The table-setting is always satisfying, though when it's time to eat, we'll see if I still have an appetite.
At any given moment, I'm juggling conflicting ideas on the concept of technological detachment. I have a visceral distaste for talking to Siri, having Google map a route to my destination, or purchasing digital streaming video or audio or games. My partner ribs me about my insistence on keeping a physical media collection and a backup hard drive of all the music I've ever bought. Yeah, I subscribe to Spotify, but how much longer is that service model tenable? Further, I think about a world where a connection to the power grid is not assured, let alone stable access to the Internet.
And then I do things like register a silly domain name for a small blog, buy an e-ink tablet for daily notetaking, and embed myself firmly in Obsidian and Notion for personal and professional organization and writing. I tell myself these things are simplifications, an intentional step backward and away from cognitive interference. Am I self-selecting into curation or isolation?
I certainly feel dumber these days.
We're also approaching the end of my Year of the Concrete (1). I made a couple bucks with my zines, and I like having them on my shelf, but where from here? The chase for satisfaction is as it's always been, and it stretches out and out. I'm buying my seat on a different train to the same place, slapping a new CSS theme onto my day-to-day. No radical change, no resilience.
Facebook reminded me that two years ago today, I was wearing the same shoes I have on now. I was arriving in Denver, headed to play a show with my friends. Holding a synthesizer in a briefcase, I look actualized, the impending performance almost inconsequential. Here, then, if only for a little while.