Counting the Omer: Netzach (Patience, Eternity)

[warning: very stream-of-consciousness]

As usual I start off by going to the opposite pole -- impatience, the transitory. Thinking about the evolution of technology towards immediacy and how it produces in us a radical impatience, a small-scale anger that triggers at any millisecond delay between us and the digital response we seek.

Sometimes my mind feels like a Wall Street trading pit (do they till have those?) Furiously aggressive and competitive shouters battling each other over tiny differences in abstract transactions, trying to gain some small advantage here, shave some seconds there. Giving themselves early coronaries. Like Wall Street, little actual value is created from all this passion. Presumably it's all in the service of making a shitload of money that will be enjoyed some other time, a time that never seems to come.

I think somehow the effort to create coherent selves (which serve to allow us to not be trapped by every local temptation) gets too caught up in status seeking, and becomes a kind of frantic competition. It's a disorder of volition, a condition where long-term goals and short-term behaviors are too separated to support each other. Patience may be a way to connect the levels.

Patience in a way requires faith, a belief that in fact things will improve, that they'll work out even if we don't get every little thing done, that goals will get closer, even without impossible exertions and emotional flipping out. Eternity is in no rush...by allowing a little eternity to filter into our daily lives, we can moderate the unhelpful proddings of all the things we would like to do and don't have time for. Too much eternity is overwhelming, I suppose -- how the hell are you supposed to get anything done if you think about the ultimately trivial impact of our actions on the universe? But a little is good, it lets you downscale the concerns that loom so enormously.

"Things happen of their own accord, or not at all." -- Gene Wolfe

I don't know, patience can bleed into passivity. Gregory Bateson's was derisive of conscious purpose, as somehow un-ecological or unsound. Easy for him to say. It's the comfortable who can zone out into some kind of cosmic holism, secure in their estates. The rest of us have to scramble for a living, and we need goals and plans if we aren't to be slaves of other people's.

One more thought on eternity: like atheism and anarchism, it is a concept that is defined by negation (in this case, of time), and is thus hopelessly infected by what it seeks to deny. Time is even harder to avoid than god or the state. Yet all three of these concepts make a certain degree of sense, if only as asymptotes or attractors that draw us forward.

What's on my mind

Messing around with some computational language tools, I generated this list of words which are more frequent on this blog relative to a standard corpus (some misspellings removed), in order from most overused. Many of these are unsurprising, but I had no idea I used "cannot" more than is normal. Or "parasitical", which is more worrying.

cannot simpleminded parasitical excoriate delegitimize kvetching temperamentally treacly politcs cosmopolitans authoritarians twitter rightwingers inexpert constructivists constructionists entertainingly clathrate undesireable frenzies mystifies wastefulness repurpose gintis wobblies kunstler turmoils bukovsky bankrolls laitin smidgeon sociopaths scienceblogs cleavon oddsmaker vegetating reifying situationists doper yecs popularizer nobels cultish solidary arduino militarist prolixity congealing proft larded atran nixonian seatmate appeaser rationalists leftish libertarianism literalist materialist vitalism rejoinders schuon fusty facebook torahs arduously hugeness universalizing tinkerers factuality autoworkers parasitize rationalist dominionism physicalist incarnating idiocies axiomatically ferreted gourevitch glaringly symbiote averagely incisively shitheads skimped netzach appall metonymic onrush chokehold halldor churchy scampers starkest agentive dalliances emet mistimed ceasefires hallucinated reimagined overplaying bioethicist copleston disempower flippancy oversimplifies outrageousness indvidual ginned douchebags explicates plumbs mencius metaphysically schelling foregrounding polarizes outlives subtexts acquiesces nostrums undescribable malkuth marketeer analagous preeminently remediable flamers slipperiness bunraku proles burkean peaceniks materialists unaccountably athwart mcworld petraeus romanticizing unnamable huffpo ineffectually commonsensical interoperating empathizing wingnut supplicants hypostasis inchoate obama transhumanists fulminate affordance nonviolently geneological gashed mussed chuppah charnel felin reconstructionism verbalizing tegmark crabbed armys shalizi dehumanization hoohah vannevar copyable bungler unlikeliest preindustrial legitimated downscale fugs bilin slavering egomania naveh determinedly oligarchies chasten reappropriated bekki taleb bioethicists valdis ultraconservative wahabi straussian rewatch anthropomorphism ecstasies libertarians ruination exceptionalism vacillate overreach forthrightness informationally bushites rottenness biomorphic parceled twittering sorley parapsychological irreligious statists maddeningly selfing militarists bushite infuriates deconstructionist dallying harrows glutted worths misplacement engross jewishness hearkens girdled zombified prohibitionist braf sniggering positivists prostrating doomy schmaltzy yesod hewing philosophize doomsayers unconcern conflate jibes misappropriate convulse constructionist relabeled cavalierly mesmeric phantasms atrophied nattering reductionist personhood asocial placating incuding amorality incontestable weida greybeard inescapably scrabbling foreordained puthoff antiabortion commandeering iphone reinterpreting fudges minsky spluttering obsessional explicating rovian subdues ascription graeber counterargument plops

Now I'm playing the Burroughs-ish game of trying to find meaning in this shredded language. "physicalist incarnating idiocies axiomatically" sounds applicable to a number of discussions I've been having lately.