The Death of Tomorrow
Hey friends,
The Stoa had a day off today. I spent it posting a lot of events. Here they are:
On the Metapolitics of Pandemics w/ Zachary Stein. April 14th @ 11:30 AM ET. Learn more. RSVP here.
A Game About Living Boldly in Crisis w/ Joe Edelman. April 14th @ 2:00 PM ET. Learn more. RSVP here.
Institutions and Situational Awareness w/ Samo Burja. April 15th @ 1:00 PM ET. Learn more. RSVP here.
The Narcissistic Spotlight w/ A.J. Bond. April 15th @ 7:00 PM ET. Learn more. RSVP here.
COVID-19 and Metamodernism: A Commentary w/ Daniel Gortz. April 16th @ 10 AM ET. RSVP here.
The Gift Economy w/ Andrew Taggart. April 16th @ 4:30 PM ET. Learn more. RSVP here.
COVID to Post-Capitalism: Embodying a New World w/ Rhys Lindmark. April 16th @ 6:30 PM ET. Learn more. RSVP here.
Psychotechnology Playground w/ Bonnita Roy. April 17th @ 10:00 AM ET. Learn more. RSVP here.
Trauma Drama w/ Patrick Ryan. April 17th @ 8:30 PM ET. Learn more. RSVP here.
Staying Inside: Solitude and Cultivating Interior Life w/ Greg Sadler. April 18th @ 1:00 PM ET. Learn more. RSVP here.
Freestyling Through a Pandemic w/ Tyson Wagner. April 18th @ 8:00 PM ET. Learn more. RSVP here.
The Contrarian Moment w/ Robin Hanson. April 21st @ 1:00 PM ET. Learn more. RSVP here.
Becoming Better People: Monastic Living During a Global Crisis w/ Jasna Todorovic. April 27th @ 7:00 PM ET.Learn more. RSVP here.
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April 13, 2020
I have not had goals in the last three weeks, especially not of the SMART variety. I have been doing things, obviously, and accomplishing things as well, but when I previously set goals it felt as if I was attempting to impose my will on reality. It had that vibe to it. The vibe felt like this: I do not possess you, and I probably feel some inadequacy because of that, but you will be mine.
Now, during this liminal moment in my life, it does not feel as if I am attempting to impose my will on reality, but as if I’m being pulled, or seduced maybe. I am following the daemon. And, in a way, it feels as if the story has already been written, and I am simply discovering the plot unfolding in front of me. I am following and seeing it unfold.
I am open to the possibility that this is an innocent misperception. Maybe if one starts developing some semblance of the right relationship with reality, it will feel as if the story has already been written, when, in fact, you are writing it at this moment. Each step you take, each word you type, you are authoring the story—maybe we are all authoring it, but our egos have to get the fuck out of the way for us to appreciate the authoring.
There are lots of words I want to put down right now. There is so much that wants to be authored, so I’ll pause for a moment, and see what wants to be written. Okay. I will write about tomorrow, and how it has died. I’ve been talking about this in a few different places, most recently in a podcast interview.
Somebody sent this to me on Facebook: that the etymology of the word procrastination means to put something off for tomorrow. A task, a practice, a dream. But what if there is no tomorrow to put something off to? He proposed the word anticrastination, living as if there is no tomorrow. If there is no tomorrow, how can there be a yesterday, or today?
It's hard to set SMART goals when there is no tomorrow. Now, I think there is a tomorrow, on a conceptual level, but each concept has a felt-sense reality behind it, which you can tease out if you try. And the felt-sense reality of the word tomorrow has been dead for me, ever since this crisis hit.
Maybe it is not dead, and just sleeping drunk, but as of this moment it feels as if I have no tomorrow to put things off to. My sense is that having no tomorrow is allowing me to feel the now more than I have ever felt it before.
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