I’m trying an experiment with how I use the internet–and my computer more generally–that has to do with directing some of the energy (not necessarily the time) that I otherwise spend on it and the (sometimes negative) affect it brings into actions other than either repression of that affect or redispersal of it. I generally try to avoid just plain aggression (or moves that couldbe perceived that way, although obviously I’m not 100% successful) and passive-aggression, especially online where it’s rife and compounded by the nuances of communicating exclusively in text, but that means sometimes that energy/affect gets directed inwards and it keeps me from working or feeling good. So far, so useful and invigorating.
I think being done with the conference also has to do with the uptick in energy I have–I just feel like I have so much more headspace now. Room to have ideas. Not that this has been particularly helpful in terms of Finishing My Thesis, but I’ve been writing a lot. And the conference also helped me remember that I’m a writer first–and that part of my thesis is questioning the norms of the academy that to some extent devalue other ways of knowing and of transmitting knowledge, arranging them hierarchically.
When we were driving through Normandy, we came across this yard full of the inhabitants’ art. Arrangements of old toys, dishes, wine bottles, shells, bottle-tops, tiny furniture. It was otherworldly or other-time-ly. The image of this two-headed fox/cat thing has stuck with me (there’s a 2-second video of it in motion on flickr if you click the photo) and what it leads me back to is the unifying weirdness of everything I saw there (and unifying normality, which was part of the weird). My thesis is the two-headed fox/cat, but it’s only one (small) part of all I do, want to do, am, and want to be. Ah. Is that called perspective?
