart.

Step back from that and think: people frequently try to live outside capitalism even in this modern world, people frequently try to live in the most environmentally-friendly way, people frequently try to envision an alternative to a hostile state, even in this world where it is difficult or impossible to do so. For every utopia you might picture, people (being people) will have already made a decent attempt at building and living it, in the hope of showing it or even giving it to you. And those utopias aren’t here at the moment for you to have, because it’s terrifically difficult to make communities out of nothing. And that’s largely because it’s very hard to have communication skills about anything at all, let alone something that gets you mad.

All the mommy bloggers, all the brosephs, all the every single customer or client or other person you have dealt with who you wanted to fucking strangle, or at least wanted to be allowed one of those amazing moments of Put Down that viral reddit posts are made of, every single frustrating as fuck human: they will be part of your post-capitalist utopia.

They will not wake up, the morning of the revolution, and suddenly become different people. Your choices will be to line them all up against a wall and shoot them . . . .or figure out how to live with them in your community. (And multiple revolutions in the past hundred years have tried that whole "line them up and shoot them" thing, tried it REAL HARD, and it didn't work out great for them either.)

The more de-industrial, de-urbanized, de-impersonal, whatever, your ideal society is? The more it will involve having to work, and work well, and work effectively and without interpersonal violence (physical or social) against people who irritate the fuck out of you.

And no, we never really had any Neat Trick to make that easier in the past. What we most often had was survival pressure so intense that the threat of being ostracized (or having the group turn on you) was enough to force resolutions that nobody was really happy with, or that left an unspoken wound to fester for generations, or to offer up a scapegoat to vent the community's violence on and then pretend to move on, or . . . .

Etc.

No, no it doesn't. There is nothing in modern universal educational praxis for kids that gives them conflict resolution skills.

To quote myself from a different essay:

I went into a career where a lot of very specific knowledge is required.

I had to learn about verbal crisis intervention and crisis co-regulation. I had to learn about helpful vs. unhelpful language:

“I can only imagine how that must feel.” or “Do you want to tell me how that feels?”

vs

“I know how you feel.”

and about being cognizant of my own emotional state and my nonverbal communication and how they effect a situation.

(What am I feeling right now? What does this person think, feel, want, or need? What am I communicating to this person? How is the environment effecting the situation? What’s the best thing for me to say? What’s the best thing for me to do?)

I had to learn about active listening, about reflective statements and summarizing content and emotions:

“I can see that you’re [overwhelming emotion, usually angry or sad but sometimes bored or frustrated] right now, and I want to help, can you tell me about it so we can figure out what to do?”

vs

“Stop doing [inappropriate behavior]!”

(extra least-helpful-thing-ever points for bullshit like ‘You know better’ or 'We already went over this’ or 'You’re too old for [behavior or coping skill]’ or other such boderline-to-flagrantly abusive language that I’ve seen other people say in response to maladaptive coping, including shitty and/or inexperienced staff)

I’ve had to learn about offering validation and support. I had to learn about how to talk to others to help them connect emotions with behaviors so that they can learn to be self-cognizant and learn more effective coping strategies [than harming self/others] for managing emotional crisis.

I was taught whole units on the subjects of 'Don’t make it about you’ 'Don’t get caught in a power struggle’ 'Don’t get defensive’ 'Don’t focus too tightly on details; understand the larger situation’ 'Understand the other person’s point of view and motivations’

These are specific strategies for dealing with human beings (oneself and others), and they’re super effective.

I mean, these classes I’ve taken boil down to 'how to not be a super shitty human being’.

And none of them are taught as requisite curriculum in public schools, or even college. All of them have been entirely optional and tied to this specific career path. Math majors don’t have to take these classes.

Why is that?

How have we arrived at a place, in education, where we espouse that it will be more important to literally any human being that they be able to solve a quadratic equation than be able to analyze one’s own anxiety and manage overwhelming emotions (and help others do the same)?

Most people will at some point in their lives be called upon to comfort someone who is experiencing an overwhelming emotion.

Many people will be placed in a position of authority over children.

Some will be placed in a position of authority over people who are neuroatypical, or who have experienced trauma, or who have learned maladaptive coping skills, or who for some other reason may display behavior which is not immediately comprehensible to an outside observer who doesn’t seek understanding.

We live in a world where cops and doctors were certainly required to be able to solve quadratic equations at some point to be allowed to progress in their education and credentialing, but where they probably/demonstrably weren’t taught how to deescalate a person who is emotionally flooded to the point of violence (see this post: TW for gif of police violence on a minor). Where they weren’t taught about helpful vs. unhelpful language, or what constitutes instigating and triggering.

We live in a world where empathy and emotional cognizance are electives, but higher math is required.

Why is that?

ETA because this seems VERY relevant to the discussion and I have NOT read this book:

@wormsagainstnuclearkillers says in the comments

One Giant Red Flag, Folded Into a Book: https://c4ss.org/content/57711

When you're in job interviews and they say "tell us about a situation when you had to deal with rude customers/patrons" IS THAT WHAT THEY'RE LOOKING FOR????

My Love Sings When the Flower is Near (The Philosopher and the Woman), Angelo Filomeno, 2007

First Thoughts: "but if you call yourself a lesbian and sleep with men, straight guys will think we can all be Persuaded!"

Second Thoughts: "the kind of guys who would keep going even after hearing 'no thanks, I'm a lesbian,' already think that way. and do you really want the onus of preventing men from being assholes placed on queer women's harmless behavior? no!"

remember that it can be normal to have a knee-jerk mental "WTF" reaction to apparently contradicting identity labels; you can't really control that if it pops into your mind. but you should often try examining it further

I redrew my favourite books! This time I added my favourite albums too.

Books:

Paul Auster - 4321

Phillip Pullman - Northern Lights

AS Byatt - The Children’s Book

Charles Dickens - David Copperfield

William Goldman - The Princess Bride

George Saunders - Lincoln in the Bardo

RC Sherriff - The Fortnight in September

Kazuo Ishiguro - An Artist of the Floating World

Jon McGregor - Reservoir 13

David Mitchell - The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet

Elizabeth Strout - Olive Kitteridge

Alice Munro - Hateship, Loveship, Courtship, Friendship, Marriage

Marilynne Robinson - Home

John Williams - Stoner

Albums:

Love - Forever Changes

Lou Reed - Transformer

Violent Femmes - Violent Femmes

Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea

Sam Cooke - Live at the Harlem Square Club

Martha - Blisters in the Pit of My Heart

Big Thief - Masterpiece

The Stone Roses - The Stone Roses

Joanna Newsom - Divers

Richard Dawson - 2020

George Harrison - All Things Must Pass

The Beatles - Abbey Road

(I’ve added a new listing to my shop where you can request a big custom print like this of your own favourite stuff to display on your wall!)

This is the John Harper branch of the Waterloo Public Library. I wrote a book and did job applications on the left, and then went up to that gym on the right to walk around the indoor track. Parking was free. The library was free. The YMCA had subsidized rates.