Uncomfortably Numb

B R

B R

— 2 min read
Uncomfortably Numb
Oh dear.

I'm back in Fayetteville, Arkansas again. I don't think I really have the capacity right now to talk about my father, his life, and our loss in a manner that I would feel proud or happy about. It is still too soon. The collective mood is one of shock and numbness. All I will say right now is that, for those readers that did not have the fortune of meeting him, he was a good man and is deeply missed by all who knew him.

If there is any silver lining to the current spiraling polycrisis that we find ourselves in, is that it provides - for me at least - a distraction from that pain. I am no more immune to my perspectives, reactions, and worldview being mediated by the technology of the time as anyone else. So yeah, I'm posting through it.

Some things that I think are worth keeping in mind:

  1. Most people don't know the extent of what is going on.... yet.
  2. This is an intentional strategy
  3. It's not a popular project and it's barely gotten started
  4. Knowing how we got here is important [[1]]
  5. No one knows what comes next

I'll leave you with two things that I believe are related, a graph:

And the first paragraph from the book October by China Miéville:

Midway through the First World War, as Europe shuddered and bled, an American publisher released Alexander Kornilov's acclaimed Modern Russian History. Kornilov, a liberal Russian intellectual and politician, concluded his narrative in 1890, but for this 1917 edition, his translator, Alexander Kaun, brought the story up to date. Kaun's final paragraph opens with minatory words: 'One need not be a prophet to fortell that the present order of things will have to disappear.'

That order disappeared, spectacularly, as those words appeared.

Okay that was a lie I am also obligated to leave you this.

[[1]]: This will require more than one link and is probably a post by itself, but the self-delegitimization of the mainstream press and established liberal order in the lead up to the war in Iraq, the reaction to the 2008 financial crisis, and, most recently, the full-throated support of an ongoing mass murder of Palestinians is no small part of it. “Young voters do not look at our politics and see any good guys. They see a dying empire led by bad people.”

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