Community IS Resistance

I recently renamed this The Rough Draft, because this name gets more at the heart of what I am trying to do in this newsletter, which is to make something unfinished, not totally polished, to be sharing sort of like my lab notes. I feel like everything is so polished these days, everything that you see is very branded and well thought out and made for a very specific purpose. I mean, at its worst everything feels like it’s become propaganda.

Apps like Instagram (and FB/TikTok/Tinder/Twitter etc. etc.) have trained everyone to be like little mini-corporations, little brands of self-identity. And you have to play that game if you want to be a successful painter or poet or musician or creative voice and it’s kind of lame, because a painter or a poet or whatever should be known for their painting or poetry not their Insta-baloney, right? Like you have to hustle like you’re an ad agency of one, just to be seen by other humans and that is deeply weird and warping.

Everything, everywhere is forcing this really legible message on to us. But maybe human beings are not supposed to have “a message”. AI is only going to increase that, like, branding and messaging and firehose of personal branding content for everyone. So, I want to make a thing that refuses to be totally legible. Ya dig?

I’m not going to just be posting scrambled-word-salad here —I hope to share some interesting ideas. But I want to avoid making another newsletter that falls too easily into categories. I think some of the most interesting ideas happen when you’re not trying to say anything super specific. . .

I also want to mention another thing too—I am making an effort here to not make a politically focused thing. And that is challenging right now—it’s probably going to remain challenging. I mean we are really in the soup right now. I am fully aware of you know — the news. And sometimes it feels weird doing a thing that refuses to be overtly political in such politically demanding and exhausting times. Especially as someone who cares deeply about what is happening to this country. But again, that is very much on purpose, and I think it is a worthwhile constraint.

I think that something we must continue to claim for ourselves is space, is breath— during these difficult times, and make no mistake there is a battle to the death between fascism and democracy happening in this country right now, and people are dying for that freedom.

But also, I think we need the freedom and the space to think and talk and move and write about art and philosophy and poetry and movies and to listen to music and to dance and to have meals with friends and to laugh and tell dumb jokes, and go for walks and to live well, and beautifully and I swear to you that this too is a form of resistance. During the years ahead, you should continue to do all the things that bring you joy and beauty—and maybe that includes thinking outside the boxes . . . and thinking just for the freedom of thinking for yourself, that is the area or direction this newsletter is trying to go.

I’ve said before that resistance is a marathon, and a part of what they—the fascists—want to do is exhaust your awareness, exhaust and numb your attention, and a part of how you resist that is refusing to doom scroll yourself to death by going down the nightly rabbit hole of anxiety . . . and you take back that power by spending time doing things that are grounded and embodied and real life and making connections and being present. And I might not spell it out very often, but that is also a really important part of what you should have in your toolkit—for us to all get through the next few years together. Don’t burn out— your community needs you.

I recently came across this quote by Hana Arendt a historian of fascism:

Isolation is, as it were, pretotalitarian; its hallmark is impotence insofar as power always comes from men acting together; isolated men are powerless by definition.

– Hannah Arendt

Community is a form of resistance too. I believe this. And that doesn’t always have to mean marching and protesting and direct action. I believe that one of the best things you can be doing right now is to live your life and to connect, and to spend time with others, to get out of the house, or invite friends over, hang out with friends, go do stuff, go see movies, go to dinner, go out dancing, go see shows, be in real life spaces with other people. Go to a dive bar and eat onion rings, shoot some pool, play pinball, put a dollar in the jukebox and argue with strangers about music or sports or movies or whatever, go see some local band, go have fun. I think is a big part of how we can continue showing up for each other and yeah, for democracy even.

I am mostly not going to be talking much about politics and activism in this space . . . but I just wanted to note that that is a very conscious choice. It’s not that I think that stuff is not important. But it’s also important to live a life that is open and connecting and open to enjoyment and to experiencing living. I believe this from a place that is deep enough that it isn’t even a fully formed idea its more like a gut feeling or a heart feeling. It’s a little bit illegible. And that’s kind of what am aiming for. That’s why this newsletter is called the rough draft.

You can also listen to this newsletter as a podcast.

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