This is brilliant. Thanks Ian Alan Paul. I would like to share it?
> On Oct 14, 2017, at 10:04 AM, Ian Alan Paul <[email protected]> wrote: > > And so here we are. In the present, the new normal. In a situation that feels > just as quotidian as it does impossible. > > With my coffee I read of fires in California and I scroll through friends' > facebook posts debating which filters and breathing masks are best to buy. I > read of the news from Puerto Rico, where a tragedy smears across days and > then weeks in slow motion, obfuscated by politicians but nonetheless > occasionally breaking through the surface. I listen to friends talking about > what white supremacists are doing on their campuses, worried about posters > and about speaking events, while some have begun receiving death threats. I > hear of safehouses being organized for migrants that are soon to be made > illegal. Everywhere things are heating up, the seas are rising, and > democracies fall from the air like flies. > > On mornings like this one, I'm reminded of Brecht when he wrote that "Because > things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are." What > could better describe our present? There's no room for nostalgia in such a > formulation, in a rapidly disintegrating present that forcefully collapses > towards the future. While collapse is always to some degree anticipated as we > can see its shadow stretching across the ground beneath us, even its most > astute architects cannot be sure in which direction the debris will fall. > > As I've grown older, one thing which has become increasingly clear to me is > that life is resilient. It goes on. Whether in occupied territories, under > the weight of a military coup, or after the election of a demagogue, tea and > coffee are still brewed in the morning, and people still find, even if > somewhat troubled, sleep at night. Even in the face of the most tremendous of > losses, the past's rubble is slowly and carefully accumulated into something > new and is in turn guarded by the living. We find temporary and fragile > shelters from our looming impossibility. > > And so here we are. In the present, the new normal. In a situation that > cannot stay this way because of the way it is. In a kind of life we live > because we must continue living. > > The question for us, I think, isn't whether or not the future can be warded > off, although promises that it can be will continue to fill the air with > their vacancy. All that remains for us is to embrace the possibility of the > impossible present we find ourselves within. If the world can no longer hold > as it is, what can come to be in its stead? As our lives in their present > forms become increasingly less possible to live, the only refuge may be in > the collective invention and elaboration of new forms of living. > # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission > # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, > # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets > # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l > # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: [email protected] > # @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject: # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: [email protected] # @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:
