On Phantom readers and Fandom plus digressions
A dull day and an anxiety ridden me led to what follows
_______________________________
I have forgotten everything. I thought I was getting good at jotting down my thoughts. I can’t seem to write anything more than a functionary note. That even barely. I keep getting distracted by everything. From the yolo/#whatever sticker on another patrons laptop, to a knocking sound that I haven’t noticed earlier, the openings of the door which prompts that exhaust fan to keep the heat inside is further infuriating. My filters are off. I think I am only writing to gain some semblance of linear sense, just push back on the sensory bombardment.
I ordered a nice guacamole on toast, which also I can barely enjoy. It’s not like I am not here, but more that I come and go every few seconds. Thank God there are no other patrons than the fellow I mentioned earlier. I anyway sit close to a corner, facing the wall and the kitchen door. There is a circular see-through glass placed on the door, from which I can peer inside. Mostly though I just see the fridge, for which I am glad. More patrons walk in as I say all this. Oh well, the perils of visiting a popular place.
Even on a damp cold day, it rained early morning, people come here.
I don’t know what to do with the rest of my day, I have a sketchbook to draw in, a good book to read. But I just can’t. I am Just stuck with mediocre distractions.
I feel anxious. I get anxious on days like this, with nothing to do, nowhere to go. When I am face to face with the emptiness that engulfs everything, it makes for not so relaxing a Sunday.
I could do things, there are things to buy, I have to call the laundry guy. I could do things, and push back static of the abyss back a bit, mix it into the white noise of all secondary characters of the cafe and more so my life.
I am getting too Nietzsche-ian. For a person who has barely read a few chapters of one book by the man, I seem to really go with idea of his thoughts, not his thoughts mind you, just the idea of them.
Also, you might just say.. you..
You- the invisible reader, who doesn’t exist, who is beyond a writing. Things said to white blank of the page, are always there, written before and after being read. I am speaking to someone, but who, I have no image of a reader. I am writing for ghosts. Who sits behind the camera of a movie, or reads the book, or hears the song? What we make is waiting to be observed or engaged, sits in this time, beyond all sense.
It is not just a solitary task in a conventional sense, solitary being- by oneself, to make such art or even such bread, than to be talking to ghosts who I am convincing that I exist, that what I make, exists.
These phantom readers of unread arts. I felt like one the other day. I was watching some music video, it was nice, but I just felt like I was behind the camera, seeing it all. It was black all around and I barely existed, just my eyes and ears, ready for the video since the beginning of time. There was nothing else. I came back to my other senses soon, it was but, just a moment. But for that moment, I just existed only to view that piece.
What about the all the other phantoms, who just exist for one sole piece of art, or thing?.. I am sure the intended audience always changes, even if minutely.
This is not the ideal reader. Not the fan either. Fans wished they were these phantom readers, wished they were just those senses for the things they worship. But they are denied entry to the altar, the punishment for such devotion is the absence of god. They are Punished because they forwent their humanity.
Now I am given a rise, it always gives a rise, when I have something to utter than my boring days. I could just delete those initial passages, but I never seem to understand essays which just begin to prove a point. For that there are articles with proper headlines and bylines.
I couldn’t title this writing properly. Who knows where this writing will go. I have digressed too much.
Anyway what would be the title? “Thoughts on fantom readers and phandoms plus digressions.” Actually.. not bad. Maybe I will take back the interchanged puns, but that’s it. The real punch is ‘plus digressions’.
Phantom readers are not ideal. But maybe in some creationist sense, they are the ones to partake in the gift of reading the writing, as man was born to enjoy the bounty in this world.
Like all creationist logic, this is meant to make sense of the world in the shape of a human. Yes, all things we do are anthropocentric, we cannot escape being human, so all our pursuit revolve around said humanity.
We are forever bound in our self image and reflections. Not bound ‘to’, but ‘in’. We are within the self image and reflection. Maybe the self image is elastic and, like universe, is ever expanding, and whenever we push through it’s shell it just expands to contain our push.
And so we create phantoms, because we believe in a ‘one’ outside us. We create stories in this world, to in effect render a reflection or rather a possibility of an ‘other’ outside us and our universe, a god, of you will.
We came to one of our senses when we first recognized ourselves in a mirror. And just then we felt our size and shape, all crushing our self in those particular confines. We are trapped in this body. We realized that this is all that we were. And so we created God, as we created language and fire.
We felt our limit then, as we feel it now.
And then some became beholden to God, others to science, but all limited by selves. Science people threw their hopes onto future, but science is calculable, and every 15 years or so we are disappointed, we say “we are in future, so why is this nagging sense of a puny self pushing us in”.
The god people had a better strategy, to throw hope onto an impossible future, the one after death, where we are at peace. Of course impossibility has it’s own issues, ones who believe it are always thrown, into the future, all dividends will be issued tomorrow, forever. They are never here, not fully at least. I think that’s why God had to write scriptures for them, work temporarily puts us in present, the present in turn gets connected to future through acts, and so we can live.
Of course, the science people have science to do the same. For them curiosity does the trick, always one adventure away from the truth.
But in a time where it feels all history seems to have come together at once, both positions are at a loss.
If all past is here, so must be all future. If future is here, then what else is there to look forward to? Things like climate change have brought us to apocalypse of sorts, and so all of us have dug our heels deeper in our beliefs and are feeling the pressure to polarize.
Our beliefs and ideologies are what saved us from the world, made sense of something and denied the utter indifference of the thing towards us. The utter indifference of so called mother nature and and concepts like entropy or equilibrium, quelled to convince ourselves that we exist, we are meant to exist.
On opposite notes, science makes it possible to exist, by controlling present and future, and religion shows us that because of past we are always meant to be here.
All ideologies are not only used to make sense of past and present, but also project a future, so we can do things to get there. But as are our current circumstances, we are at end of our wits.
Some people call it the end of history, and it’s misread as the after effect of postmodernism, where history is looked at as a cultural record, which we put on repeat endlessly. But it’s just that due to whatever is happening, and our lack of convincing answers to the happenings, that we feel we are at an end.
First god failed us, now science did. Technocrats showed they are the same as old priests.
Philosophy is, to most of us, still grappling with millennia old questions, and not the biggest contender for quick reasoning to what feels like a very deadline based problem.
Arts are mostly stuck on a loop, referencing past and then re referencing themselves, until most of it becomes recycled mush.
And so here we are without answers.
This is not a call for nihilism or existentialism, which although are very good in dealing with anxieties of the living, are cut off too abruptly. Yes there might be no meaning to anything, but we are stuck in the middle of meanings we cannot escape, we are speaking language and thinking thoughts, so we are in the middle of what we have created.
Life is meaningless, but nihilism et Al just side step the question of meaning, but are forever stuck within meaning, for we have thought, even if just once, and we have brought meaning, even if just once. And now we are within reason and thought, denying it like a child with a blindfold, assuming things have disappeared just because we can’t see.
Nihilism etc are all assumed positions just like all other thoughts, and in assumption lies the defeat of their proposition.
So where does that leave us? We carve out new meaning. It is the time to think as well as do.
It is time for true optimism, to hold out despite all evidence, for to have hope till there is even a shred of hope is merely realism. True optimism comes despite all hope. But first we must give up on all our past desires of future. We have lost all those. Let us lose in our heads right now, before the world is lost to us literally. Let us not wait for apocalypse to lose and then redesign society, the apocalypse will have too high a body count. Accept defeat, then start anew. We are seeing the institutions failing even those whom those institutions were meant for, and anyway these institutions of utter oppression have lived past their expiry date.
Well, actually the institutions have become meaner, and are catering to even less, only those with high forts. The ones these institutions serve have lessened in number and grown in power exponentially. But the power is only based on a logic of the current system, currency is a made up thing.
And like how those 500 rupee notes were made useless by one fell swoop, just because the logic of the system moved past them, so can the whole system can be moved past. As long as we collectively decide that the system is defunct. Yes, they have the arms, but it’s we who man the missiles. They walled themselves behind our backs while we on the lookout for dangers from outsiders. As soon as we realise that we are beyond the moats of the high forts, out in the wilderness, we will mobilise.
The systems have failed us long ago, it’s time we fail the systems and create something new.
We tried working incrementally along with the old system, but its vanguards are too entrenched to give way. We can’t build upon faulty towers, we have to take them down. But it’s hard. They have manufactured hope for us, with gifts of apps and superhero movies. Lulled our quench for a better life, by selling us crumbs whenever we get hungry for a wholesome meal. Always be hungry, they say, it’s good for health.
Back to my thoughts here in this cafe. The shift back here feels abrupt. But I am again losing steam. Lost steam. I still have half a day to go, and chores to do.
I know I will read back these words in the evening or tomorrow and feel stupid for having wasted a good chunk of a day on this drivel.
Calls to revolution cannot be made sitting in cafes.
Maybe I just needed to spend a few hours not thinking about the empty day. Yes, that’s partially the case. But I am also away from loved ones, and to live away from loved ones is a punishment. It’s similar to alienation this day creates everyday, all day.
The day which makes one feel so alone, Sunday, for even if you were with a loved one you know you will be parted tomorrow, only to return in evening with lessened spirit for love and an aching heart, with hope pulled out.
Only Netflix awaits, like cable used to.
Some day I will follow up on these sweeping thoughts and tall claims. But I doubt, I am too scatter and hare brained for sustained sessions of introspection.
