I listened to a 2-hour video of this academic saying that Reality isn’t real, there is no reality without someone to perceive it, while I attempted to hand-animate a fat Earth goddess I called “Reality,” because that morning I had imagined praying to Reality, who doesn’t care about my feelings, and also to Mystery, who might. Reality and Mystery, sisters. Systery. My animation failed but I still wanted to draw Them. Is Mystery the snake that twines around the Goddess? Is Mystery Reality’s backside? Is Reality that which can be illuminated but seldom is, while Mystery cannot be illuminated at all? Is Mystery just the parts of Reality we can’t see, or is She something else entirely?
Anyway Mr. Academic says There Is No Reality, only consciousness, and “science” backs that up. Dude, I read The Doors of Perception when I was 17. Sure, “reality” is some informational plasma that doesn’t take shape (as we know it) until we interpret it through our senses. But that plasma triggers multiple flesh-instruments the same way; it can be measured, even if measurements of Reality aren’t Reality itself. He sounded to my ears like a freshman in a light-night dorm room, however:
I do love the idea that nothing is in fact real, that everything is an illusion, because it takes a huge load off. All my pain, search for meaning, criticism, loneliness, frustration, fears: they’re just artifacts of my mind, which is itself an illusion as well as a generator of illusion. My mind isn’t real, my thoughts aren’t real, reality isn’t real. Ohm.
On the same day I saw a video of a young mother who regrets motherhood. She’d always wanted a baby girl; now she has one, and while she loves her daughter infinitely, she hates the experience of motherhood, the physical and psychic changes, the long stretches of boredom and meaninglessness, the absence of fulfillment, becoming a lifelong host for a parasite, the pain and suffering and emptiness despite the love. The disappointment.
And I think: I feel the same way about having been born! What a colossal disappointment.
She urges women to consider not becoming mothers: it’s not worth it. And I encourage ethereal souls to not become incarnated on the human plane: that’s not worth it either. Spare a mother, spare a child, solve multiple problems at once.
A few days ago a TERF Sister and I were texting about being demonized by family members. Finally she wrote:
there’s endless assholes in the world and you know? I can just be one, if that’s how people gonna see me, then… fine, they CAN
and it’s fascinating just how much people do NOT want to hear that
(Ex-husband) definitely didn’t
and your brother doesn’t want to hear it either. They want to change you, they want you to feel you NEED to change because they’re mad or they disapprove or whatever
but fuck it
you think I’m an asshole? Okay. I CAN LIVE WITH THAT
Inspired by her, I resolved to Be More Asshole in 2025.
My new Asshole identity is working much better than my former identity of “Good Person.” A Good Person seeks to forgive. A Good Person, finding themselves in the path of an asshole, makes excuses like “they have their own struggles” or “there but for the grace of God go I.” But instead of giving me a warm sisterly feeling, my attempts to be Good only compound my hurt with a sense of spiritual inadequacy.
Now there’s nothing to forgive. People are assholes. They do whatever the hell they want with no consideration of me — or worse, targeting me as a scapegoat to relieve their own cognitive dissonance. Thank God I’m not above them or outside them anymore. For I, too, am an Asshole.
Asshole nature is human nature. We are born with it, it is integral to our being. At last I claim my human birthright and join my species.
Why the hell was I trying to be Good? Good People do the worst things. Good People project their shadows onto scapegoats and form mobs. Good People lie, appease, submit to authority, and crush the Truth in order to be liked and accepted. Because being liked and accepted is how you know you’re a Good Person. The worst crimes against Reality are performed by Good People, in their selfish, delusional, and fundamentally assholeic pursuit of being “good.” Just look at Democrats.
(I almost removed that jab at Democrats because it will offend many people I know. But you know what? I’m an Asshole!)
Balance
Perhaps I come to balance by embracing the dark. Those who embrace the light — faith, goodness — already have enough dark nature to serve as ballast. They are already assholes. Just as Doubt brings me to the same place as Faith, so being an Asshole brings me to the same place as being a Good Person. At this point I’d rather be an Asshole than a Good Person because I’ve never seen pure, unbridled, uncontrolled, contagious hate like Good Person hate.
But honestly, fuck my philosophizing. I don’t need to be Good anymore. I can just be me: an Asshole, as God intended. For we are created in God’s image, and if Scripture teaches us anything, it is that God is an Asshole.
Writing is painful because of everything I think, I can only get a wee little bit on the page. I want to get EVERYTHING down and instead I squeeze out 1 to 2% at best. I procrastinated writing my 2024 Year In review for this reason. How could I do this year justice? I would forget so much. After several hours captioning photos, I realized forgetting is the point. Only getting 1 to 2% is the point. If you want EVERYTHING, you live Life itself. If you want writing, you recognize a few patterns and put those down. You can’t remember everything, nor should you. Forgetting is a gift. Pattern recognition requires excluding most information, which at the time of exclusion becomes mere “noise”. Just a little bit is the point. Just for today is the point.
So, some patterns from 2024:
I began the year with rapidly-progressing Crohn’s disease, diagnosed in December. In addition to radical dietary restrictions and occasional shitting-of-my-pants, my skin was beset with plaques and flakes. In retrospect, I’ve probably had mild psoriasis most of my life, undiagnosed or misdiagnosed as “ringworm” which never responded to treatment and migrated around my body. In January and February my hair was rapidly falling out and my scalp flaking like a blizzard, while I spent most of my time resting at home to be near my very nice bathroom.
My first Skyrizi infusion, Jan 5 2024
I love my bathroom. I love my house, too. In January it was still my Mom’s house. Built in 1956, we moved here in 2016 so she could “age in place” until it was time to move on to the high-end “Independent Living” complex half a mile away. This she finally did last August, and I thought I would move to a smaller house, preferably in the country near a river or lake as had always been my dream. Covid and Crohn’s dashed that dream to pieces, and I bonded with this house instead. But how would I afford its high taxes and other expenses? By letting out my Mom’s former suite via AirBnB. I have come to enjoy being a part-time host, and having a home with a guest suite makes me feel secure in the event I ever get really sick again and need in-home care.
For years I had discussed with my Mom buying the house from her as one possible (but not likely) future. Crohn’s collapsed my options into that future. In October we signed the deed transfer paperwork. There was no cash transaction; instead it was arranged as a sort of pre-inheritance, with her will adjusted to be fair to my siblings.
All this is mine now! October 2, 2024.
So now I am rich! Yet still low-income. Which I need to be, to qualify for the Medicaid which covers my Skyrizi injections which manage my Crohn’s disease. Skyrizi retails at $25,000 a dose, although no one pays that. I am an asset-wealthy poor person. Once I hit 65 I’ll be switched to MediCare, which will requisition my house as compensation if/when I go to a nursing home. That is okay with me. I have no heirs to inherit it, and it’s fine if it becomes my end-of-life insurance.
Speaking of rich, Bitcoin is currently valued over $100,000. I can’t afford to sell my 2+ bitcoin (all donated from back when it was worth way less), as it would count as income and I’d lose my Medicaid. So it will sit in its digital wallet until I’m old enough to afford it.In the meantime it might tank and become worthless. But for now, on virtual paper and in my imagination, I’m “financially secure.” Which is super weird given my life as a poor artist, especially one who has been cancelled since 2017 and made hardly any money.
It is nice to be not-canceled somewhere. At Ken Avidor’s G’Lume MicroCinema, Indianapolis, IN, June 7, 2024
Speaking of my cancellation: 2024 is the year I let go of it. I will never return to my former, fancy, famous life, and I am okay with that. I haven’t got enough energy to continually resent the individuals who denounced and lied about me, destroying my career and reputation. I have come to accept social manias as a force of nature. “Forgive them…they know not what they do.” I live a much quieter life now, and I like it.
I didn’t fly at all this year. I love not flying. I did a few road trips with friends, which were fun, but sometimes disappointingly exacerbated my Crohn’s symptoms. Travel isn’t that great when you can’t freely sample new foods and restaurants. Also, my medication is an immunosuppressant so mingling with my fellow contagious humans in enclosed spaces is fraught. Covid nailed me to my bed for over a month and left me with lifelong autoimmune disease, forgive me if I’m warier of reinfection than most. In August I skipped a planned trip to RISE On The Land in Michigan, and then a flight to Portland for my Niece’s wedding, because Covid was rampant then. Forgive me. I’m a boring old shut-in crone now and I LIKE IT.
Well I’m not really a shut-in. I biked a lot this year, over 6,000 miles. Yeah I bike over the same Central Illinois landscape which I get to know better and better every year, like the back of my hand. Other cyclists put their bikes in cars and drive to new places to ride, but I don’t drive and I like sleeping in my own bed and of course having access to my own bathroom “in case something goes wrong” as it still does from time to time.
Still biking. Feb 1 2024
I love my “range” of up to 100 miles in any direction. The literal shape of the land beneath doesn’t change, but the life above varies so much from season to season or even week to week, there’s always new scenery. I see the rivers fall and rise with the rains, I mark time with the phases of the moon, I orient myself easily to the position of the sun in the sky. The leaves bud, grow, and fall; different flowers bloom and vanish; birds behave differently in mating and nesting seasons; one morning I even saw a doe suckling two young fawns, before they noticed me and bounded away. In the summer I rise before dawn to bike into the sunrise, and its position relative to the straight east-west roads can be read as a calendar.
This summer I did my longest ride ever, from Urbana Il to Indianapolis IN. I replaced a wheel’s rim tape for the first time, thus ending a struggle with chronic flats. I replaced a few 9-speed cassettes and long recumbent chains. I recorded a podcast about my fear of local bike mechanics; the upshot is, I do more bike maintenance myself.
The humble origins of my art gloves project. June 1, 2024.
My biggest art project of the year has been art gloves. I didn’t make any animated movies. I am not moved to create much of what I used to, because I am older but moreso because the world has changed. AI generative art, which I find fascinating if overwhelming, is not even a game-changer; it’s a game-ender. That’s okay with me. I now focus on what I can do as a human, instead of trying to compete with AI. AI can animate faster and better than humans, and there’s little reason for me to create “online content” when limited audience attention is soaked up like a sponge by a constant glut of dreamlike video. But has AI generated art gloves? I DON’T THINK SO! I’m keeping my unique human edge, thank you.
I started writing more in August, same time I banished my “smart” phone from my bedroom. I keep a spiral notebook and pen next to my bed, and instead of reaching for the phone when I wake up, I write. After a few months of detox, my “morning brain” returned, and I wake up slowly thinking about all kinds of things, enjoying the time spent with myself instead of reading the latest bullshit on social media.
Cori visits and facepalms fashionably with an art glove. Nov 16, 2024.
Cori and I continued recording Heterodorx podcasts, although inconsistently. The gender world changed drastically over 2024. Gender mania helped the Democrats lose the November elections. The social climate changed almost immediately, and sensible questioning of gender ideology doesn’t get one immediately condemned now. As it becomes safer to talk about, more people are poking their heads over the parapet. As such, Cori and I feel our work is mostly done. We have been on the cutting edge of gender for years; now that more people face it openly and start cleaning up the mess, we can attune our neoteric antennae to whatever fresh hell awaits in the future. We continue making Heterodorx but talk about different, less gender-y things, like Cori’s probable conversion to Judaism(!) and my finding new ways to make fun of him.
Shortly after the US elections I got another colonoscopy, a procedure I loathe (especially the fasting and “prepping” preceding it). I was elated the next day when it was over, much as I was elated the day after the elections. We’re basically looking inside a shit-hole but it was much worse a year ago, is what I’m saying. My images look normal, my biopsies all came back normal, my insanely-overpriced but covered-by-insurance monoclonal antibody injections are working, and I am enjoying the best possible treatment outcome for a disease which binds me to the medical-industrial complex forever.
I am very grateful today. I can eat all kinds of food again. I no longer have to juice everything, although I still love fresh juice and continue using my juicer a few times I week. I’m healthy. I have lost a lot of hair which may never grow back, but my skin is much better: Skyrizi treats my psoriasis too. I’m physically fit. I’m happy, which is to say I am content with my lot and have made peace with my losses. Life isn’t fair, and I’ve unfairly benefitted for most of it. How can I feel anything but gratitude? Thank you, Time, for 2024!
People assure me AI art is “soulless,” that unlike human artists AI can’t be “original.” It can only copy. This reflects a widespread misunderstanding of how human artists work: we copy, and there’s no such thing as “original.” I understood this 16 years ago.
We draw from more or less the same pool of culture that AI does, only our pools are necessarily smaller as humans simply don’t have the capacity for exposure to as much stuff. No matter, because all works carry the influences and language — be it verbal, visual, or musical — as the works around them. You don’t need to see every painting to get the styles and grammar of its time and place, just as you don’t need to hear every English speaker alive to learn English. But AI can read, see, and hear vastly more cultural artifacts than any individual artist can, making it capable of a much broader stylistic range.
What about Intention? The intention comes from the human prompter. All that AI art is prompted by someone; that’s its intention. Is that its Soul? No, its soul is the soul of human culture, that vast pool of source material it draws from and imitates. The same one humans draw from and imitate. Humans aren’t individual geniuses, we are imitators. Our “genius” lies in our shared* culture, and our skill in copying.
This is why I don’t hate AI, but marvel as it shakes the ground beneath my feet and blows apart my orientation to culture and my fellow human beings. Those who hate it believe in the myth of originality and think copying is theft. They were delusional 16 years ago when I freed Sita Sings the Blues, and they’re delusional now. Delusionality is part of shared human culture too, and AI will imitate, remix, and regurgitate it just like we do, only much faster and more efficiently.
I have no desire to animate. Add my work to a media stream already full of fascinating hallucinations? The creativity of AI exceeds my own, with its innumerable fingers and multiple arms and morphing cat heads. Things turning into other things used to be magic worthy of hard work and years of study. Now it’s a mere artifact, a waste product generated in pursuit of the more mundane.
All my work will be forgotten, because there is so much work. Art used to be diamonds the future could sift from the dust. Now the dust is made of diamonds. I used to imagine I was making Art for the Future, but no future will find mine. I guess it’s just for me, and a small audience of the Present, and God. That’s enough, but it’s humbling. A glove has no more or less value than a feature film.
I thought Sita was future-proof because of Free Culture, but that only protected against Copyright. Cancel Culture was still to come, and there’s no protection against that except cowardice, which kills art before it’s born. And now the glut of “content” is on steroids. Attention is fractured and overwhelmed. Anything I make is buried in diamonds.
Still, I make, like writing this now. Like the countless un-named and un-indexed photos I take on my bike rides, not even worthy of my own efforts to organize. I make little posts on social media to be forgotten by the next day or, at best, next week. I chatter to my fellow monkeys, amidst the chatter of robots, as if monkeys are so starved for chatter we have to build robots to do it for us.
Yesterday at my women’s meetup M and L brought knitting. M finished a blanket she’d worked on since 2023. Every row was a different color yarn, to represent the high temperature of that day, 365 rows total. It has no commercial value. It represents countless hours of work. It will be used only by M, and seen only by a few of her friends (like us). It is Art. It will be forgotten like all art, and like all of us. We are here today only. That has to be enough.
So much of my past lives on fecebook. People who believe in more than 2 sexes; the same “scientific” and “compassionate” articles on this subject keep getting re-shared by my former friends and acquaintances. Also denunciations of Twitter and declarations of moving to Bluesky.
I feel so disconnected from my past now. Who even am I? Young me might be aghast. Every article about policy responses to “climate change” makes me scoff. You’re 20 years too late, I think. NOW you’re trying to fix it? We knew back then it would be unfixable by today, but here you are insisting you can stuff the apocalyptic horse back into the barn. You’re only making it worse now, accelerating environmental destruction, mining for costly and short-lived batteries, building wind farms on my prairie, all this subsidized “green tech” becoming obsolete waste faster and faster. This, after you reduced all environmental impacts to a single vector, “climate.”
The road to Hell is paved with good intentions; electric cars will just drive us there faster.
Have I grown callous? Conservative? Uninformed? No, I have merely given up and wish to use my remaining years on this planet to accept Reality instead of imposing my bright (read: stupid) ideas on it. The road to Hell is paved with good intentions; electric cars will just drive us there faster.
Oh, and nuclear power is the new “clean energy” to save us and the planet. I don’t know if this is wrong. I don’t know if my passionate anti-nukes activism from the 1980’s was wrong. I only know, from living this long, that all these save-the-world virtuous environmentalist ideas are folly. Humans are gonna human. We’re idiots. Just look at fecebook.
