Member-only story
Self-knowledge comes at the cost of moral pain — the excruciating sense that we are less than what we’d hoped to be, the sense that we are failing (failing who, failing what, it’s hard to say — just failing).
I had a realization recently: that I’ve been mythologizing the anger that I don’t express; that I’ve become one of those people who swear that if they really expressed how angry they are then ‘everything would explode.’ Of course, this isn’t true: anger is natural, and it’s more destructive to hold it in then to let it out; all I’ve done is narrativize, rationalize, my own implosive (as opposed to explosive behavior). What I should remember is: implosions are excellent ways of bringing down large structures all at once. Implosions are perhaps more dangerous than explosions, in the physical sense. I think of myself as a mature, put-together individual, but perhaps I’m just tottering, ready to collapse at any moment from the inward pressure of consciousness.
Are there alternatives to post-Internet civilization — are the alternatives to the Industrialized Mind? Can we think, feel, in alternative ways? To my mind, this is the question that should be central to all political, economic, anthropological discussion.
I know too many comfortable, utterly miserable people.
