The profanity of being an artist in the empire

journal entry may 13 2024

meme made by me, all hail the sisko

this blog post is a bit of a junk pile. read it all.

it arrives on the heels of me strategically leaving meta social media platforms. i did not delete my profiles because they may be useful in the future to help me survive capitalism. but i had to confront the reality that over the course of the past few years, social media did not seem create any sort of lasting community or goodwill for me, my work and my relationships. in many ways, i question whether any of the relationships i made due to social media in the last 6 years are healthy in any way.

i am quite a social person but the way society has treated me has not been good. it is forcing me into a dangerous corner. i do not have any “hope” or “compassion” for how our culture is shaping up. i do not believe in “love”. i have been shown how people actually behave.

people argue endlessly without doing any deep research or learning. people do not question their biases, whether they are so-called left or so-called right. the inmates run the asylum (but not like a collective). toxic therapists spread misinformation about relationality, trauma and the nervous system.

artist unknown

everyone wants to be a celebrity getting paid through ad revenue. climate scientists are all in despair as to the actual state of the environment while people argue & fawn about kendrick & drake, without hardly questioning the misogynoir or the fact that black capitalism isn’t wisdom.

fear-stricken Jews retreat into the comfort of white supremacy while pretending not to see the repetition of horror and genocide repackaged onto black and brown bodies.

i could go on and on. i’m pretty well informed. i shouldn’t need to convince anyone of that by this point. this post isn’t a rant, i promise! so let me attempt to pivot.

most of my finances and networks have dried up. the online learning platforms i attempted to create, the online training communities did not function. wrong audience? wrong timing? WRONG CULTURE? i don’t know. all i can really say is that every single one of my divinations leads me to the same dead end. no forward progress for me, no escape, no success for ten years. i’ve spoken at great length about fate and karma and death and such, filtered through my ongoing and sustained practices from nondual and decolonial systems. i can’t really whine about a pattern that has been forced upon me, karma & life’s a bitch & then you die. it is dire, it is gross, and it will end.

hallelujah there shall finally come an end!

poem-prayer by me

what next?

short answer: i dont know.
i am relying solely on luck and donations at this point. i can do what i do but i can’t make anyone want the training. i also dont know how to offer a sane, helpful offering in the time and context, especially online. i’m not thriving nor have i been given the support to thrive. i can only do what i do, which requires people who are dedicated to liberate and decolonize their perception through serious play. who are those people, really? we all become like starving dogs, ready to eat whatever moves as the social contagion spreads and blooms.

so, i return again and again to practice: artmaking, poetry, Real Meditation, Deathpractice. Scavenging beauty in the dead mall of civilization.

longer answer: less digital, more analog.
doing what i have to to survive while also keeping my eye on my main goal, which is to end the cycle of reincarnation no matter what. i realize now, after 44 years, the sick joke of continually generating fantasy mythologies to prop up positive psychology tropes. the utter exhaustion of “emotional” preferences. of dualism’s abusive fetish.

Real art and real meditation have never done me dirty. only people have, only society has. the process has never lied. it hasn’t given me everything i wanted, but it gave me something better — a way to see through what i wanted.

but in the urge to try and help others, i fell into a trap.

this trap seems quite a lot like “collective liberation” and “community organizing”. it appears to be a good thing, harm reductive, kind and collaborative.

in truth, it is quite draining. (AND I’M SURE MANY OF YOU WATCHING AND JUDGING ME HAVE YOUR OWN ASSHOLES, I MEAN OPINIONS, THAT I WAS NEVER DOING IT RIGHT ANYWAY… after all, it really is assholes all the way down.)

in fighting for my survival and trying to help others, i was damaged again and again. i take responsibility for my naivety. i take responsibility for continuing to try and kick the ball.

maybe this is what middle age is, seeing clearly the delusions of youth, of culture, the hollow-eyed hunger that will never be satisfied with MORE, even as it burns the earth with rancid desire.

everything is temporary. that’s not a catchphrase, that’s a promise.

we rail against the dying of the light because we are stupid enough to believe that light and dark are opposed, that life is better than death, that our precious heroic narrative is proof of our righteous goodness, like a severed head we drag towards the gods to convince them we are worthy of their attention.

as an artist, i seek to cultivate integrity in this sea of ultimately empty symbols, appearing and disappearing, playing with our weak grip on reality. i learned meditation, prayer, ritual and trauma informed therapeutic techniques because i wanted to get to the end of the false game, to begin playing the real one.

i was never supported as an artist in public school, so i became one on my own in the long and terrible years afterward. I was never given support, proper nutrition, mental health etc, so i also had to learn that all myself too. But i did the thing that no official institution will ever put on the menu. I learned certain things so well i reached the limits of the narratives, the limits of the socially acceptable agendas. i should be proud, shouldn’t i? no longer the stupid, ignorant, traumatized child… now too smart for people, relegated with the other scapegoats who are “correct too quickly”.

mad.lines

A post shared by @mad.lines

i said this wasn’t a rant, but maybe it is. my blog is my blog after all. i can write for myself, in order to clear the way for whatever happens next. maybe it’s even actually a service. and maybe things being a “service” is just the natural result of all the inter-dependent things. all pain is actually wisdom. all addiction is wisdom too. all so called negative effects, ultimately wisdom. this is really what i’ve been forced to learn, am still learning.

anyway, in between larger posts, you can navigate to the “notes” tab to find my ephemera that i throw on the pyre. i will also let you know when new things are cooked. i have some ideas but i won’t share them until they are done.

a final thing about this tech: please subscribe and not just “follow”. substack is a corporate monster and prone to the enshittification process. however, if you SUBSCRIBE, then i can take all of you with me when this titanic inevitably sinks under the greed and weight of the capitalist’s hubris. i can’t take any “followers”, which, as a metaphor is truly appropriate. look at how imprisoned we are with facebook, instagram & tiktok, at the whims of corporate/political overlords, constantly losing ground and being distracted. constantly UNABLE TO ORGANIZE COMMUNITY.

reach out if you want to do real work/private sessions. anti-infantilization work. anti-fragility play. find some brave friends and sign-up together.

artist unknown, i kinda want this tattooed on my heart

and yeah, i have lots of good free shit on this blog, and on youtube.

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venmo @dare-sohei or paypal.me/daresohei