2022 is over before it’s over; all the strands of cultural energy, sense of event, and discourse are already basically gone. I guess things move that fast. Maybe they have to move that fast—because the substance of culture right now is substantial enough to satiate us for long.
Real life is the ultimate infinite scroll, the ultimate feed. So much of what we all did, so many of the parties and plays and debates and meetings and rivalries are already too far down the scroll to be worth retrieving. As the year ends, we are all refreshing, refreshing, waiting for a new trend, a new salience, to appear—a new bit of viral matter that we can participate in.
It’s a good thing to get in trouble—with a person, with a whole society… anyone—for breaking with convention. For the most part, the more force you have to push to make your statement, to make your work, the better.
If the house pet, house plant owning, Netflix-binging sector of society finds you off-putting or unpleasant, you’re doing something right.
If you find a part of yourself unpleasant, that might even be good. Splits, breaks, disavowals are all symptoms of a healthy relationship to reality. It’s healthy to have enemies.
Enemies are clarifying, in a dialectical sense.
I cultivate enemies for spiritual reasons, therefore.