When I was nine years old I decided I wanted to be a writer, and every day I am grateful that I was able to make this dream come true. And yet making a “career” out of being a creative is deeply weird. The way we conceptualize most “work” within capitalism is already quite unnatural- untethered to the land, to seasons, to our human animal needs and the rhythms of our own lives. We assign value to certain kinds of productivity (labor that creates wealth for those higher up the economic chain) while undervaluing the labor that maintains the fabric of society (raising children, anything that builds community). We also give people money for things that absolutely are not work- landlording, for one. “Success” under capitalism isn’t about merit, or how hard you work. Capitalism is a game. We’re all just out here trying to get our little money tickets to ride the rides and have some sense of safety in this brief flash of time before we die, while also mourning the fact that we can’t live in little cottages and spend our time pickling vegetables and making baskets, assembling to hunt and harvest and celebrate and mourn. In this world, “art” would be something we did during the long winters, gathered in a smoky sod hut telling stories and carving dream-monsters out of hunks of soapstone. A “writing career”, aka trying to shape art and creativity into something that fits within the rigid, random, and deeply rigged framework of capitalism is very weird.
The fantasy of communism is beautiful, but I don’t think that this current world we live in will ever shift into something other than what it already is. As someone who came of age among anarchists who read Derrick Jensen (before he was transphobic), I believe that change will only come about after this world collapses entirely, implodes in on itself, dies out. That sort of event is terrible and messy and dark but in all of human history that’s the only way it’s been done- civilization only ever progresses in one direction (from lightly exploitative to so deeply exploitative that the parasite kills the host, and then the parasite dies too). Once a thing like a civilization exists, it is too large and unwieldy to change in any meaningful way. It lumbers forward, in one direction only. It cannot be turned back, or persuaded to change direction. We’re all afraid of major collapse because major collapse is awful, and because we’re afraid of death, and of loss. But the truth is, we die anyway, we always have. I believe that all things eventually die- beings and civilizations both- in order to compost and make space for new life, that new life is made possible because of death. When I think about the future I like to imagine the world a few hundred years from now, after major collapse. I think it’s fun to think of what sorts of lives the scattered bands of humans still on this earth might create, from the strange mix of detritus that will be available to them. As we accelerate relentlessly towards our own individual and collective deaths, this is what I find most comforting. (That’s why I’m working on a speculative fiction novel, lol. It’s comforting!)
And yet here we are still. It’s Wednesday, and I’m drinking a cup of earl grey tea (what is bergamot? Why does it taste good? Where does it grow? In what seasons?). There’s a few inches of new snow outside and my chihuahuas are asleep on my bed. This morning I woke in our agreed-upon current reality that we call capitalism, and I am continuing to pretend that I have something called a “writing career”. Really, I just like to tell stories and am preoccupied with the rhythm of language, so much so that I refuse to get a regular job, even though it would end the chronic instability of my life, because if I was working full time doing anything else I wouldn’t have the time to write. Is my brain broken? Why am I like this? I don’t know. I would love to have more stability, and that is definitely possible with a writing career- people do it all the time- it just takes a long time. Decades. In the meantime, here I am. Will I achieve this stability before everything collapses, and I have to pivot to a life of putting up fish and scraping out a meager living with my friends in the ashes of the current world? Who knows.
It's spring in Alaska (well technically breakup, the season that comes before spring), the days are lengthening rapidly as we hurtle from the long darkness towards 24 hours of light, and I’ve been riding waves of insomnia. At this point in my life I feel more curious about my insomnia than anything- it’s interesting. Recently I slept 5 hours two nights in a row, two hours the next and then last night, I finally slept eight hours, and woke up feeling as though I’d returned from a long journey to another world. Sleep deprivation puts me in a liminal state, is a sort of intoxication. As someone who is always sober save for a single mushroom a few times a year (with mixed results), it’s kind of fun to get unstuck from reality in this way, to have my train pushed off its tracks. And plus, when I finally do sleep a full night, I have the craziest dreams- according to science this is because your brain, having fallen behind on its essential sleep tasks, is working extra hard to catch up. And that eventual full night’s sleep is so pleasurable- it’s fascinating to me that although we experience our lives awake, this routine unconsciousness is one of our biggest sources of pleasure. Napping, in particular. Is there any better feeling than the moment right before you fall asleep, curled in bed in the afternoon, a couple little dogs curled up with you, bright sunshine outside and the house quiet. Naps on trail are even better. If I were to make a list of the most pleasurable experiences of my life, naps on trail would be #3 (below golden hour light in the Sonoran desert and pink sunset in the white Alaskan winter). I think back often to one nap in particular- I was hiking the Washington section of the PCT in 2017. It was July, and warm in the forest, and the trail was dappled in sunlight. My feet were aching and at lunch I pitched my shelter on a patch of flat ground in the woods so that I could eat away from the biting flies. I inflated my sleeping pad and stretched out, letting my spine un-kink. I watched the shadows of leaves move on the fabric of my shelter as the bugs uselessly threw themselves at the mesh, unable to reach me. Just a few more minutes like this, I thought, as I drifted off.
Life is weird and confusing, with moments of pleasure and peace thrown in. Being alive is simply an exercise in coming to terms with this, and then we die. Certainly there’s lots of exciting shit in my future- publishing this speculative fiction novel, writing another novel in the same world, more naps, more sunsets- and also lots of unspeakable horrors. I dunno. Anyway, there’s my yammerings for today.
Ok bye,
Carrot