Cognitive Overload

When you can't write about one thing, you write about them all.

It’s me and my jumbled brain.

I’ve been struggling to write.

I’m tired of generating content on command, and I think I’m actually feeling overwhelmed with too many ideas. It’s like they come too fast, and so I never have time to generate fully formed thoughts around any of them.

A sign of the times? I’m not sure. I suspect I’m also just busier, and making time to write isn’t as much of a priority.

Things I’ve been thinking about lately:

Cultural Relativism: maybe the only thing that I really learned in my undergrad. A lot of the unlearning involved in decolonization is the recognition of cultural relativism. Did you know that when Europeans first colonized North America, they thought they were getting this smoking deal stealing lands from Indigenous people when really it was because native culture didn’t have a concept of private property? Which is abhorrent to think about in itself but also shows that the notion of property is a purely social construct. Which also means that we could construct a culture without the notion of property. Chew on that one for a while.

Polyamory: in search of finding community, my partner and I have started exploring what it means to be polyamorous. And before you jump to conclusions about anything and everything, I would like to share how much validation there is in being involved with other people who place as much value on friendships as they do family or primary partners. I am certain monogamy isn’t the last social construct that I will break down, but it’s been a big one.

I’ve become slightly obsessed with the edges of urban industry and wildness.

Isolation and Online Communities: Does online connection inhibit us from reaching out to people in real spaces? Like, if I’m filling my social quota talking online with people across the continent, does that give me permission to not bother with social engagements in my physical space? I don’t have an answer for this one, but I am reading and learning and witnessing those effects of existence in online spaces coupled with anxiety and depression and how these things might all come together to make us feel more and more isolated. And of course how that isolation then plays into the capitalist narrative of individualism and scarcity.

Capitalist Permeation: Every time I open Instagram or listen to a podcast or see art as advertisements and am being sold something or pushed to spend my money on this or that or the other thing, I cringe and disengage. I’m so exhausted from being sold to all the time. The flip side of this is, of course, always trying to figure out how to get enough money to make ends meet. Double exhausted.

Fascism: As the U.S. prepares to usher in the next dictator, with Canada likely to follow suit; as my municipal government enacts loopholes to tear down homeless encampments without providing shelter space and is applauded by the boomer generation because they want to go shopping downtown; as we witness the dystopian novels come to life under federal regimes of blatant supremacy; as I see people I care about fall into the alt-right pipeline and become unsafe; as colonial genocide continues unchecked regardless of the UN reports and whistleblowers and moral outrage on social media... I am motivated to do more but live with the belief that it will always be too little.

Urban Agriculture: Why are we not growing more food in cities? I mean, I know the answer to this. See my notes about private property above and add in a dash of capitalist permeation. I wish to grow more food in cities outside the capitalist paradigm. Are you doing this? Do you know someone else who is doing this? Can you write to me and let me know how to do this?

Novitas: The next issue of the magazine is in design! Articles have been submitted, and interviews are underway. I was hoping for early December, but I suspect January is a more reasonable release date.

Forest paths that become portals.

On that topic: what’s the best way to get a print copy to you?

Thanks for reading, as always, folks. There’s 3 more podcast episodes set to come out before the end of the year. If you haven’t had a chance to listen, you can check out the podcast section and see previous episodes.

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