I am writing this from within the abyss of the political dark ages of the mid twenty-twenties.
Nationalism is in a kind of haphazard resurgence. The media is faltering. Artificial intelligence is clouding the internet with a seemingly unlimited supply of slop and misinformation.
It is dire.
And artists have this important role to play: continuing to make stuff despite the inanity.
Despite wars. Despite clashing cultures. Despite self-dealing politicians. Despite generative algorithms pumping out dead-on-arrival content.
And to top it all of, half of the people that could read this will discount it as the words of a man sitting across on the other side of a funhouse mirror making up a reality they disagree with. We can’t even see eye to eye on that anymore.
Culture is opinion. Opinion is truth. And truth (whatever that might be) has always shaped the stories we tell through our words, sounds, music, and art.
I write this very blog in competition with countless algorithms that will fight to ensure it only get seen if it generates money for a shareholder somewhere, profit for a corporate bottom line, or revenue for someone who is probably not me.
We are humans caught up in a system and we are treading water in a creative torrent that we can barely understand. The abyss is below. The sky is above—so long as we can keep our heads above the flow of society.
Under the category of People & Places, I’ll be writing more on this topic as the months wear on.
Terms FROm this POSt
- blog
- I am old. And I started posting formatted words and photos online before the word blog had entered the common lexicon. Most people work in the medium of social platforms these days, but being both a product of my time and a stickler for content ownership and control, I still lean into and promote the idea that the blog (a content managed general purpose personal website) is the beating heart of the internet I once knew and loved.
- corporate
- Having worked in many desk jobs, I tend to think of the corporate mindset and anything related to it as a kind of collective brain of capitalism and the search for profit. It is a core piece of the culture, but personally I’ve found it to be the antithesis of creative spirit, and often use the word as a pejorative in this sense.
