I am sick of clever substack titles, of reading them, thinking about them or trying to come up with them.
The idea of being lured in to expending our attention reserves by entrapment via exciting preambles is not amiss on any of us. On any plane of awareness. In fact, sometimes the preambles alone are enough to chew on, often leading to disappointing entrées.
The past few months, as the past few years, I have been desperately trying to make sense of the information around me. The data that comes with being alive in today’s world, overwhelms my capacity to process it. My informational nutrition has largely been coming from the source of a 1:1 aspect ratio diet which is nauseating on its own, but to try to resist this mode is the real challenge (except for news— for that social media has been better than MOST news sources, especially when it comes to understanding how to be better at supporting the Palestinian liberation and understanding the struggles of oppression. One such post has been this.)
Far into this quest of trying to decode the endless messaging around me, I read an excerpt on are.na by Toby Shorin which made me get this book by Byung Chul Han: Dissappearance of Rituals. The excerpt that prompted me to this action was this:
It took me a few months to get this paperback copy, something in me refused to read it on the kindle. I also picked up his other book, Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New Technologies of Power, and it took me very little time to get to them.
Once I started DoR a few things happened:
I read till page 7 and didn’t touch the book again for 8 months.
I kept thinking about those 7 pages and felt like I had enough material to think about for a long time
I started having conversations about those 7 pages and felt like a bit of an expert on the topic (was not)
I went back to it and started the book from page 1.
It is a terribly fascinating time to be reading philosophy. Not because of the discipline itself, but because of the varied modes of its modern transmission. There are existential meme accounts that teach me more about theory than reading critiques myself and I wonder, is the path of enlightenment more important or enlightenment itself? (yes oxymoron)
But really, I am paralysed by the variety of sources and the vulgar availability of them. Never would any of the great thinkers or our ancestors have considered this a problem but it is. It’s because in the middle of all this availability, we have lost the sense of purpose to a sense of urgency. The urgency to attain, to possess, to imbibe, to impart. I wrote this 2 years ago but still feel each and every word as strongly today:
Chan calls this ‘the compulsion of authenticity’.
“The society of authenticity is a performance society. All members perform themselves. All produce themselves. Everyone pays homage to the cult of the self, the worship of self in which everyone is or her own priest.”
In situating authenticity within community, he argues:
“Authenticity is in fact the enemy of community. The narcissism of authenticity undermines community. In terms of its content, what is crucial is not its references to a community or some other higher order but its market value, which effaces all other values. Thus, the form and content of authenticity coincide: both concern the self. The cult of authenticity shifts the question of identity from society to the individual person. Within the cult of authenticity, the production of self becomes a permanent activity. Authenticity thus atomises society.”
The book is an urgent manifesto on the resistance of the neo-liberal machine and its promise of providing value. Highly recommend with a deeper reading of Charles Taylor’s work after, if this interests you.
On paper and in conversations most of us have largely understood the evils of hyper capitalism, but beyond the tag line “capitalism sucks” where are we really on the spectrum of action? Because in the age that we find ourselves in, where authenticity is just another weapon in the capitalist branding play book, how do we truly just be ourselves without making an identity out of it?
This is especially hitting me hard as I try to navigate building a brand that lies close to my personal journey of expression and communication. The world of fashion is closely linked to the world of mass consumption and I am heading full speed and face first on a road of incredibly messed up and mind numbing realisations as I tread finding my own voice. Not only is it difficult to be picked up by the traditional algo, but to be able to catch the drift of my audience long enough to convey a message is a pressure that sometimes dilutes my energy to keep trying.
But today I choose to be someone who refuses to make sense of it all, and just wants to delve deeply into what is. And what is, is that I have been BLOWN away by colour combinations, textures and shapes around me!! :
FROM THE MAG:
Majorly enjoying this playlist for barostudio’s first shoot:
Authentically yours ;)
Malaeka
That book was life-changing. And what a great read this was—Im so glad i found you here!
So glad to have found YOU. Have saved a bunch of your writing to slowly enjoy over the next few days 🌹