Cat Ninjas fighting The Hulk?
The world feels insane right now. If I lied to get a job, I would be sacked. If I was in a job and did nothing that I said I would, again I would be sacked. In fact, no employee could do what our leaders are doing and keep their job, yet there is nothing happening, nothing we can do. What is even more insane is that there are people defending the indefensible. Sure, if you have a few million quid on the line, then I get how your morality has been bought and paid for, but people being punched down on, what is going on?
This insanity runs deep into my life, and I would think everyone’s life. I have an item in my fridge, in date, that I bought last year, not even in December; milk I bought 10 days ago is still in date, and I just opened it and it's spot on. Journeys now take longer than they did, things that were getting easier are getting harder and “enshittification” is real. All the while, to steal a quote, “companies are increasingly angry they have to go through customers to get their money”. Everywhere, insanity is normal; there is a word for it, hyper-normalisation.
Did previous generations hit half a century old and see everything as this bonkers? The world isn’t just mad, it is increasingly polarised between extremes, and let’s not mention America, where the lunatics are literally running everything. Lighting the torches of Armageddon; what the actual? That’s not theologically sound, but then again what passes for “Christianity” in the US is what got the Pharisees called “sons of snakes”. Which is the nice translation, given that snake could also mean the devil, but I shall not digress. It is yet another insanity that just seems to be getting not just a free pass but has people backing it.
The thing is, much as I want to be in a beautiful, slightly dark academia ivory tower, I live in the world. The world is more than a distraction; my struggles happen in this world of uncertainty, state endorsed hatred and legitimised bigotry. The discourse of how can I make someone’s life worse is legitimate mainstream. All the time people, and that includes people I want to believe are good, repeat the mantra of hatred and division. I am past angry, past disappointed, I am heartbroken, and I am tired.
Creatively, I think we all want to be heard. Since my “metrics crisis” I have learned to appreciate that the version of success being sold by social media is success that benefits the platform, not the creator. I understand the concept of one thousand true fans, how it is powerfully counter cultural and how it is a sustainable practice for the artist. However, any model of success rests on people having the agency to choose and the freedom to express. Both of which feel ever more precarious, endangered and disappearing with each passing day. We are, as a society, experiencing the trauma of narcissistic abuse by systems of coercion and control which by nature of structure and intent express the will and whim of those with power over those without it. In a country like America right now that toxicity is open and blatant, and where the US goes, the UK and the rest of the world is apt to follow.
We are past the point of no return, if we try to get out of the abusive relationship things will get worse before they can get better, and we will be vulnerable as we build back; and if we stay the abuse will continue to escalate. In the immediate term we are in a lose-lose situation. For those who have personal experience of abuse trauma this societal level of threat is living with a red alarm constantly flashing. Hyper-vigilant and alert for a threat that isn’t clearly visible or identified but that is present and real nonetheless.
I wake up exhausted and overwhelmed. While I am not behind from an objective point of view, that is not how it feels. If I step back, things are positive and constructive, with lots to look forward to. There have been health challenges, but while navigating them I have been able to make steps towards my goals. My journey of management and acceptance is the most intentional and positive it has ever been, I can take pride in the progress I have made.
Yet it feels in vain. It feels like the world I want to connect with is being fragmented and battered by storms that are driving it into protective bunkers away from art and thought towards distraction and numbness. People don’t want to engage they want to passively disassociate and forget. I have felt and pursued the very same thing. The artist, the poet, they are unwelcome reminders of reality. Art isn’t irrelevant; it is futile because the audience has disconnected itself. AI has enabled that uncoupling more effectively than ever before.
The democratisation of entertainment creation has facilitated distraction at a level and rate previously unimaginable. It’s not just cat videos, its generated cat ninjas fighting Tom Cruise and the Hulk on the set of the Matrix, all watched by watermelon elephants. If that is not insane, then I don’t know what is. AI, shall we call it slop, isn’t competition for art, it is a substitute for drugs and alcohol. Already, we know AI can kill brain cells and critical thinking faculties just as, or even more effectively than our best home brew. Like smoking, we are being bombarded with how good it is for us while research to the contrary is being buried.
As an artist, I can’t compete. No poem I can write can rival the escape of digital distraction. My art, that is, human art, is about connection; it joins the dots of our individual human experience into a collective whole. To consume art is the antithesis of disassociation; it is connection. And so, how do we connect as the world burns and divides us? When, like me, we want to run away to our towers and bunkers until it is all over, how do we resist the overwhelming urge to give up?
I don’t have answers, I don’t know. This week, I am going to follow through on creative ideas, remind myself that, however alone and isolated the capitalist-industrial power complex wants me to feel, I am in fact part of a global community actively keeping hope alive, and that every act of human creativity, however small, is an act of rebellion.
And yes, I will keep on – keeping on, see you all next week and don’t forget to like, subscribe, share and comment. Thank You.
