News
- Peace.
- Justice.
- Health (global ecological health, including human health, including individual health, embodied and psycheic).
- Vaccination against fascism.
- That “AI” would be far more resource-intensive than it would be profitable.
- It wouldn’t produce reliable or universally-agreeable results, because while these are the most important human pursuits, they pose difficult (perennial) problems. The fantasy of a facile, universalizable, standardized answer is propaganda for fascism.
- Good results would lead to less reliance on the technology, less engagement, and therefore less profit.
- Therefore it will not be attempted, let alone made.
the inky
i dream of an intruder in the house and i wake up screaming when they turn their face to me. but if awake and i imagine an intruder in the house, my fear goes silent and still. heart pounding in darkness i listen for my life
the same idea
but what felt
differences
complete sentences
drag heavy lately like
costumed excesses
shed
the inky
extra
//
assalamu’alaikum 🌒
Writing about “hereness” //
“If not in America, maybe it’s a little alright. But if in America, it’s not alright at all”, said E. We were looking at this Naomi Klein article on “end times fascism”, specifically the propaganda photo with tattooed prisoners. I said yes, pretty much. We noted the irony. He said he remembered similar propaganda photos from Suharto’s regime. Those guys look like Blih, I said. Tattoos and all. He’s our closest Bali family and one of my protectors. That means if anything ever happened to my husband, I would call Blih first. I would usually abbreviate his name, but that isn’t his name, although it’s the only thing we call him. Blih is Balinese for Brother, and he is a brother.
Back to Klein’s article, she does maybe the best work accounting for “what’s happening” that I’ve read, encompassing the mood and seemingly-conflicting realities of it. (Tech billionaire TESCREAL and apocalyptic Christian prepper cultures coming into alignment as xenophobic bunker-building fascism.) But she also manages to be somewhat uplifting, or maybe that’s not the right word. It’s a nice piece. She mentions the Yiddish concept of “Doiykat, or ‘hereness’”, as a possible antidote to the surrender of Earth inherent in an apocalyptic mindset. Although I find her elaboration a little flimsy (maybe too abstract?), I like the suggestion and appreciate the reminder, especially having recently spent so much time contemplating a vehicle of travel.
Spend too much time on chariots and you might lose a sense of “hereness”.
As a recent expat/immigrant (almost 6 years), at first I wondered if I had been under-emphasizing “hereness” in my thoughts, feelings, or writing. Maybe it doesn’t come naturally for me? Have I been too online? But then I began to list examples and think of ways that I write about it. (This is my interpretation of the word, not that of a Jewish tradition.) For me, “hereness” is the work of embodiment, including yoga asana, as well as prayer, veganism and fasting. Islam is an embodiment practice. Also, my marriage. Marriage is an embodiment practice too.
Then my “hereness” work is to figure out life as an always-somewhat-stranger “here”. On a community level, I try to do as little harm as I can (spending money in responsible ways etc). To support local governance and cultural organizing, we donate as much as seems right to several kampungs, including Mosques here and in Java. But not so much as to draw weird attention or throw anything off. We socialize, including with neighbors, they come over for lunar ceremonies on the full and new moons. I’m working on language, although I haven’t been studious about it. The more socializing we do, the faster it comes along.
My sense of “hereness” also comes through the non-human world, the animals, plants, rocks and dirt, weather, and all of these other things that I do indeed write about. The driving, lol. Almost every category in the archives is a nod to “hereness”. “Hereness” would also come through a feeling of home (there are different versions of this e.g. from house work, from husband, from cats, chickens, etc., from the plants in the garden, from our accumulating memories) and of figuring out how to be myself here. You aren’t at home if you can’t be yourself. It’s all work in progress.
I’m a Cancer, I come with armor and pincers, (also Scorpio rising, lol), but we are in no way bunker-builders. (Well, we’ve contemplated a small one, if we ever live in Java, but that’s for an active volcano, which is a totally different kind of bunker.) Our protection will be in the community connections we’ve made, or we’ll have no protection. It’s that simple. There’s a community philosophy in Indonesia called “gotong royong”, which means people are always helping out their neighbors. Having seen it in action, I find it comforting. In turn, we actively keep our eyes and ears open for ways to “help out” in the village. My husband explains this as preparing, in case something ever happens to him, if he’s gone. But it’s good preparation in case of any kind of emergency.
My “hereness” will always be a little weird or deviant because I’m an expat/immigrant and I rely on E as a cultural mediator. But it’s still often on display. This makes me glad, and a little relieved, because I am indebted to it. I’d like my blog to have a strong sense of “hereness”.
Myself here isn’t the same as myself was there, and the selves of the blog can go off-and-around sometimes, but all of this is written by Elizabeth, of her body and of Earth. There is a body and a planet behind all of this wordiness without which it wouldn’t be what it is. The point of “hereness” is perhaps not to be uplifting, but to be grounding. The ground is an important thing to cultivate.
It’s excruciating to imagine Earth as past-tense. It is literally the worst, the most terrible vision, and it does require an antidote. This beautiful one, where I feel the sky on my face, this place of friendship and delight, is my only planet. I remember myself here. I have no doubt I would forget myself on Mars.
broken machine of tentacles and teeth
war is what monsters are and what they do
monsters are monsters at war with monsters
useless becomes another name for peace
//
Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh 🌖
marigolds
what a week to take vacation
some time to recompose
to get back from the deadness
questions that i never chose
my instrument is alien
my hands remote-controlled
i cannot see my own two feet
the way is lined with marigolds
i have no numbers to report
no news in a ghost town
there is no story to be told
the wind already took it down
go diving in the deadness
go breathing in the deep
go dancing in the marigolds
but never fall asleep
what a day to wade back in again
the sunlit flowers cold
what a way to chase the day again
to watch the underworld unfold
//
a dream
a dream
swimming
diving under
taking a deep breath to do it
not knowing when i would be coming up for air or knowing it was never
//
our exercise as exorcism of time —
the oddly-staggered rhyme leaves bruises
on buds stringently-steeped, the undisclosed
grays of grass groped in dark of morning that
took hold as roots in midnight, not knowing color
not knowing how seemly to be in sun —
steps right into the rhythm of blinding fire
this prism of shadows is highways home, revealed
in daylight’s reconciliation with desire
//
Selamat Idulfitri, Eid mubarak, blessed Eid to those who observe.
Alhamdulillahirabbil’alameen. 🌙
//
The result of all this “intelligence” // (A rant)
In these final days of the holy month of Ramadan, I am publishing this “rant” on “AI” and technology. It is a long rant, cobbled together, rambling, error-prone, and possibly shouty at times, but with the enthusiasm of madness, rather than anger, I believe. I imagine it as tribute to the darkening moon, as well as Ogoh-ogoh, which is today in Bali. Ogoh-ogoh is when the demons (called ogoh-ogoh) go howling and yowling in the streets, causing violence and uproar, to be brought out, burned up and chased away for the next year. I didn’t get any photos today as we moved around our neighborhoods, but (oops, these probably are NSFW) here is the fabulous vibe.
//
I am not anti-tech. I am not anti-AI. But writing something like this feels like writing against a deluge of history, imagining the words scattered and lost in a roaring flood. (Relatable?) Sometimes purgation itself is a good thing, the locals seem to believe. There are demons in the street, I can hear them this moment, their words and their hyper-active laughter, their growls and groans and spat curses, the frantic drumbeats of their chaotic mission, accompanied by frequent pyrotechnics. So.
Tech serves only the one in posession of tech.
(Who is that one?)
For the one in possession of tech, it makes things possible on different scales then pre-tech. Colonial and then industrial-scale genocide are examples of this, as are vaccination and virality.
Communication tech (from carved writing in stone, all the way up to algorithmic social media and/or “AI”) doesn’t just convey power over bodies, but over hearts + minds, in ways that are not well-understood. (And at tech-enabled massive scales.) It grants someone (the one in possession of the communication tech) the power to sway populations.
I am not anti-tech; I blog. (Even written language, as I wrote, I consider to be tech.) I have an iphone and an induction cooktop, I use tech all the time. I am even a tech lover. (Again, I blog.) But the use of technology (especially tech that creates new needs, i.e. luxury tech) builds a kind of ethical scaffolding (ἕξις or hexis, an active condition, disposition, or habit) for a narcissistic comportment in the world. Implicit in the building of tools, even the simplest ones, is the thought that the material exists only to serve the user. Technology progressively (re)defines the world as “material”. It serves the appetites of those who can pay for it (or invest in it). Every tech is an example of this, but it’s especially poignant when the “material” is alive, as with “factory-farmed” animals. Whether a chicken is mere material, or something in itself, has become irrelevant in the (modern western, but increasingly global) day-to-day world, built by human technology.
Of course, it’s already happening: techno-fascism is the not-long leap of turning humans into “material” too.
I am also not anti-artificial intelligence. I just have a different idea of what artificial intelligence means, than the people who are setting (and selling) the terms of the conversation.
To discuss “what is artificial intelligence” would first require a discussioin of intelligence. I’ve seen no evidence or argument that what is being sold as “AI” even resembles intelligence. What paradigmatic “intelligence” are the “AI"s being tested against? What are the “benchmarks”? We are left to gauge the purpose of it by observing what it does. (This idea, “The purpose of a system is what it does”, is straight out of Aristotle too.) As far as I can tell, the benchmark of a language model is, to convince users that it’s reliable. That it doesn’t (often because it has been specifically censored) spit out a disturbing or offensive response. That when a user feels like double-checking, it matches extant data, until a user is convinced not to double-check anymore. It doesn’t matter whether the response is “true” or not, there is no available parameter for that, because “the true” is not present in the extant data. “The true” is not present in the sum total of the internet, or ten thousand internets. “The true” is not a statistical regurgitation of ten million all-over-the-place opinions.
For “AI”-generated content, the “benchmark” (as far as I, an observer, can discern) is to convince people to keep watching, to keep scrolling, to keep using. The more people it convinces, the more money it makes, the more successful it is. And bonus, the proprietary “AI” has become an indispensable source (a medium through which to interpret the world) for an entire population.
This is not knowledge, it has nothing to do with knowledge. My prediction is (to predict this seems trivial) that the holistic result of all this “intelligence” will be insanity. And then, war. Well, more war, and worse. Anyway, it strikes me as a contradiction.
Intelligence doesn’t cause or profit off of war. Intelligence doesn’t cause or promulgate insanity. Intelligence doesn’t harm the weak. Intelligence without empathy isn’t intelligence. Intelligence isn’t complacent in the face of suffering. Intelligence doesn’t perpetrate or propel people toward self-harm, genocide, or extinction. When there is a cultural consensus on intelligence, according to which intelligence does these things, that is a sign of immanent catastrophe. So even if I am all alone in doing so, I reject that definition.
Here are some “benchmarks” for artificial intelligence I would (conditionally) accept.
Where is the “AI” that prioritizes these? Not just in its words, but its actions?
So artificial intelligence, according to me, is not present in this “discourse”. Except inasmuch as any number of artists and writers and poets have always provided artwork-based interpretations of intelligence, of what it looks like or what it is, going all the way back to the (pre-human?) invention of artifice. Religious texts offer interpretations of intelligence, and state constitutions and laws, and music, and mathematics. They are all artificial intelligences. The intelligence of a dancer. Ptolemy discerning the intelligence of stars. Intelligence understands and makes room for itself as plural – it is neither an absolute, nor a scattered infinite of particulars, but worlds within worlds. Like a jungle, or an animal, or a coral reef. Or even, something like Ocean.
Technology does not and never has had a monopoly on intelligence, no matter the propaganda they’re injecting into our feeds. Tech’s monopoly is on control.
Just so, peace remains ever beyond the reach of technology, because peace is not imposed as control. That is the violent fantasy of fascism.
The easiest and therefore the only path to (techno-)fascism is through insanity. This appears to be the “benchmark” and the purpose of what is currently called “AI”, because this is by-in-large what “AI” (in a mutually-servicing arrangement with algorithmic social media) does. It turns people into users, turns users into the used, and turns the Earth into a ball of flaming garbage. A junkies’ den. This is our new politics, or lack thereof. Other “use-cases” – (e.g., if it can practice and propagate anti-fascism as hexis, as an active condition) – will be rare, if not merely accidental.
Because technology is essentially narcissistic and only accidentally good.
It requires education as a precursor, with subsequent active intention and effort, for a human person to be healthy and good. Education if successful puts us on a path toward (empathy, as David said) sensing the depth of the full breadth of the world, as well as our own depths, and sensitizing us to our limits and boundaries in these contexts, rather than imagining ourselves to be little kings. So education was needed to temper technology. American education, including its incentive structures, has done almost the reverse. Not just by emphasizing STEM and pumping money into innovation, but also using standardized testing to measure children’s worth. By design, even our education has been in service to tech.
As I’ve mentioned before, my only political view is (public, obviously) education. Education is the living soul of (human, obviously?) politics. All else in any political constitution should be organized to protect and serve education. While the end (telos) of education is active inquiry into the discovery, expression, and interpretation of justice, as the end (telos) of politics, of what it means to be just.
That is the secret teaching of “philosopher kings”, by the way – that education alone must rule.
(Here I offer yet another on-the-fly-interp of Plato’s Republic. I say it to acknowledge the hubris of it, but also to express gratitude for the ancient technology that has somehow educated me, though any errors are my own. And I might change the word order tomorrow. Wink emoji.)
(Here I note further, as my “rant” fizzles out, that I never intended to write on the Republic for my blog, not even in oblique terms. This blog is a constant meditation on the Phaedrus, I stubbornly maintain, where we find ourselves in a quasi-mystical meta-political realm. However, here as in the Phaedrus, politics is fully capable of accompanying us outside city walls, presented and represented by its – ugliest and most beautiful – faces.
For me at least, a reference to the Republic is a reference to the past. Lol, that’s also hubris. I hope very soon to get back to more direct engagement with the textual object of my adoration, beginning with some remarks on “the chariot”. However, I’m very bad at promises. The best way for me NOT to do something has always been for me to promise to do it. I would be a very bad employee of myself. Deadlines are unnecessary, we are worlds-building, after all. So no promises, just surprises.)
This flashed across my incredulous and hungry eyes today. Okay. Islamaphobia, they say. But in another way (from another perspective of Islam) this is the truest tattoo you could ever get. It’s like getting a giant tattoo of “asshole” across your chest.
We were laughing about it, because things suddenly seemed very funny. “Oke Jeki, go hunt it like a cicak (gecko),” my husband said. And we just couldn’t stop laughing, it was just so funny. These are the useful idiots of the basilisk.
All it has are its useful idiots.
Mask firmly engaged: these long posts always strike me as narcissistic. For example, imagining all the time it would take someone to read these words, and still posting them. So I guess one thing I’m wandering-around-about-on-here is the possibility of whether you can fight narcissism with a narcissistic act. This is what poetry is, and anyone who has ever experienced a glimmer of the joy of writing knows this, even if they won’t admit it, that poetry is engagement of a deep (and hopefully redeemable, if somehow self-defeating) narcissism.
I control every little blip that’s on here, almost.
//
Tomorrow is Nyepi, Bali’s silent day, so the demons fly away. For twenty-four hours we’re not supposed to make noise or use electricity, and internet and celular are often down. Even though I guess nowhere else celebrates Nyepi, I can still say Selamat Nyepi, have a nice Nyepi. Even from a distance, to imagine an island (a party island) that is totally peaceful, no cars or motorbikes or airplanes, with birdsong taking over the entire sky, as if everybody has suddenly disappeared, an empty day that darkens down quickly to unlit night, so that it disappears from the satellite photos, is also an effect. So just imagine the sound of Bali without humans. That’s where we will be, when the purification rites are over, and I’m not posting on my blog.
Thanks for reading, if you got this far. Assalamu’alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatu. 🔥🌑✨
//
The anti-gospel (of TESCREAL + “AI”) //
I’ve been trying to write something about the “TESCREAL bundle” but it’s such a weirdly traumatizing thing to think about, no I wrote that wrong, what it is, is triggering. So far the thing I’ve written is very long and weird and if I end up posting it, everybody is welcome to skip it. It makes me feel like a crazy person to write about this. I scrapped and rewrote, it’s shorter now at least. Maybe I’ll post it tomorrow.
Understanding (the myths told amongst the perpetrators) clarifies.
Baldur Bjarnason posted an excellent fact sheet on AI and its connections with esoteric neo-nazism, in which he includes TESCREAL. His post is full of great links for different perspectives on the political history and directionality of “AI”. I relate to his initial hesitance to write about it, and I appreciate that he has. His own conclusions are stark but apt.
Especially of interest I found the website and blog of Dan McQuillen. For example a talk he gave, back in 2019, Towards an anti-fascist AI. I have my own idiosyncratic writings on anti-fascist “AI”, but that seems to be something nobody is looking for, lol. (Let’s invent a new category of irony specifically for “AI”.)
Then I read this AI Slop Is a Brute Force Attack on the Algorithms That Control Reality , via @tracydurnell, which describes the mutual amplification of algorithmic power and “AI”-generated content. “AI” is “brute forcing” social media by overwhelming slower, less algorithmically-responsive human creators. I’m trying to imagine politics in that context and I… can’t quite.
(Tracy draws this tidy anti-TESCREAL conclusion in her post: “we must work from principles, not merely towards an outcome.”
Related not-by-accident, TESCREAL is consequentialism, drawn to technology-enabled absurds.)
I first read about the “TESCREAL bundle” in 2023, in this article by Émile Torres. It made me nauseous and I hoped its relevance would wane. This is a very dark topic and nobody wants to write about it, least of all me, but it seems to have become more relevant, not less, these past months. So something I’m working on is understanding and describing TESCREAL in my own words.
I think there will (and should) be a multitude of perspectives providing critical interpretations of TESCREAL and the related encroachment of “AI” technology. I also think it’s key to understand this “bundle” as a whole, and try to give it unifying names to better understand its meaning. Names will come not just from the context of history, but from the broadly-conceived history of philosophy, as well as theology and ontology. Established religious traditions will also have critiques of TESCREAL, and many will resist (or are already resisting) for their own reasons. (At least, those that aren’t captured by online fascist political movements.) Let there be folk stories too, the more, the better. The anti-gospel of TESCREAL + “AI” should be spread far and wide.
As it becomes believable, it’s time to call it what it is.
//
There’s a strong wind and rainstorm tonight, we’ve had these daily for almost a week now. Strong enough to be scary.
//
Assalamu’alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatu. 🌒
Ismail
It looked like neon green beans, to my eyes,
The sorry viper he’d regurgitated at
My feet, when I bent lower to examine
The finger-lengths of body gnawed
In pieces, coated with digestive slime
And barely small enough to swallow. So
I knew that he could make, from serpent’s
Suffering, a hearty gift. I also knew
Our little life would never not be on
The line, each day one hundred unseen times
(Between the drunken swagger and the lap,
His cradled body gone loving-limp in mine)
We would match teeth and tongue with death, and that
Valor would be more holy than satiation.
//
Alhamdulillahirabbil’aalameen.
Selamat purnama. 🌕
Of time. //
This was, in fact
The creation
Of the human —
The first ape who took
A swing and
Hacked off a piece of God. (It was
As always
A piece of herself.) It was also
The invention of writing.
Logos descends from a (golden) lutung
Justice from the gentle orangutan
Guerrilla from gorilla (forever Dian)
And monkey business from a macaque.
Let us become primate and
Undo the butchery of time.
//
Assalamu’alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatu. 🌔
Ramadan vibes. // Cozy, calibrating, sedating. Feelings of sahoor. Being awake and only half-alert during the darkest, the quietest, the coldest hours of the day. Wearing ankle-socks, drinking a small cup of coffee in bed. Gaining clarity, then working (reading, writing, occasional chores) as the sun comes, light born as from quietude, and the day grows, the beams angling upward into bright hot activity. The hour is earlier than it seems.
The best time I’ve tested for yoga practice is around noon, mid-day. It’s hot and my practice is three hours of sweating. I drink enough water to rehydrate.
Later, the hypnotic hunger-doze of afternoon. Indecisive napping. A flurry of preparation before sunset, and about thirty minutes of hangry vibes, (grouchy and efficient are incompatible modes), before it’s time to eat.
Maybe takjil (Indonesian snacks especially for breaking the fast at iftar) are sweet and cool to soothe the nerves of the final hour. Today we shared a big protein shake, frozen banana - vanilla protein powder - coconut water - chia seed. Thick and superfoody. This is bougie takjil. High in electrolytes, to help with hydration, and protein, which I am really craving by then. Chia seeds are one of the few “superfoods” I kind of believe in. They feel nourishing, filling but not bloating, easy on the digestive tract, excellent for stamina. The jelly-seed texture is inherently comforting.
Some days (especially non-yoga days) we’ll drive to the nearby Muslim kampung and hunt down real (sugary) takjil. The pre-iftar neighborhood “cruising”, everyone aimless and out-of-it toward the end of the fast, (the soporific Ramadan vibes), is another casual but recurring ritual of the holy month. There is a sense that the Muslim community draws closer, contracts, and even I am a part of it.
Assalamu’alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatu. 🌘
Skin soft and worn like igneous sand into
Her open psalm, they one lunation spent
As sounding bodies, soldiering the fast.
Blessed Ramadan to those who observe.🌙
We see now // the tools of tyranny falling happily, giddily into the laps of tyrants. These it turns out were not just our toys, but the dark materials of American fascism.
(Whose?)
Well, I had an accumulation of dark thoughts gathering for a dark moon post, on technology and colonialism and the other usuals around here, but I lost my heart for it. So instead I’ll tell you, my beloved blog, about my guilty pleasure or “secret single behavior” (who remembers this reference?) when my husband is away, which is to watch a certain tv show. I won’t name it but it’s Korean and it involves “singles”.
The “singles” always do this thing where they compare their faces to non-human animals' faces. Saying, like, “you look like a puppy dog” or get specific with breeds like “you look like a maltese” or “you look like a cat” or “like a donkey”. Awkward smile. “Oh, I do?” “Yes. In a good way.” Followed by modest, embarassed laughing. The women cover their mouths with their hands when they smile or laugh. They all have perfect manicures and pedicures. I try to catch looks at the peoples’ faces but I never catch the resemblance to the given animal.
I notice my husband’s face today, when I video call with him and Ibuk, my mother-in-law. I see anew how handsome he is, with chiseled, sad but wonderful features, high cheekbones and kind eyes. He has the most dazzling smile of anybody I’ve ever met. He is part fae. Ibuk smiles when she sees my face in the phone. I wave and smile back, one of those smiles that feels involuntary, with a rush of warmth, maybe gratitude at being recognized. It’s hit-or-miss these days, with Ibuk. I’m happy to see her in a good mood.
E knows I watch this tv show, and now you do too. Why do I watch it? I admit, it’s because I get drawn into the romantic entanglements. The silly hosts crack me up, they also get drawn in. We hope to see clever relationships develop, we fall for every hand-holding moment, (in Korea, I guess, hand-holding is still a big deal), we despair when the perfect couple can’t make it work. Or when someone cheats on us, by holding the wrong person’s hand! Sometimes we cry together (me and the show hosts). So the moral of this dark moon story is, even when it’s garbage tv, I am a fool for
rage, I was thinking, is like-drawing-like. Rage of the inside draws rage of the outside.
Given: a triangle, between external rage, internal rage, and X.
Never ask, who is X?
is who X is.
You were the mother, you programmed the song.
The name you gave it was
(click to subscribe
)…(
is who you are
playing the long game of bow and lyre, aiming for the victory wreath, while (the uncanny child stumbles like a thick and heavy smoke toward the capital)
blind
)
//
Assalamu’alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatu. 🌑
//
(“Sub-tweeting” Babylon.) //
“There’s no education here. There’s no geometry, no music, no reading or translation of any kind.”
Reminding myself, I was full of outrage for a long time. It will probably be back. It seems to be cyclic, like the moon: a threaded crescent now, disappearing. Eva-nascent.
I believe rage is a deeply revealing human experience of self.
(Does it count as self-study, to use the “search” function on my blog? Incidentally, I love the “search” function on my blog. I use it all the time. It is my favorite special feature. And this is technology that, I just know, certain ancient authors would have been tickled by.)
Of course I do. One of my favorite cosmic-conceptual or noetic perspectives is based on a (dialectically-productive) partnered-duality between Achilles and Odysseus. Each one of whom is a poetic expression (or alchemical transformation) of rage.
Given: a triangle, between Achilles, Odysseus, and the Poet.
It’s like Nimrod has ordered his subjects (including you) to build the tower and you’re optimistic about the embellishments you can make in the brickwork.
I didn’t quite state the obvious, here: the best way to “mind your own business” is to work on (that means, to dedicate active focus to figuring out through embodied and active understanding, or a hypothetical/experimental method) what your business really is.
Coming up on Ramadan and trying to get our thoughts in order. The holy month is always something I know is coming and yet it turns out impossible to prepare for. This will be my sixth one. So far it always hits with the same inexplicable, mind-deafening force.
Maybe fasting brings out my rage. My difficulty fasting isn’t the not-eating. I can go without food. (In some ways, being vegan is a continual fast.) My difficulty in fasting is the starting-to-eat-again. The fast-breaking. It’s the ugliest feeling, like my body gets angry and rebels by not wanting to eat again. Like the body wants to punish me (for fasting, for refusing to serve its appetites) by subsequently refusing food, going numb. It feels like anorexia as revenge. Sometimes it feels like demon possession. This feeling scares me. I can’t tell whether I need to avoid it or approach it.
I never know how these things will affect the blog. Often I keep on writing, and a lot of words, but don’t feel good posting them.
Oh. I realized I forgot to include one of the most obvious idols, maybe in a class of its own, which is “my technology”.
Assalamu’alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatu. 🌒
On conservation as (eva)nascence. // Comment on the first part of the shahada. // Prelude to the incoherence. //
The error of so-called conservatism is that it always comes down to idolatry. Which means, it comes down to nothing at all.
I include among “conservatives” anyone who grieves at the dismantling of present empire. (The time is past for quibbling between Christians and progressives, technologists and institutionalists. Y’all are the same, just drowning in -isms. You are hereby invited to give up your ghosts and make amends.)
As it is idolatry, conservatism is dualism. The idol (whether that’s “the wisdom of forefathers” / “universal human rights” / “liberal democracy” / “all these old books” / “my civilization” / “my job” / “my planet” / “my foreskin” / “my infant child” / or even, for a lucky few, “my esoteric tradition") is worshipped at the expense of the remainder. Well, this is blasphemy against the remainder, and as such, blasphemy against the idol too. Idolatry is an equally absolute error no matter what form it takes. It is immanently forgivable, but absolute.
The era of Tr-mp is obviously (for the privileged) a time of endings. Every news article, here as elsewhere, reflects this and loudly. But the era is one of beginnings too. Beginnings that are well on their way, already visible to themselves. As a seed is visible to itself before human eyes perceive anything green, so truth, as life, has been ignored until now, kept veritably invisible by the dualism of empire’s desperate holding on. Well, we must learn to be blind before we can learn how to see.
The first thing Muslims say in the shahada, or testimony, is La ilaha illallah. There is no god but the god. There is no god but Allah. This is not a statement of faith, as of holding on. The first mistake was to believe that Allah could be held. So the first statement is one of letting go, of letting go of the god. You see, we had been holding them (the god). As if it was by holding them that they (the god) would not be lost to us. We were acting as if they (the god) were the baby, and we were doing the holding. Rather than the other way around.
Letting go (of what I have been holding) opens me for relationship with truth, definition and witness as one. Only the whole is Allah.
The work of being human is to be a part of a living whole. (Here’s a theology of minding one’s own business, broadly conceived.) I myself am only a part. However many flicks of infinite life are reflected through these meager facets, it remains less false to say they are not mine. And I (as human) admit that the only thing worthy of conservation is, whatever the cause, beyond mine to conserve. (In the next breath of the shahada, we are reminded of Allah’s self-conservation.) So we come to submission:
To seek (out of love) from a temporary place (albeit a temple) the ever-ageless in the ever-new.
Alhamdulillahirabbilalamin. 🌒
//
Kendrick Lamar 2026. //
I was busy on the night of, but I’ve since watched Kendrick Lamar’s halftime show more than a few times. It is amazing and very Kendrick. It got me thinking I have to add a “goat” category to my blog. I think he is more accurately the “only one of his time” but ooht is not an animal.
You already know I’m a fan of the epic beef. (And all of that for which it stands.) But don’t let others’ interpretations limit yours. Hip hop is excellent social media but hip hop on the super bowl stage is bigger than fascism. Kendrick works. On that note, he should run for president.
This is not a joke, it is my political opinion. An obvious one, as far as I’m concerned. Kendrick should run for president in 2026. No it’s not a presidential year, it doesn’t matter. He will hate the idea, even though he announced the revolution. Which is why it’s someone’s patriotic duty to make him do it. He needs to start yesterday. With his super bowl performance he basically did.
Part of me weeps, to nominate him for the satyr play, but it is what it is. The miracle we don’t deserve. Kendrick is not just any goat, he already understands himself as a sacrificial goat. And he’s worthy of the title. There is no other serious contender.
Threads woven between pretenses. //
A test I give myself, as I consider interacting with anything at all, but especially on the internet. I ask myself, is this my business? Is it really my business? What really is my business? I originally borrowed the question from Plato’s Republic, where there’s an otw definition (a repeat Socratic suggestion) of justice as “minding one’s own business”. Perhaps better rendered as, to be just is to take care of the matters that are (truly) one’s own.
It’s easy to overlook because it sounds too simple or glib to be the answer to the big question. (“What is justice?” “Mind your own business, knucklehead.") It has a colloquial meaning of not sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong, not interfering with things that don’t involve you, that you don’t or couldn’t understand. And its simplicity is fecund, being the kind of definition that leads to further questions. There is the question most readily implied by its context. What is my role, what part do I play in a “just city”? Who am I as part of a political whole? And then, there are the introspections. What work truly belongs to me? What is my work? Ultimately, who (and/or what) am I?
This all became topical as a friend of ours (we recently learned) might be in a dangerous situation abroad (in a country in the Balkans). He might be, it’s hard to tell. For at least a month, the texts that are supposed to be from him, received by various members of his friend group, are not from him. (He normally would text pithily, in un-g–gle-translatable slang. Whereas his texts have been in too-formal g–gle-translated Indonesian.) The situation could be a dysfunctional relationship playing out over international borders, (i.e., his jealous partner has taken possession of his phone), or something more sinister. Sensitive to these possibilities, we are gathering information to figure out what’s happening (if we can) and what we can do to help (if there’s anything).
So we’ve had the opportunity to ask a few times. Is it my business? Is it our business?
Crucially, there is a lot of work to do, to understand whether it’s our business. (Or whether it’s their own private business, or the business of the embassy, etc.) We work to try to understand what’s going on, as well as we can. At the same time, we realize, there may be no such thing as perfect information. We are worried he might just disappear.
It’s a substantial project, worth undertaking and worth the various risks involved, I think, because this is a longtime friend in a vulnerable situation, the danger is real, and we are in certain ways equipped to help him out. There are things we could do. We are so powerful. And yet, everything still depends on having a clear and trustworthy line of communication. We need to hear him say certain things, for example whether he’s ok. Even then, things might still seem “off”. We will have to judge, on our end, whether he really seems “ok”.
We don’t want to be knuckleheads.
“Mind your own business” is an anti-democratic mantra. Well, it’s an anti-political mantra. The whole premise of politics is that minding one’s own business was insufficient for our pre-political selves. So politics is the business of democracy, after all of the business became everyone’s business. (There’s no politics in autocracy, politics requires embodied plurality.) We all vote on everything, are all responsible for everything. Even the things we have no business being responsible for. Of course, this makes functional organization impossible. No living being could survive in such a way, (with the hand judging the work of the ear, the liver meddling in the work of the pituitary), and neither can a political entity.
The genius of the Republic is (lol to start a setence with those words) that Socrates presents human politics with all of its dubious structural requirements on full display. The “beautiful lie”, the calculated-and-controlled sexuality and reproduction, the removal of infants from their parents' care. How everything relies on the counter-cultural initiation-education (it’s literally psychedelic) of a government of seers (“philosopher kings”). Not least, the inevitable decay into tyranny. These are not idiosyncratic features of Socrates' preferred utopia. (If only they were.) They are fixtures in any political composition, doing its best to imitate and thereby transcend nature. What Socrates' city-in-speech shows is that not even the most beautiful lies, in partnership with the most advanced technology, in the light of Truth Itself, can fix politics.
So it’s a warning for political animals.
“Mind your own business”, in context, was a non sequitur. Some other principle had already been supplied and was primary. This isn’t difficult to see, but it may be difficult to stomach. “Mind your own business, but always in service to the whole.” Always, always, always, in service to the whole. Even the thing that you held precious, your very identity (be it gold, silver, or bronze), was never yours alone. Yours alone is not a thing. It was just a story, (and not even a likely one), used as a tool to keep you in place. Privacy is an illusion, in politics.
Privacy is not (in truth) an illusion. It is something we’ve got and are stuck with. Does this make it a blessing? The most memorable image from the Republic is not the divided line, for me at least, but will always be this one (from Book VI). In the city in disarray, (as are all extant cities, according to Socrates), there is no reason to try to bear witness to justice, as such an effort could only lead to destruction and defeat. So one who loves wisdom acts prudently, as would a human being who has fallen in (oops) with wild beasts. They keep quiet and mind their own business. They take shelter as behind a wall, from the ravages of a storm. They strive to live a life pure of injustice and unholy action. Privacy becomes their saving grace.
Now that is difficult to stomach, coming from the famous meddler of Athens. Who always knew the gossip or was busy becoming the subject of it, concocting alternative political regimes with the young, making aristocrats squirm and getting himself executed on stupid charges. Who also happens to be the only one, if ever there was such a one, worthy of the name philosopher. He didn’t accept his own premise. He insisted on his own day-by-day empirical examination and diagnosis of Athens. “Are you wild beast, or what?” That was his life. His business was neither quiet nor private and it spoke to a different measure than the pure.
Socrates (in this context and elsewhere) considers himself an exception, and often excuses others from following in his footsteps (arguments in the Crito are full of deliberate holes). It was his daimon who made him do it, and his daimon belongs to him alone. Voices in dreams. Idio-socrates. Nonetheless, there is a constant temptation for any reader to consider Socrates as a standalone measure of the human. This is understandable. He gave birth to Western Civilization, and has been executed by it, again and again, ever since. His life story prophesies the whereto and the wherefrom, remaining somehow at the center of it all. At the center of us all. Anyone can more-or-less have a daimon. Well,
Have you been sentenced to death by your city? If not, you’re falling short.
In exasperation, I return to the question of “minding my own business”. Today, I used pointy scissors to dig a hornet’s stinger out of my husband’s big toe. It had gotten lodged in there, underneath a thick callus. Maybe six months ago. And it had been causing increased pain, or at least, increased complaining. In a way, it wasn’t my business, because I’m not a doctor. But it was my husband’s toe. He wouldn’t go to a doctor. It was like he might dig it out himself, but then he couldn’t reach it. I could tell he wanted me to do it. I put alcohol and then a flame on the scissors, not sure they were even made of steel. It felt like a lot of digging for such a tiny thing.
After I finally excised the black chit from his thickened toe, at the brink of where the callus started bleeding, seeming to cause a lot of discomfort (and I apologized a lot, causing pain is hard), apparently the worst of the pain quickly stopped. We were amazed at the relief. It’s wild to think that, again, such a tiny thing could cause such severe long-term reaction. I assumed that the body’s immune system would, you know, clean up a mess like that. I guess there was still some undigested venom, causing irritation.
Now back to hiding behind a wall. When the city seems made up of wild beasts, and you feel like a human, when you estimate yourself to be basically a different species of animal than they are, or if indeed there is unbroachable estrangement between you, this is the condition for privacy as grace. This is the requirement and the active presupposition of taking shelter from politics. They are wild beasts, inhuman. Socrates says it casually and imagines it being concluded, with cheerful optimism.
That’s not a little monstrous. It has been amply demonstrated that to live in such estrangement becomes its own trial. Not everybody is Socrates, that’s for sure. For example, I imagine Achilles withdrawn in his tent. Embracing alienation as he embraces the lyre. This is minding one’s own business as grief. Perpetual grief makes for uneasy grace, and occasionally, murderous fits of rage.
Knowing ourselves not quite as alien, we send exploratory feelers out from the grim sanctuary of our post-political, apo-calyptical selves. We dig out stingers and seek intel from abroad. Minding, making, or discovering our own business as we go. Yearning for reliable facts when we can never quite trust the voices on the other end of the line or the dismantling of a more-or-less abstract empire. Paying our taxes, more-or-less on-time. It helps to understand that it’s been going on since the beginning, this wobbly exercise of unfounded privacy. Protective alienation against a bestial world, savior of impotence, surrender as weapon against empire. But then, feeling along as by touch the limits of this work, which belongs to someone, and where it meets the limits of unreliable information. The limits of what one might (regardless of all that) understand.
(Or care for. Or love.) What really is my proper work?
There are people who consider the whole as their business. Others consider none of it (theirs) at all. The fools, the busybodies, knuckleheads all. Then there are days of being a balloon, floating over illegible landscapes. There are voices of saving and of being saved. There are the trees in the forest, books written about trees, on trees, and there are lumberjacks. The lumberjack’s daughter, up in the branches. The eagle whose nest she stumbled into, as if by accident. There are me and you. We are threads woven between pretenses of praeter-nature and of the praeter-political, as after amateur surgery. Unsteady in grace, as in laws and definitions.
There are some people who judge further questions to be a waste of time; at least we can be certain we’re not one of those.
Assalamu’alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatu. 🌔
//
“Luckily we thlop-thlopped,” // or, And then there was the drive home.
I preface this to say we made it back safely. Also to warn you that this is a long read. Then also to say that history is complicated and sometimes offers no life lessons. Life is not always an Aesop’s fable! (Well, what is it then?) Yesterday, it was an (euphemistically) eventful drive home.
First, I hit a giant pothole and blew out a tire.
//
No wait, let me back up. First, we woke up before dawn (this happens without an alarm here, for me, if not for E) to walk along the beach during and after sunrise.
(What follows is a sneaky-peeky “behind the scenes” of the blog, and I will share things I typically would not make explicit. These are things anbody should be able to gather from following my blog, I guess. Here is a rule I find myself trying to follow, although I’m not sure it makes sense, of not writing things out if they can be easily inferred. Or mis-inferred, in ways that are interesting or useful, to me. From my perspective, this is just good editing. The problem is, it seems a perpetual project every time. My chiselling process somehow follows its own rule. The longer I “sit in front of” a piece of my writing, the more likely it ends up in metered verse. I’m not making that up. I’m in fact resisting it, now.
So forgive me if the following seems pretty obvious. If not now, it will be soon. And I’ll forgive you, as well.)
You see, I have a “beach habit”, I guess you could call it, of taking pictures with the phone. It’s a little obsessive. Every time the light or the clouds or the water or the earth changes, at the beach, I feel quite compelled to take pictures of it. “I feel like Allah is giving these gifts, and I have no choice but to pick them up,” is how I said it to my husband. “Just dropping them down, and what can you do? You have no choice.” (Incidentally, this is the kind of talk that puts him in a husbandly way. That is, speaking in euphemisms. Happy V-day again!) And it feels like meditating, in the sense that, to let myself take those pictures is to let myself be absorbed in this near-“steady state” of constant wonder at the apparent world.
(I assume this is a commonly-experienced thing. On the other hand, that assumption seems somewhat tyrannical of me. Everybody’s different, if not unique. Who I am to say?)
One of my favorite things is to try to catch the shifts and the relationships (of light, I guess, also elements) in (iphone) photos. I’ve tried before to do it with our “real camera”, but these days I can’t bring myself to enjoy that. Something about the limitations of the iphone make it less intimidating, maybe less complicated than the camera. Less pretense at a profession. Anyway, I also enjoy the photo editing process. (I use Lightroom but seek recommendations for open-source or independent apps that would deliver the same kind of thing.) After return, I will be similarly obsessed, or “spend time” concentrating on the relationships between light in its different meanings, in the frame. Figuring out by experiment what I can change, in the editor, in order to bring out the gift of the image. To meet my eyes. I’m still not sure how “seriously” I take it. I consider myself a lover of images, rather than an “artist” (without a “sophistical” camera, lol). Maybe that’s a way to put it.
But then maybe, if it were stripped of the blogger’s ego, that’s what a (written) blog could be too. I’ve mentioned before on here my aspiration for amateur-ism (oxymoron there, oops). Then I might amend it to: I am a lover of images of nature. But what I mean by that would require a very long explanation, including making it clear that I don’t exclude human things from nature, at all. Justice bleeds in, and then everything (through dialectic) becomes inquiries into causes. When the whole point was for a moment not to be Aristotle, but in a way that Aristotle might enjoy. (That would have been his teacher’s task.) So I guess it’s (the photo habit) a small offering out of love for the apparent. Or picking up (as many as I can) these dropped-off gifts of Allah. Other things could also be interpreted in that light, many of them, or possibly everything ever made, by humans, or by anyone else who ever makes.
The point is, I took some more pictures the morning before we left, as one way of saying goodbye. There will be plenty of ocean vibes on the blog over the next however long, weeks or months, as I work through these beach photos. This is how we make time, on the blog, (spending and making time is the blog’s whereto and wherefrom), so yes, Ocean is one of our seasons. (I should make a category and possibly a photo collection for Ocean. It’s not exactly easy to hunt down all these old posted beach pics, from before I had named categories. I guess I should go back in blog-time and bestow upon them their rightful associations. Gather them in harnessable groups. Maybe make a collection for each year? It will take me a minute to figure that out. So many of these normally edited-out inner monologues are strictly bureaucratic. One almost doesn’t have time… except of course, one does. One has all the time.) These photos could last through Cancer, though it’s impossible to be sure. Anyway, Ocean season has returned to the valley below.
//
So we ate our guesthouse breakfast, (veg nasi goreng with plenty of golden-fried tempe, sederhana dan lezat), packed the car, checked out, said our goodbyes and pulled out of the parking lot.
Next, we stopped on the way out of town to get the most amazing tofu bao either of us ever had. These were the kind of dreamy flavor and texture combination that only asian street food can come up with, it reminded me of Singapore. A common response was “Is this dessert or what?” which just means it is irrational and delicious.
(If you are reading this, and ever plan a trip to Bali, no, I won’t name or endorse places on the blog. Bali is dying from tourism, at least, faster than it’s dying from anything else. The last thing this island needs is more advertising hype, in any way, shape, or form. I lay a curse on Instagr-m for this, and all the location-tagging photo-based social media apps. But I would give recommendations by email, so please be in touch. With the caveat that our favorites are the best for us, and not necessarily the best for others.)
Anyway, we picked up some tofu bao for takeaway, along with two chocolate peanut butter banana smoothies, figuring we’d have a nice little meal at a scenic stop along the way.
In any event, we were certain sooner or later to get hungry.
//
Now back to the pothole and me busting the tire.
In my defense. This was bad luck combined with the terrible condition of the two-lane road along the northeast coast. Which is riddled with deep holes, the result of overloaded trucks driving on poorly-laid asphalt, I think? Anyway, in some places it’s like driving on asphalt honeycomb. Usually one can see them in advance and slow to a crawl, so as not to break things. But there I was, passing a local motorbike, at a reasonable speed, in a completely normal maneuver. Being never the fastest, never the slowest, but somewhere in the middle. (It’s not like I was taking an opportune nap. The reins were held not by another’s hands.) And suddenly there was a great gaping hole in the middle of the road. It happened to be right where I was passing. It was disguised by a joint in the asphalt, I think. I was paying more attention to the motorbike on my left and the (distant) oncoming traffic, these other very pressing concerns. I didn’t see the hole in time to avoid. It was ther-KLUNK, and the-whole-car-shakes, sounding like pieces.
And, Oof.
Luckily we thlop-thlopped to a stop right across from a bengkel. We had a spare tire in the trunk and let the mechanic change it for us. (“Contributing to the local economy,” I could call it, whereas E calls it “making friends”.) We “lost” maybe an hour and a half.
I spent a lot of that time watching some chickens in a lovely grove of rambutan trees. Right next to the road, located in the rear of (what seemed like) a large Balinese estate. The tranquility of this place was somewhat surreal. It immediately bestowed calm. The trees were tall, the shade was dense, the ground was covered in brown leaf litter. The sound of chickens scratching, for grubs and bugs, was soft and intermittent in the muffled quiet. Like a cathedral. They seemed happy and peaceful chickens, especially compared to our rowdy bunch. I watched them while drinking my delicious chocolate, banana, peanut butter, coconut cream smoothie. All the ingredients of which were probably grown on this island.
After a while, the car was ready to go. We said our thank yous and our goodbyes, then pulled back onto the road.
//
What happened next was not our fault. At all. I am pinning fault on the app, and okay, perhaps our decision to follow the app. But one really has to side-eye G–gle maps, which fails to differentiate between passable and impassable (by car) roads when it tells you where to go. I’m sure there have been worse examples than ours. It doesn’t really matter what the cause of this kind of error is, in terms of flawed data collection (racist or sexist stereotypes, etc). Trusting this thing will lead you all kinds of un-fortuitous places.
After the blowout, and a break from driving while they switched our tire, I was back behind the wheel. E isn’t enthusiastic about mountain driving, so he navigated. When at some point we made a turn that bore no official signage, we noticed, but we didn’t think to question it. And not for the first time in Bali, but for the first time with me behind the wheel, G–gle directed us onto a “shorter route”. As we would discover, the “shorter route” ended up being an unmaintained treck intended only for motorbikes. We navigated the Dr. Seussian mountain passages with just barely enough room for our tires to squeeze between asphalt edges. The roads were bare pretense fumbling away into nothingness. Thereby I gained plenty of practice, this drive, with “lumayan hardcore” mountain driving. Downshifting into first to manage hairpin turns on hard inclines, wheel placement to avoid the most catastrophic holes, downshifting into first to claw through the unavoidable holes, praying through the sickly whirr of traction-less tires, facing sky or pavement, and squeezing past oncoming drivers, where there is no shoulder. There is only STEEP, blood-curdling DEATH to either side.
Let me tell you, dear blog reader. Our Honda Jazz is no hardtop Jeep. And I am not a Bromo driver. (Those guys are suicidal? And usually drunk? Rumor has it. And now I know why! E says this road was about as difficult as the road we turned back from, when we drove around Tengger. I couldn’t believe that, I was too concentrated on driving to look and be freaked out. Un-filtered side-note, this gives a clue the degree to which my fear of that was a fear of not being in control.)
Music, of course, was not happening. But in process, I talked through it. I reassured my husband and myself at every turn that we were aman. Even when the engine overheating light came on, I kept pretty cool. (E said it’s ok, we’re almost to the top.) Even when I caught a glimpse of the peak that was our destined passage, seeming still so far above our heads. It was some hollowed-out, long-abandoned villa, a roofless, vine-entangled ruins, on a perch that could only have been conceived by an unregulated and out-of-control tourist industry. Insane. Even when I felt the Jazz shuddering with apprehension beneath my feet, I brought the car around the next turn.
(As for going back. The road was too skinny to turn around. And the only thing scarier than going up these ridges was the thought of crumbling back down, in reverse.)
What did I see, oh Muse, and what did I miss? There were cliffside cabbage patches and lush beds of kale terraced into these mountains, geometrically-planted rows of carrots and potatoes blanketing the valleys below. There were misty clouds concealing almost every precipice, and quaint villages nestled into precarious edges of the abyss. The locals stared, but then smiled and waved back, when we smiled and waved, saying, “Sugre!” (We saw a few working farm trucks, which gave some hope that it would be possible to get through on four wheels. Maybe not by me, but at least by local drivers who call these highlands their home.) We saw ancient Hindu temples, looming in the cloud, vibrant with moss over complex Balinese brickwork. Things were set like jewels into improbable places. These visions would have been breathtakingly beautiful, had my breath not been already utterly took by dread and grim necessity. We could not stop, let alone turn around. The only way out would be up, around, over, and through.
We pressed on, driving sky-ward, as having no other choice.
By the time we curlicued our way out of the absolutely beautiful and yet idiotic Googlian shit-cut, of course my entire body was shaking. I felt ready to collapse into a puddle of whimpers. The final reunion with the main road consisted of a dead stop at a steep uphill turn. And, oh! One last face-full of sky. My nerves (plus the Jazz) were at our final raw edge as I plunged us up into first and around onto the blessedly solid, freshly-painted pavement. Ahh, the main road. The hairpin turns would be navigable, and built for two-wheel drive, four-wheeled vehicles, again.
The rest would be easy, or that’s what I anticipated.
And it really was!
//
Save for one last adventure. Which was, by then I really needed to pee.
We were still far from any mini marts, everything was at best a warung (which don’t normally have public toilets, only private homes, and I was in no state to be a houseguest). Also, the local village seemed strangely infested with flies. They were everywhere, buzzing and crawling all over the human buildings. Anyway, I was in no mood for a local toilet, plus I was wearing full-length pants, which invariably get wet in local toilets. Call me high maintenance, but all I wanted was some privacy behind a bush. Away from human habitation, immersed in greenery.
The first place we pulled over, looking for the right spot, I got chased by dogs. They growled and barked at (poor) me, just trying to be alone. Rawr, I almost barked back! But snarling wild dogs are scarier than pissing my pants, so having secured my modesty, I skipped and hopped back into the car.
I drove us around a few more turns, and pulled over at a sharp enough curve that the car itself, and some well-placed grass, hid me from view of the road. Oh blessed curvy road and tall grass, my cozy cave of green. There, squatting in the shelter of the ever-faithful Jazz, with E standing guard, and gazing up at an elevated terrace of trellised grape vines, it really was heaven. I could finally relax. (The Jazz could relax too! And cool off her engine.) If I measured these things, I think I would say without a doubt. It was the best pee I’ve ever had.
As I got behind the wheel again, those angry dogs showed up. They had chased us down the road. This is typical, Bali dogs don’t play. (I guess they don’t like strangers peeing in their territory either, oops.) The dog snapped and howled at my driver’s side window. But I was inside, we were finished.
E hopped back in the car. We shooed away the dogs and drove away.
//
Finally, we felt good and ready for the rest of the drive home. But first!
A reward, for making it through. We pulled over in the next mini mart parking lot. (There were no scenic views left. After all that, our priority had become stable concrete.) Upon noticing that the front of the mini mart was crawling with flies. – (Again, what is this? Is it the fertilizer the local farmers are using? Is it cow shit? We live near cows, and surrounded by farms, but nothing happens like this. Is it a poorly-placed garbage dump? Or something more sinister? I worry about large-scale farming setups that overwhelm the local ecosystem. It’s probably that. But we really don’t know. Strangely, the flies seemed attracted to glass and plexiglass surfaces, like windows. There were no flies at my heavenly grassy bend in the road.) – So at the mini mart, we decided to keep the car doors and windows closed. We were fully furnished (by E, not me. I’m in charge of toiletries, clothes, electronics) with alcohol spray and napkins. And we sat inside the Jazz and ate our tofu bao. They were soft and pillowy on the outside, the insides sweet deep-fried caramel chili perfection, hiding mildly-cheesy tofu, with crisp carrot-daikon pickles, crushed peanuts and coriander leaf, incredibly delicious.
After that, the rest of the way home was blessedly easy. A little rainy, no problem. The roads were clear, with not very much traffic, and the car drove fine. A bonding experience with the little Jazz, who has probably taken over blog vehicular duties from Sweet Orange. (Thanks for the memories, dear, animated Sweet Orange.) We’ll take the little Jazz in for maintenance and get the ripped-up tire replaced. Perhaps we’ll upgrade to tires with more traction. Next time driving that route, we’ll pay less attention to the app and watch for official route signage. I think that’s the best solution? To avoid the remote, unmaintained roads. And stick with the official, unmaintained roads. Lol. I love Indonesia!
//
Wrapping up, I found myself reaching for reflections, and had to slap back my own hand. If there was a lesson here to learn, I do hope we’ve learned it. (F-ck tech it isn’t. The above is such a victory for the Jazz, it may as well be called “the Jazziad”. But please not “the Jazzidy”.) Like picking up these dropped gifts of Allah, because what else can you do? Catching the images, as having no choice. Maybe there’s no learning sometimes, only history and the fact of it having happened. As E pointed out, “you got us home safe. Everything in the end was aman. And what’s most important is love.”
(He also speculated that his wife might get addicted to mountain driving. The possibility cracked us up. It hadn’t occurred to me until he mentioned it, but I won’t say it’s impossible. Who am I to place such limits on myself?) Love is, in no small way, sharing in the creation of euphemisms.
Regardless of all that, the cats were happy to see us. Ismail yelled with anger / whiny relief, Lalah hid / came out / hid / came out again, in histrionic excitement, and Sri Rejeki got super-puffy / nearly catatonic with joy. And Alhamdulillah, we were happy to see the cats too.
The end.
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Assalamu’alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatu. 🌖
Two year anniversary ♥️