Hyper Text

“Anyone who can read history with both hemispheres of the brain knows that a world comes to an end every instant--the waves of time leave washed up behind themselves only dry memories of a closed & petrified past--imperfect memory, itself already dying & autumnal. And every instant also gives birth to a world--despite the cavillings of philosophers & scientists whose bodies have grown numb--a present in which all impossibilities are renewed, where regret & premonition fade to nothing in one presential hologrammatical psychomantric gesture. ”
― Hakim Bey

It has been a significant time since I wrote last, and for good reason; the need to take repose after reading far beyond what I needed to was being fulfilled. But I do not tend towards silence, and the many tomes that are unshelved and being read simultaneously cannot simply be consumed like honey; they must be set somewhere they can be seen, and their mystery, once broken, must be presented in better simplicity. That the world is born every day, and in every moment further elucidation appears is something that, for me, is inescapable. I look towards patterns and gestures that appear in nature over and again, and our language, rather than seek towards its perfection, ought to seek towards its regeneration and change inside itself. The leaves on the trees have not always maintained their peculiarities; they have differentiated with the seasons which have transformed over a great displacement of time. And to understand that everything is new, that the past is ever present but only insofar as it has been the cause of differentiation and increasing depth of discovery and realization; this is the honey that has been made and is never quite understood for what it is.

The generation that is being lived in, breathed in, and the effects of millions of years of change and displacement being realized in abrupt, sharp relief, is overwhelming to some, yet a vast number accept it for what it is; a life that is much a part of history as any other. As much a part of the past. Though the thought that hovering spy drones, invisible security measures, and every strand of information being discernible at one moment is frightening to some, to others it is sensible. The network of straight lines which had once intersected has become a hyper-movement of curving, disappearing & invisible strands of communication and feedback, that is opposed to the grid, the ordinance & survey of government and economists. The value that is sought is free- flow and a proximity to the intimate, to the immediate fulfillment of desires and the negation of loneliness and apathy. Closed, straight lines are psychological trappings which would as soon as be averted as would be perpetuated by systems that align with homogeneity and a lack of spontaneity.

This generation is swept from beneath its feet into something that to some resembles the abyss, but to others resembles intimacy & liberation. The restrictions set by mathematical logic and narrative frameworks in culture are the trappings that a generation longs to overthrow; the lack of transparency in the grid network isolates and condemns us to a feeling of helplessness and the perpetuation of a strange sort of ignorance, that of the condemning of the other without quite understanding what that other is; this kind of ignorance subsists in a society which thinks in straight lines, and considers the horizon a beltway, rather than the invitation to variation and unfolding difference. Difference, for one, allows the extent of life to unfold, and the notion of extending singularity far afield, whether in ideology, religion, farming methods, or cultural outlook is a blind vector towards suicide. Yet the notion of a species unwittingly determined towards its own destruction is now new; the least we can respond with is to say that we are capable of thinking in ideas, in concepts, and of expanding our understanding; allowing it it harmonize and extend our environment.

We are certainly not the only species to have developed ties with nature which assert our longevity and our development; plants do this all the time, and they do it by varying amongst themselves, be occupying microclimates and extending themselves where they might fit. Sometimes plants extend themselves very far and displace all other life, yet this usually kills the environment and inevitably diminishes that plants ability to survive. It is not a question of strength by numbers, but of different qualities. In the age of hyper text and the internet we begin fashioning a language which becomes commonly ascertainable; the language of difference, and the realization of underlying patterns of cognitive desire. The age of language which bridges between itself not because of similarities in subject matter, but in underlying psychological development leads to a multiplicity of learning and sharing opportunities. For instance, the availability of language translation, or of a discursive space which is nonexistent as yet in the local community. These are the invaluable opportunities presented by the use and expansion of the internet. Once familiarity has settled in, a veritable cellular mitosis establishes itself and difference ensues, but only at a pace incomparable to real- time. 

As for more intimate realities, we must learn that the opportunities for cultural & social development offered by the internet and entirely conducive to their development; only once we realize the extent of difference can we truly begin to harvest from the surrounding environment; we must seek to understand ourselves before we can understand the environment we live in. After we have broken through the limitations of language and that ever-present, but always deceptive, notion of the self and its own importance, we can understand that our existence lies elsewhere. In has always resided outside of ourselves.