topic of the week

Topic of the Week - I personally don't take explicit participation in totw threads as a sign of either success or failure. There have been too many thoughtful and provocative topics raised over the years--topics that got little to no engagement--and by too many people, to think that explicit, written responses are the best, much less only, measure of success. That's not even talking about other writings, like thread posts here and on other forums like antipolitics.net (long may it linger), etc.

Boredom used to be a simple negative. From Baudelaire's "worst evil" to "if you're bored, you're boring" to the anti-sleep rhetoric (as if sleep is some kind of null state), being "truly alive" also meant being inspired, on, active, go go going...

Now, in these days of constant, low-level, thoughtless stimulation (and overwhelm), when the go go going feels hectic and scarcity-driven, and inspiration is less joyful and more an expectation, more people are talking about how boredom is/can be an important part of a creative life or process.  

Does it ever feel like nothing ever happens? You may have ever heard the phrase before, which is a bit of a meme now. But the basic idea is that there are no global events that fundamentally change the world order. Current events occur, horrible (Palestine, Sudan, some shitty election) and great (Luigi Mangione, the recent string of arsons) things do happen, but the premise is that the power balance of the world, either between classes or states, fundamentally remains the same or reflects those of recent history.

How do we, how do you, deal with fear? 

I want to do things that I am scared to do. By this I mean many things. I want to do things that scare me for personal growth, because dealing with fear makes me more capable and also more interesting to myself. I want to do things that scare me because I think that those things are challenges to the fucked up society that I live in. I want to do things that scare me because confronting fear with other people is a bonding exercise.