Cut never, measure forever.
Apr. 17th, 2023 03:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
burningcorridorsHi. I'm not really used to writing outside of instant messaging, so this is going to be new to me.
A patch of quicksand I continuously sink in is the idea of transaction: builder of the false self and the destroyer of empathy. It turns the closest connections you could have with another into RPG stats. A layer of unreality that slowly fades out actual reality in a fade to black. It feels like frostbite. A slow falling into the self, the core, with all things that reach the outside world withering and falling away. Combatted only with warmth. Warmth that brings bright, bubbling agony, but survival. Thank god that hurt fades.
That agony is a lot like a game of whack-a-mole, but with an axe. The moles pop up forever, but the axe leaves marks that last. So the longer the game goes, the more the moles look less like moles. They're transformed into gored, grotesque icons of themselves, infused with violence and fatigue. Disconnection of disconnection of disconnection of... well, at some point there was being a bad person, but I can't see it well anymore. Wait. Where am I?
I'm in my chair. Staring at a text file titled "new 1". It's 9:58 PM, 3 hours later than I thought. Around me is indistinguishable from yesterday's surroundings. A footprint on reality so thin, it'll be wiped away with tomorrow. I wonder what all this aching is even for. I'm going to go make some peanut butter toast; I'll be back.
I'm back with peanut butter toast. Peanut butter toast is fucking delicious. It has a very unique soft crunch to it and a very mellow, but rich taste of peanuts that mixes well with the toast. It's so good, in fact, that I've realized how ridiculous this post even is. So instead of attacking my ghosts, I'm going to instead talk about the buildings that need to be destroyed.
Productivity youtube will leave a deep, infected wound onto the minds of young men. A wound where approaching every friend, every partner, and every Arby's cashier will make the phrase "What can you do for me?" scream and scream itself, pounding on the inner walls of one's skull.
Self optimization abstracts, quantifies, and in turn distorts the experience of growing as a person, so much so that there's an entire website for it, originally called HabitRPG. The establishment of habit-based systems is like rules for a game, so much so there's apps upon apps like HabitRPG.
It works at a point, and then you become a hobbyist. A person so transfixed on the ever-shifting, ever-nebulous "goals" and micromanaging every 15 minute chunks they have to maximize growth, to the point where "High density fun" isn't a hyperbolic punchline in that person's mind.
I deeply worry for those youths. They're slowly distancing themselves from unscheduled, unrestrained play in the name of prescribing themselves maximizers upon maximizers, never experiencing the quietness of dead time (Even then, dead time is only accessed if it's for their daily 20-minute meditation session they feel scared not to do.)
The worst bit of irony is that it builds into a deep fear of actually doing, the whole reason why productivity systems exist. The measuring and repeated measuring and never ending with a cut. I would laugh if it wasn't for their tired, scared faces.
We try everything to get a foothold in this world, a place where corporations try their damndest to maximize the 5 or so verbs we have to do. Desperation builds and, well, we might at some point treat ourselves like both a corporation and it's employee, just to get ahead.
I can't say the rest, and you know why.
A patch of quicksand I continuously sink in is the idea of transaction: builder of the false self and the destroyer of empathy. It turns the closest connections you could have with another into RPG stats. A layer of unreality that slowly fades out actual reality in a fade to black. It feels like frostbite. A slow falling into the self, the core, with all things that reach the outside world withering and falling away. Combatted only with warmth. Warmth that brings bright, bubbling agony, but survival. Thank god that hurt fades.
That agony is a lot like a game of whack-a-mole, but with an axe. The moles pop up forever, but the axe leaves marks that last. So the longer the game goes, the more the moles look less like moles. They're transformed into gored, grotesque icons of themselves, infused with violence and fatigue. Disconnection of disconnection of disconnection of... well, at some point there was being a bad person, but I can't see it well anymore. Wait. Where am I?
I'm in my chair. Staring at a text file titled "new 1". It's 9:58 PM, 3 hours later than I thought. Around me is indistinguishable from yesterday's surroundings. A footprint on reality so thin, it'll be wiped away with tomorrow. I wonder what all this aching is even for. I'm going to go make some peanut butter toast; I'll be back.
I'm back with peanut butter toast. Peanut butter toast is fucking delicious. It has a very unique soft crunch to it and a very mellow, but rich taste of peanuts that mixes well with the toast. It's so good, in fact, that I've realized how ridiculous this post even is. So instead of attacking my ghosts, I'm going to instead talk about the buildings that need to be destroyed.
Productivity youtube will leave a deep, infected wound onto the minds of young men. A wound where approaching every friend, every partner, and every Arby's cashier will make the phrase "What can you do for me?" scream and scream itself, pounding on the inner walls of one's skull.
Self optimization abstracts, quantifies, and in turn distorts the experience of growing as a person, so much so that there's an entire website for it, originally called HabitRPG. The establishment of habit-based systems is like rules for a game, so much so there's apps upon apps like HabitRPG.
It works at a point, and then you become a hobbyist. A person so transfixed on the ever-shifting, ever-nebulous "goals" and micromanaging every 15 minute chunks they have to maximize growth, to the point where "High density fun" isn't a hyperbolic punchline in that person's mind.
I deeply worry for those youths. They're slowly distancing themselves from unscheduled, unrestrained play in the name of prescribing themselves maximizers upon maximizers, never experiencing the quietness of dead time (Even then, dead time is only accessed if it's for their daily 20-minute meditation session they feel scared not to do.)
The worst bit of irony is that it builds into a deep fear of actually doing, the whole reason why productivity systems exist. The measuring and repeated measuring and never ending with a cut. I would laugh if it wasn't for their tired, scared faces.
We try everything to get a foothold in this world, a place where corporations try their damndest to maximize the 5 or so verbs we have to do. Desperation builds and, well, we might at some point treat ourselves like both a corporation and it's employee, just to get ahead.
I can't say the rest, and you know why.
