at 31, it takes weeks to read one book of any length. this was not always the case. there were times before Recent Times (RT) when reading fulfilled the purpose of Good Writer’s chore. i made reading Efficient to the degree of making my writing Efficient. if i were to achieve the Ability of dignity through diligence to call writing work, i’d have a job for which i could receive monetary payment. i witness now— after much self-effacing, repression unnamed anger, and shame— the obvious errors of participating in the edicts of capital Efficiency; i no longer choose to be Good. i witness now—after imprecise denial—the responsibility in refusal: how to outgrow clockedtime in refusal, how to reclaim the fortune of nature in refusal, how to find firmness in the dense gel substance of ‘no’, a difficult word for many who have been wrongly taught, again and again, to open themselves beyond all hinges of “make” and “do” lest they prove themselves Incapable. in the responsibility of refusal, i have also found a renewed responsibility for embodiment, have reinvigorated a long-standing personal promise to exist ‘in sum’ = near completely circled and thoroughly felt—canny through feeling—emoted—given color through feeling—observed—noticed and formed habit through feeling—customed—empowered exposition through happening feeling. only upon experiencing the duration of feeling—whose suspicion? what whisper? eternity's intuition?— did i fetch the language to help limn the partial scene of my circumstances.
at one time, when invested in the Access Privileges (AP) and Institutional Permissions (IP) of Thinking, i called enduring weeks of no-reading books “a lack of commitment” or, much more harshly, “a laziness” of mind that proved an immutable, internal deficit that must meet some level of comeuppance if it were to ever be undone. my manic preoccupation with fate—what is the latticework of fate? how are we collectively fated? if god’s got fists, which knuckles are the tenderest? Why? —found no resolution beyond frustration. the many bibles, often made Can[n]on (BOMB? BOOM!), had one too many beginnings and, even when reading to answer the aforementioned questions, i was actually tracking the dutiful machinations of Colonial Deciding (CD). i’m a significantly lapsed Christian, who often dreams of becoming a nun of vagueness and reads zen koans to disabuse any remaining connectivity between intelligence and enlightenment. it does sound keeping to read short stories about long trails or that’s what koans do for me. anyway…where was i? oh, yes, Colonial Deciding. time to get lost.
one thing about reading is learning how to navigate the asides and besides. like a record, there are a-sides and b-sides. like a record, there is spin. like a record, there is a flip. like a record, there are grooves. if one hasn’t the patience for asides and besides, if there is zero acceptance of non-linearity, reading becomes an Activity Necessitating Exacted Force (ANEF). i think ANEF is physics defined only metaphorically, misunderstood. much in the same way War— a socially constructed literal condition made nebulous metaphor for the sake of confusion’s strategy— is the most predictably pathological synonym for how individuals and society address disability and illness (dai pronounced day). disability and illness (dai) are both aside and beside. disability and illness (dai) are ][within][ ,contained []within[] every expression of person/i, not requiring escape, not singularly connoted to and violently denoted by suffering, are fully endemic to living’s course. disability and illness (dai), and the bodies that live within day’s prismatic expressions, are not circumspect. what is circumspect is the eugenicist notion of foregrounded Ability, to Be Able, Success Through Ability's Resolution (a metaphorical star). Ability can only find itself *securely* defined within the limited parameters of binary thought. Ability can only find itself *secure* at the behest of productivity’s on/off switch. Ability is an overthought, a societymade Superseding Condition (SC), a scourge seeking to retool all living mechanical, fixed and fixable, a motor, fabricated werk. Ability is one of Colonial Deciding’s anchoring knots. Ability is Colonialism’s specific groove upon which to etch sound. Ability is Colonialism’s flip to a straight line. Ability is Colonialism’s spin to disorient the body binary. Ability is Colonialism’s abolishment of a-sides, b-sides, asides and besides. Ability is succeeding Colonialism.
woke up at 3:25am (was dreaming about Ballard’s High-Rise) 5/5/20 to write: many of my friends say keep critiques systemic. i agree. though i would like to add, as a step in necessity, this part: critique and criticism will serve undefined Power unless we are willing, however crudely, to aim the muzzle of critique and criticism at ourselves, to recognize and evaluate which corroded corridors serve which channels serve which windows and entrances and exits serve which shafts (elevators? stair-wells? ramps?) serve which lobbies. it is within the very literal structure of a building, in thinkingknowing of critique and criticism, that we can find accusation (call to account) and accuse (towards reason), that is: release all Function of thinkingknowing and activate on the unpaved, not usually saved, path of do course, that is: be in ourselves for our community.
mutability is only as forwardbeing as is it can present stillness. (perhaps one of Ability’s few exceptions)
so much of wanting to be a Good Writer meant wanting to not be disabled and ill, to be Able.
i have a lessened desire to be understood. on beat, there is more desire to understand. to position multiple selves beneath the infinite and conical structure of happen and joyfully allow in the confounding pleasure of watchingwitness. understand, to me, has little current relationship to axes of Conquering Power (CP). understand, to me, is a humble curiosity within flexible structures of duration. i think the phrase “hot take? nah. cool; give!” is how i’ve rewired knowing, knowledge, opinion and fact. if anything, if in the sum total of kindness, there is nothing to take, nothing to capitally Extract. if anything, in the sum total of kindness and the generations of kindness that allow for flourishing life, there is only much to give.
it takes me weeks to read one book of any length. i have finally accepted, perhaps late yet still feeling on time, reading cannot be limited to words, pages alone. when it is, perhaps we aren’t reading at the speed of our own breath. if not our own, then whose?
with love and sickled cells,
joselia h