Slowing Down & Speeding Up
A personal letter of deep life movements, plus recent releases, and an extract from the forthcoming essay 'War and Influence'
The year so far in our strangely and strenuously connected and disconnected world seems heavy and fast. Momentum like a train; presence like a.. nonsense; and a nonsense known well.
And through it all, the way we treat ourselves and each other.. the way we relate to the space we’re in and the time we turn.. these are yet unchanging in at least one particular way.
We’re involved.
Simply so, clearly so, complexly so.. and all too often like unknowing pawns of propagation, all at once. This reality presents a recurring question of (at least) ethical and aesthetic consideration: what is the nature of my influence; how do I choose to influence, given my involvement, here, now, then, there, with you, with what is, with potential itself?
An excerpt from a forthcoming essay tentatively titled ‘War and Influence’, more of which I include at the end of this letter.
To turning chapters,
A few weeks ago I sat down to write an email intending to share the first podcast of the year titled ‘Value & Exchange’ with Matthew Pirkowski.
It was recorded on the day I went down with Covid, some time in early Feb, and I could barely remember the content of our discussion for a few days. I’ve since recovered well, for which I am grateful.
But I couldn’t complete the email. The podcast with Matt was auto-scheduled to release on the same morning I began to write, which coincidentally turned out to be approximately the time news of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine broke across the internet.
A quick addictive break to the tab over and I noticed the signal of war in Ukraine and the context of address changed.
I so happened to be writing on the nature of influence and interaction in the communications channels we’re all immersed in, a key theme of discussion with Matt.
War was fundamentally implicit in the context of that writing—and now it needed to be made explicit, or so I felt and feel. And in fact that’s a recurring theme for me. There is much I’d like to bring closer to the explicit assertion, if only (though not only) to stoke awareness of a ‘new’ implicit.
To put content to this ‘much’: I mean it in the way of written philosophy and the knowing I can communicate from the vantage of what I see.
I am no stranger to sharing my knowing in relation with others, in dialogue. And I am no stranger to writing, most of the time. But philosophy still games in written word and I respect the importance of offering access to my thought in that mode. There is also much goodness in the game, and it remains a medium for sharing value back to the commons and those I know personally.
There is ‘much’ [last time, promise] not yet ready for sharing. And time and energy have critical pulls elsewhere. But I will write more this year.
I know that when I do I will incur the debt of some books worth of explication, to myself and those who meet in sincere exchange. It will be in part because my energy for writing and personal call to the integrity of expression sees the poetic and the mystical and the broad whole of pattern form books into paragraphs and chapters into sentences. (I mean this in the sense of sweeping view, rather than penetrating compression of work said in too many words. Although I do strive for quality compression.)
From the perspective of clarity and rigour, accessible argument and marshalled evidence, engagement with discourse society by quote, name, and lineage.. that won’t do.
I respect the analytical. But I do not love it the same. I write to live and to die. To close a chapter and meet the void of next, and to mediate that expression which kindles my soul to live again. For some that effort is enough. But I sought throughout my twenties for a written mode that could share in dialogic relation the mystical and the analytic—which I once compressed essentially as relation to wholes-in-their-making and parts-in-their-making.
I expect this tension will continue now into my thirties, even as I break some chains for new ones. And to the question: why now the desire to share that so private as intimate encounter with life and death? I suppose that aspects of it now are not so personal. I have lived and died enough to share something worthwhile back of the journey. And for other reasons besides it is called. Mostly by me.
So that’s that.
Experiencing Covid followed the month in which my father passed away unexpectedly.
I found that much of my process in relation was preparation for the real work, which was sleep. So too have writing, dialogue (we even had a Voicecraft session on Fathers), music, sitting, walking, and time in the ocean.. all been helpful activities. But this says little of the way of doing such things, what it is to be with this loss and change, and what this really means for the lifeworld I meet today and tomorrow.
I will share more on that in written form one day. For now it remains for immanent relation, and I am as I have been: well in the process.
—
Now on to today.
A few hours after this email goes out I will be leaving to spend 4-5 days at Esoteric festival, where I will host some combination of workshop and talk on the theme of psychedelic philosophy.
If all goes to plan, which it very well may not at such a venue without a full crew to help, a good portion of this will be filmed and recorded for podcast.
Curious! I am very curious!
And curious is what I hope some of you are to be reading what follows. Otherwise.. shit.
Because we’re onto some content sharing, an act which remains a wrestle.
First up is the aforementioned conversation with Matthew Pirkowski: E61| Value & Exchange.
Matt is one of the brightest minds I’ve come across on the peripheral frontier of thinking about the co-evolutionary context of humanity and the digital. I hope to collaborate with him in context with many others in future explorations.
Threads in this dialogue tie into ongoing contemplations about the nature of attentionalism, influence, value/s, and the importance of wealth in the context of shifting paradigms, where the evolution of our capacity for representing value itself is critical to contend with.
You can watch here and listen here. Matt’s Twitter here. He posts frequently. Worth following for some.
Timestamps are included.
The next share I’ll open with another personal nod.
I began this project well over 5 years ago. On many occasions I have found sharing to major digital channels exhausting. Long time readers and listeners, I think, will know that.
One paradox is that the core of my work often invites a pace of interaction totally distinct from the accelerating bombardment of content, and yet must compete in that field for a moment’s pause. I see it as a necessary burden until a new rhythm of potential sufficiently differentiates with reliability.
In this mode of slowing down, the recent release of E62| Naming the Nameless, on YouTube and podcast, shares a conversation among Voicecraft Network members that I hope is as nourishing to listen to as it was to be part of.
You can also watch it here.
Recorded late Feb 2022, it features returning voices O.G. Rose and Tyler Hollett, along with Voicecraft Network contributors Kyle McGahee, Ethan Wells, Jurnee Manu, and Tom Lyons.
Included in the description as well as the show notes is the event invitation that went out to members. (I also read a portion in the opening.)
In fact, I’ll include an extract here too, because it might spark for some of you.
Over some years I have watched as developing fields of intention, understanding, and interaction—or said from another angle: hopes, dreams, and concerns—have clustered together in digital space and time.
And, umm, if you'll indulge the following..
From psychedelic fractal, ayahuascic dimension shifting, tribal vibing meta visions of nu-enlightenment bed-making responsibilities, to the renaissance of dark webs and deep webs and spider webs and web 3s; and religions that aren't religions for the spirituals without religions; plus some old religions and new games, with old impulses in new clothes, and new impulses with no money; then some bildung for the meta-crisis, nurturing home grown humans and liminal sensemakers to authentically circle with antagonic shamanistic intellectuals, while dialogos makes socratic music from indigenous adjacent technologist integrals playing warmly with post-institutional relationalists to reconnect the masculine and the feminine. And all of that on the way to the para-academic invisible college built on wiser pathways from digital ports through uncanny valleys of friendship and peerage.
Just so that we can have adventures, dinner and families, and drama worth having with laughter and tension in contexts that matter and that we matter to.. in openness to process with what is and what could be.
Tongue in cheek -- without claiming at all to make sense -- if you are here in this network, chances are you pay attention to several different communities, podcasts, youtubers, discourse pockets, sensemaking webs of liminality populated by seen and unseen change making edgelords.
[…]
I won’t explain the ‘Naming the Nameless’ part, that’s a journey to undertake.
And now in closing,
Thank you for reading. It is a rare event I share a letter like this. I find it challenging, but it felt like the right thing to do.
A chapter is turned.
—
The following is an extract from a forthcoming essay, tentatively titled ‘War and Influence’.
The year so far in our strangely and strenuously connected and disconnected world seems heavy and fast. Momentum like a train; presence like a.. nonsense; and a nonsense known well.
And through it all, the way we treat ourselves and each other.. the way we relate to the space we’re in and the time we turn.. these are yet unchanging in at least one particular way.
We’re involved.
Simply so, clearly so, complexly so.. and all too often like unknowing pawns of propagation, all at once. This reality presents a recurring question of (at least) ethical and aesthetic consideration: what is the nature of my influence; how do I choose to influence, given my involvement, here, now, then, there, with you, with what is, with potential itself?
I leave out the consideration [religious] because good lord, is that the way to be doing things now?—Sending questions of religious importance to email inboxes next to Google knows what?
As conflict in Ukraine buys prominence of attention with blood, fear, and the making of history, narrative and fact conspire in discord to temporary orders of meaning.
Eventually the question returns thus: how far from home is this latest eruptive violence? And what is my relation?
Do I know where my home is? What it’s founded on? Whether those foundations are worthy of my suffering?
Put another way, to what am I dedicated? And by what constraints am I entrapped, entimed, and perhaps even enabled by?
Millions in Ukraine now become refugees, fighters, victims, numbers, local heroes, and an international spectacle with a leading edge of ominous implication. They follow in the wake of countless others caught in the maw of tragedy across the globe, from Yemen through Russia itself.
To fight or refugee: a dramatic choice, to those for whom the choice avails. Where flesh, love, the integrity of body and psyche, and potential itself hang in critical balance. A moment where the absurd real of geopolitics forces the rational insanity of a broken species to contort into another chapter of his story: new narratives of good opinion to insecurely fasten the lid on tension deemed irreconcilable, enforced by weapons kinetic through memetic.
For those with hearts aspiring to feel the depth and price of love’s touch, and minds of flexibility matched only by penetration, on what note of truth can solidarity sing?
For those with hearts of courage and minds of care, and bodies yet with breath to speak, on what note of truth can solidarity sing? Where the plight of bloody consequence and sonorous screaming bombs are not reduced of meaning, even from deck chairs half way round the world, where the people speak a different language but share the same addictions.
What melody of transcendence can sound a wiser course through the gyre? A countervailing force to the trance of sirens calling ships to their rocky end? What maps, models, games, moralities: what narratives, ideologies, strategies and identities, can turn the piece of their impulse to war where all mocks all, to a peace born not of pacification but of solidarity in dedication? Where difference yet holds open the way of potential. Where hopes and dreams are not forsaken by way of fearful collapse unto zero-sum tyranny of narcissistic self-image.
Discernment on the Way,
Tim
And thank you to the Patrons who support this work at https://www.patreon.com/voicecraft
Please consider joining them in support if you can, and if this project shares value into your life.
Additionally, consider forwarding this email to someone who may also find value here.