Technology
I finished Kim Stanley Robinson’s Red Mars // maybe a week ago. I really liked it but I think it took me the whole year to finish.
(Spoilers follow.)
It was relaxing. Not facile, but easy to read when stressed out about other things. Good for falling asleep too. The pages are full of lush descriptions of Martian geology, seen from gliders and rovers and windows and walkers, and also, of humans being very human. I think the viewpoint is… near-future, mild tech optimism made palatable by human realism, where humans routinely do callous and violent stuff, like sending out a Mars expedition while trashing planet Earth. They are a destructive force, ever-changing and -surviving, and some who have good ideas are also gifted with good luck and timing. The 90’s vintage works (published 1992, I think). It wouldn’t work nearly as well, if written today, with all of the darkness of these days. Perhaps this is an example of escapism from history, while still being canny to human nature. It’s much nicer to think about the future from a pre-9/11 perspective, isn’t it?
Robinson’s characters are like avatars, but not (to me) in an overbearing way. I especially like his women characters. Maybe these are his favorite too. I like Ann, the geologist, who is a staunch defender of virgin, untouched, original Mars. The plot of the book, which follows the beginning of humans colonizing Mars, as terraforming is begun, and the landscape is ripped apart by industry and eventual rebellion and war, is an extended grief, for Ann. She loves Mars with unspeakable devotion and hates the terraforming with every cell in her body. Her perspective is difficult and severe, but beautiful.
And I like Hiroko, who completely subverts all the official directives of their initial mission. She is the designated biosphere designer, and it seems like she has some amazing ideas for how to create life. Then she and her followers ditch the main group and spend most of the book shrouded in mystery. Well, she is busy making babies using all the men’s sperm samples, taken from her lab, (without anybody’s consent), and creating an underground cult movement called Areophany that worships viriditas, or life-force. She is disciplined and insane, also very difficult, impossible to contain or to fully know. She answers to nobody and recognizes herself as a force of nature. Like a Mars-mother goddess. As you may know by now, I love this kind of thing.
(Can’t forget to mention, there’s a scene in this book, with a character named John Boone, a goofy lovable American, a charismatic and nice guy, who has an ecstatic experience with a group of travelling Sufi Muslims. They are dancing and whirling around in the vortex of a crimson dust storm, flying through the air and spinning in the low gravity of Mars, chanting all the different names of Mars, with all the names of Allah. The image is one of flying-spinning through a great blood-red alien heart. This scene is wonderful, not to be missed!)
There are other women characters less extreme in their commitments, and many other things to love about the book. These are just my favorites. Happily, Ann and Hiroko are both still around in the next book, Green Mars. I started it a few days ago. Maybe this one will take me another year to finish?
Hormonal IUD side effects
Something a little different, today. I wondered for about thirty seconds whether this was “too much information” for my blog but well, it’s relevant, (everything is relevant?), so here’s your warning.
Today, I finally (actually) realized I have to remove my hormonal IUD. I knew I was developing worse mental side effects soon after a new one was placed, in August. (I got a Kyleena in fall 2019, and then with the Mirena hormonal IUD, in fall 2024. The Mirena brought intensification of everything, which helped me identify the previous effects of the Kyleena.) Influenced by my doctor, I hoped things would “even out” after a few months, and I was desperate to maintain protection from pregnancy. My hope was delusional and self-destructive. Today I searched youtube and then reddit for other women’s experiences and learned I’m not alone. (Cue crying.) It was the catalyst for my realization.
Mood has been by far the worst cluster of side-effects. I feel like I’ve had no ability to deal with stress/stressors and like I’ve been going periodically crazy. Being stuck in bed sobbing for days with no idea why or how to get out of what feels like a deep hole. Followed by days of feeling empty, anhedonia, fatigue. This has accompanied actual stressful events (in personal life and in the world) since I was first fitted with the Kyleena. Soon after that I moved to Indonesia, which began a period of instability and uncertainty in living sitations (housing, immigration status, a new relationship and then marriage in a foreign country), as well as the pandemic and acceleration of apparent civilization collapse. It’s difficult to distinguish between normal stress and side effects, but I assume now that my responses to these things were impacted negatively by the Kyleena IUD. I don’t know how much the IUD is related to the asymmetrical psoas syndrome that rapidly intensified and has physically disabled me during that same time period. But I believe that the stress of those months, from October 2019 through the summer of 2020, was a significant contributing factor. So if the hormonal IUD reduced my ability to deal with stress (and there are peer-reviewed studies showing that hormonal birth control raises cortisol and lowers GABA levels), it likely played a significant role in my physical impairment over the last 5 years.
Here are all the side-effects I experienced.
mood effects included anxiety, depression, panic, feelings of dread, intrusive thoughts, paranoia, irritability (meanness, rudeness, lashing out, way more than usual), feeling out of control, crying fits, despair and hopelessness, frequent overwhelm, including from small things, episodes that felt like depressive paralysis or catatonia, inability to focus, fatigue, suicidal thoughts, depersonalization.
nausea, shakyness, dizziness/vertigo, especially in the morning (like “morning sickness”)
excessive sweating, night sweats, excessive and strange body odor, “feeling gross” even right after bathing
insomnia
migraine/tension headaches
increased body hair (minor but noticed)
melasma on my face (minor but annoying, impactful)
feeling of puffiness, bloating and cramps, breast soreness (minor, could have lived with it, except for.. all of the above)
Politics around reproductive health is already shit, and it’s only getting worse, so a lot of women are probably considering this option (hormonal IUD). For many, it works fine. But potential consumers (that’s what we are) should be aware that they can cause severe psychological side effects, including suicidal ideation. Hormone imbalance is no game. It’s typical that contemporary medicine treats (women’s) health with such disregard, that a medicine like this would be promoted by doctors (and would profit pharmaceutical corporations like Bayer, which makes these) without communication or (sufficient research? or) open acknowledgement of how severe the side-effects can be. I am not alone in feeling like it has “made me crazy”. My doctors said the IUD was low-impact and “localized”, in its effects, (all doctors seem to use this term, I assume it’s from the drug’s promotional material), but mentally it was far more intense for me than oral BC. I am the child of healthcare professionals, I generally trust modern medicine, but I believe this kind of minimization (and profit-seeking) harms women and erodes trust in the whole institution.
I’m f- -king lucky my husband is understanding, supportive, tolerant, patient, long-suffering, didn’t take anything personally, through some very tough times. Otherwise it might have been relationship-ending. Also I learned that in a situation like this, when there aren’t other options, a good partner will (despite his own fear of doctors and hospitals) insist on vasectomy.
I guess the lesson here is to feel your feelings. Listen to your body, don’t take its natural balance for granted, and try not to be gaslit by healthcare professionals. Not sure how long it will take to get back to normal, or what normal will be like. But it feels better to write all this down. Now (actually) to get the damned thing yanked out.
Modern science may be better understood as an extension of modern politics, than as a descendant of (ancient natural) philosophy.
One is born from wonder and matures into the work of love.
The other is (desire as) conquest, disguised as codifiable law.
(Just because you can light a fire doesn’t mean you’ve understood the flame.)
On Introspection and Ideology // One Year on “Micro.blog”
As prologue. I’ve been thinking about what Denny wrote here the last few days, and I wanted to thank him for putting it in such stark terms. I think this is an important conversation to have, but not an easy one, especially to address in a public way. This is not intended as an argument against Denny’s initial post. This is my perspective, which I believe overlaps with his in a significant way, but from some different angles. I share here for the sake of supporting, by responding to, his statement, while reflecting our plurality of voices.
“This is who we are.”
Given that I agree with Denny’s assessment of the country’s genocidal history, as a supplement to its present and future likelihood of violence and (self- and other-) harm, that this is its basic definition or essence. On what grounds is there any “we”? If the “we” is defined, tied together and made one, only by those lies and that violence, then how can it be owed any allegiance?
So quickly, for me, the statement, “this is who we are”, becomes the question, “Is this who I am?”
I think that’s more challenging to address, but also, more welcoming. It’s a question, it requires introspection, which is intrinsically uncomfortable, and it will indicate responsibility, which is doubly so. It’s not easy to tease apart national identity (including ideology, lifestyle, family, etc.) from a sense of who you are. It’s grown into all of us in different ways, in ways not at all easy to see or know about ourselves. I would repeat that, we have been brought up in violence. Introspection is bound to dig up the deepest traumas. And I guess there would be as many ways of answering (“Is this who I am?") as there are individual people “around here”.
Speaking of “around here”. A lot of online people talk about seeking community, and they seem to mean by that, affirmation, support, a feeling of safety, agreement, optimism, positive vibes. This makes complete sense, to me. It’s hard for people to feel empowered, without an initial feeling of safety, or rest, or support. I sympathize and I believe that the moral support of online communities for sharing (as people search for a surrogate “we”) is real, valuable, and important.
But I also share Denny’s frustration, that more people in the global north (generally) aren’t incorporating real lifestyle changes (i.e. major simplifying, quitting air travel, eating plants, or other fasting, broadly conceived) in solidarity with those (in and out of the geographic U.S.A.) on the receiving end of a malignant culture of violence and exploitation. (Or if they are, “around here”, they are not posting about it regularly. But also, and this is important to acknowledge, it would never be regularly enough.) Lifestyle changes, incidentally, seem to me more sustainable, more personally empowering, less scary, and probably more effective than organizing for direct confrontation. (Especially for “online types” of people, if I may compassionately akcnowledge that.) I realize also that people resist lifestyle change, for real reasons. It is stressful. When someone is already feeling vulnerable, or exhausted, the last thing they want to do is voluntarily increase their discomfort, which lifestyle change entails. And also, of course, there is supernaturally intense pressure, in dominantly global northern online “places”, to maintain a high-powered lifestyle, to keep up with everyone else’s consumption of new and more stuff. And the ubiquitous implied promise that more stuff will make you happy, or at least, less afraid.
These are things I know that Denny knows, because of the way he lives, and the way he writes about the value of a bag of beans. He writes about it like it’s precious. Which, in truth, it is.
Here is another sliver of irony, which has again to do with the people “around here”. The very act of “moving” onto the independent web, and saying “no” to the loud and abusive “places” of mainstream social media, is an anti-fascist lifestyle change, it seems to me. It is a kind of fasting. It represents sobriety from that extreme form of psychic addiction, (and anybody reading this will know exactly the feeling of sickness), which is mainstream social media. That means, everybody “around here” has taken one real and concrete step, at the very least, demonstrating who they are not. Concrete steps, when they are shared, build a sense of solidarity. And then, “we” are and remain, together, addicts in recovery. As they say, recovery is an everyday effort, which you (InsyaAllah) undertake, every day for the rest of your life.
Is it enough? (Being on the “indie web”.) No. And then, nothing will ever be enough. Not to undo history and the catastrophic effects of American (and other colonial) empire, plus its bottomless appetite for increasingly, stupidly powerful technology, with which it is choking the world. What’s done is done, tipping points were in-all-likelihood conclusively demolished, on Nov. 5, and the future has become ugly indeed. But plenty of paths remain for introspection, and self-possession, by self-sacrifice, by helping others, by standing up for others, by doing work you believe in, work that you stand for, (which includes writing or making art), which (InsyaAllah) become the artifacts that plant seeds of support or inspiration for nobody knows what, but everybody (“around here”) wants to believe.
Here is what I believe, anyway. That introspection is and will always be everything, in the work of anti-fascism, and introspection requires seeking out, actively and intentionally, the quiet voices that pose difficult questions. By which I mean not just the brown peoples' voices who live on the other side of the world, or in the other part of the state, which (apparently) remain abstract figures, for the majority of U.S. Americans. But also, and I mean this in seriousness, the quiet voices of the heart. This is not abstract, this is the opposite of abstract. People may well have different capacities for it, and it will mean different things for every person, to answer the question, in their heart of hearts, (and thereupon reflecting it in their actions), “Is this who I am?” The individual nature of the question means that asking it, in a genuine way, will take time and (what I would call spiritual) work, it will be awkward and ugly, and it will often feel like alienation, or rejection, like the opposite of community. It is notoriously difficult to keep the same group of friends, before and after you release an addiction.
At the same time, I think all of us, always, can use regular reminders of how empowering it is, and how empowering it feels, simply to withhold support from, or investment in, a terrible cause. This is intrinsically difficult to “share”, while it is easy to “share” a new purchase or service or accessory. This is in evidence, for example, all over micro.blog’s discover feed (last time I checked, which was probably a long time ago, because it is peak gaslit Hobbiton, over there). Perhaps people have carried over this habit from mainstream, monetized social media. Because even in the “indie” context of micro.blog, there remains ample expressed support, (which could easily and freely be withheld), of a violent regime enabled not just by fear, and hate, but also by our blind addictions to its poisonous products, in exchange for which many have delivered (or have lost, or are in the process of losing) their very souls. The amplified sharing of products consumed is in no way, at this point, politically neutral.
I guess this also fits as my “one-year anniversary” review, of micro.blog as a service. It works perfectly adequately for me, as a host. Please, no more “A.I.”. Please, keep it simple. The “social” aspect is something else. I’m not going anywhere, probably, as long as @manton can keep it running. But I’m curious to see how the platform and the people deal with what’s coming, with the ongoing human crisis, in all of its aspects, but especially with political deterioration in the U.S.A. Not because U.S. American suffering is worse, than the rest of the world’s suffering, but because U.S. American voices are almost always the loudest, “around here”. And I wonder how “we” will absorb, process, accommodate, and/or respond to the increasing expressions, not only of suffering, but also of violence, explicit and implicit, that make it through, into the blogs. Will what “we” see be a reflection of reality? And whose? Responsible governance also requires introspective effort.
While who this is, the surrogate “we” of “around here”, remains to be seen, I turn this question also back on myself. “How will I do this?”, I keep on asking, over here, in my head, in my in-person life, (which is extremely different in social and cultural character than anything “around here”), and in my blog writing. I’m a stubborn person but I have some experience sacrificing what I believe is good and right for the sake of getting along with a(n in-person, neighborhood, or family) community. I’ve written some about this, but I don’t focus on it, for obvious reasons. I can keep my head down, not make trouble, and I don’t need explicit approval or applause to carry on my own work. I am surely unskilled, awkward, and inexperienced, navigating the whole “social media” scene. For the most part, I avoid confrontation, and also what is called, around here, “conversation”, (which is, for what it’s worth, nothing like the conversations on which I was raised).
But I know this about myself, I have a line. There are things I don’t abide, in the way of abuse, and I’ve been known to pick up and leave, institutional situations, in pretty abrupt ways. (e.g., “I renounce my credentials.") What I’m saying is, if I speak or write about “running off into the jungle”, it’s not an abstract possibility.
My (anxiety and) prediction is this, that the yearning for community is about to get much more desperate, and much more concrete, for all those in the U.S., and perhaps “the West” more broadly. I don’t have solutions for building online relationships, (other than the obvious one, which is, use email), much less for governing online communities, much less anything “on the ground” in the U.S. I have scattered family and friends, and that’s all, in the country of my birth and ongoing citizenship. I will not be travelling there, during a Tr-mp regime. (Even if I wanted or needed to go, it would be too dangerous for my husband, and he wouldn’t let me go alone.) So in this way too, I feel like a mis-fitted part of the U.S. American “we”, gone but not gone, a part of it, but in an estranged and displaced position. This mostly serves as a reminder, to me, that everybody’s situation is unique, and most people, at this point, also have specific ways in which they have become vulnerable. That’s how “creeping fascism” works. But here’s something I have to say that is basically the same for everybody.
I earnestly hope, and pray, in the name of God, (Bismillah hir rahman nir raheem), that people all over the world are seeking out not only the easy but the difficult questions, and discussing them, substantially, with their loved ones, with whatever neighbors and family they hold close, and in their own hearts. I hope people are preparing, with their actions, by practicing, by making and living with the manageable and right sacrifices, now. I’m doing the best I can with this, too, and I pray and work daily, for my own stamina and resolve, to be hard-headed and absolute at the right moments, while retaining a capacity for softness and understanding. To answer the challenge of introspection, and follow until it leads to a deeper source of belonging, one that might overturn, or at least cease the perpetuation of, the violence from which I, as a political animal, was born.
And then, if I’ve learned anything about spiritual community, in its place, by living where I do, (adjacent to indigenous communities that to this day resist the genocidal oppression of colonial past and present), it’s this: side-by-side practice (i.e. of sacrifice) builds solidarity, while solidarity builds confidence and the sense of personal power required for gracefully courageous action. It’s pretty basic, and not meant to be easy. All of us, at some point, will be tested. We will face a sacrifice that seems un-manageable, that seems impossible. We will, each of us, feel very alone. And it will be extremely important, in that moment, not to f-ck it up.
Thanks for reading. May peace, and the blessings, and the mercy of God, be upon you. And have a beautiful full moon.
Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatu and selamat purnama 🌕
Beautiful flowers // grow out of chicken shit. Sometimes the work is to see chicken shit and imagine flowers, sometimes to see flowers and imagine chicken shit.
Of all known technologies, the best and most reliable way to preserve something is (still) to keep it alive. And, failing that, to make it alive.
An inherent problem of place-based politics is its need for oppression as government. Which can come in the form of punishment, in the form of “education”, or in the form of education.
Politics without place happens through literature and on the internet, by extra-judicial combinations of algorithm, chance, history, and psychic powers (“spirit”, human ambiance, Pan, etc). This is barely politics at all. People become shapeless and unpredictable (wild) without a shared place to anchor them, or if not a shared place, then a strong narrative of that.
Beware the “strong narrative”, which is back in the realm of “education”… often it’s been brought along, unawares.
If you yell at a child, they become an adult who yells, or an adult who is silent.
The work of a writer is, by the written work, to show somebody how to read, not just the work, but the world.
This is a blog.
blog (n.) “online journal,” 1998, short for weblog (attested from 1993, in the sense “file containing a detailed record of each request received by a web server”), from (World Wide) Web (n.) + logos (n.), Ancient Greek for “word, speech, discourse, account, ratio, reason, understanding”.*
//
The Logos is alive, a garden too.
A blog is not alive. It is, at times,
unfinished artifact.
InsyaAllah,
a blog is a corpse
with connectivity.
The time and place
of a blog is
(A timestamp is
no measure,
but a mark
of irony.)
element undefined.
The time and place
of a blog is
(not) in
a cloud.
The time and place
of a blog is,
as if,
not here,
not now.
Then where? Chicks hunger. As a family
of elsewhere-dwellers, scavenged absence is
the flavor of their nutriment. They keep
their bodies close to Grace, and Grace makes place
of wayward-turning, gathering to breast:
(What we desire,
the shape of Adam.
What we fear,
the shape of Adam.
What we would share,
the shape of Adam.
What we would be,
ecstatic automatic.)
Deep earth listens through thrum of Polaris,
impregnable flame seals at southern crux.
Burgundy rivers into sunset cup
cascade, return as easterly promise
of flight, and summon orphans back,
(—not yet. In blip of night,
we are testing,
turning,
always
in beta.
We will be
ten roosters
crowing
in beta.
Our logic is
loud and in-
fallible,
in beta,
pieced from the
scraps of our
falling,
feathered,
rapturous
fight.
We are roosters,
inventing eggs.
We are eggs, re-
surrecting hens.
What we share
is dabbling
in death.
A blog is,
aerial interred,
a corpse
with connectivity,
insyaAllah,)
from rosy graves, whence armies form, of light.
//
*The “real”/recorded etymology, which this is not, is interesting, and if you don’t already know, you might like to read about it. The word comes by way of a ship’s log, so-called based on a nautical technique of using a floating piece of wood to measure the speed of a ship.
The cloud is not a cloud. Apple is not an apple. AI is not intelligence. (Examples of using nature to build trust and sell technology.)
Emoji dictionary. // Sometimes I feel a wave of visceral dislike for emojis. I use them to express feelings with almost everybody in my life, and I feel like I have to do that, for good-enough reasons. But that’s not how I look at all, when I’m expressing those feelings. I resent the disconnect. Out of curiosity, I made this emoji dictionary, which started short, but got long, including more symbols. The faces are all just what I imagine, I don’t know how I personally look.
(I update this periodically.👻)
//
Emoji dictionary:
😊 is like Janis Joplin smile, genuine.
😁 is show off-y or cheesy smile, sometimes clueless.
☺️ is small, modest, or special little joy or sweetness, a little tart, or cute.
🙂 is a happy fish.
🙈 is unsightly.
😯 is wonder, large or small, usually quiet or thoughtful wonder, gentle, noncommittal.
🙃 is… possibly my real face. Or the end of the world, or XII. The Hanged Man. (I don’t use this for “irony”, in the sense of sarcasm, but in an earnest sense, sure.)
😂 is like Angela Chase laughing, or Rayanne laughing, or anybody from My So-Called Life laughing.
✨ is magic, stars, good vibes, dreamy niceness, or Diotima.
💫 is destiny, a divine message, or arrival at a destination. Karma or nature as cyclical motion.
🙏🏻 is thank you or you’re welcome, sama-sama, namaste or salam. Three of them is shanti shanti shanti. (I am grateful for you, whoever you are. I am, because you are. Interbeing. Etc.)
🌈 is kind of a miracle? But I’m not sure what that means. An alternative to despair (or suicide).
😀 is one I usually just use with my mom, if I’m excited about something in a dorky way, but also when other people tell me happy things about their children.
😜 is another one I just use with my mom.
🥰 means that I feel loved or taken care of, used with family and friends, or just lovey vibes. Also used for lovey feelings toward other people’s children, especially babies.
💖 is extra special love of some kind, usually not romantic. Sometimes casual, friendly, a little exaggerated or intentionally over-the-top, or gallant, chivalrous love, then it is romantic.
😎 is the feeling of being cool, taking it easy, getting away with a crime, and all of these simultaneously, Bob Dylan on the cover vibes.
🤩 is like “wow” in a kiddish, showbiz, or cool “visuals” way. Loud wonder.
🥸 is the feeling of being a stranger, of being in disguise, or hiding in plain sight, or not being seen.
🤪 is one I try not to overuse, it means a feeling of chaos or being out-of-control, or feelings of (approaching) insanity.
🫥 is a feeling of invisibility or impotence or non-being.
😟 is if something isn’t going well, I feel bad, or wish I could help.
🫠 is feeling overwhelmed by a situation, can be for hot and humid weather, too much rain or flooding, or just too much anything.
😵💫 is too much coffee or feeling exhausted at the end of the day, nervous exhaustion.
🥴 is another mom one, for when something makes you feel weird or uncomfortable, especially bodily functions, also faux-pas in social situations.
💩 is human or cat shit, or other shit, but always literal shit, not figurative.
😰 is if I’m really overwhelmed, this is rare, often involves worry over cat health.
🤷♀️ is a shrug, I don’t know, I surrender my desire to know, I’m letting that one go for now, whatever, or good riddance.
❤️ is love I use with family.
💛💙💚🩵 is love I use with junior boys or young men in the family. It’s big-sisterly approaching mom-like love. Might use for girls, also for girls 💖 or 💕
🩷 is weirdly under-used, by me. I like the color pink.
💕 is silly or dynamic love, or emphatic love, multiples to help somebody believe it.
💜 is love for somebody who needs it.
🖤 is love for my black cats, and witchy love.
🤎🧡🖤🤍💕 is Lalah, so she’s not left out by witchy love.
🤍 is love for something airy, like an idea or an image, or an angel or ghost, or something delicate like that. This one I would use for “my teachers”, including any who are still alive.
🌊 is le déluge.
🔥 is Heraclitean fire.
🌿 green emojis are green or plant-based nature, sometimes other “green” vibes.
🤑 is one I use in conversations about taxes or investments.
☀️ is morning, although I’m unsatisfied with both sun emojis, not sure why. They don’t look like the sun, to me.
☕️ is literal coffee.
🦄 is me, sometimes, sort of silly.
💀 is poor Yorick.
🌒🌑🌘 These might be my favorite emojis, because they really remind me of the moon. I think they’re nice looking.
//
When I don’t use an emoji, the mood that I am communicating is, “I am not in the mood to express myself with a cartoon right now.”
I’m open to developing new emoji-meaning associations for myself, or learning them from others. (Maybe writing this dictionary made me feel better about emojis, in general.)
Music is artificial intelligence. (Anyone who says differently is selling something.) (Or are themselves being sold.)