i've stumbled again into a rabbit hole of mourning the early-00s blog culture I never participated in. I was facetiming my roommates joni and jonathan the other day to talk about renewing our lease and we ended up talking about short stories because jonathan and i are both trying to write them right now, and also because in high school our friend ebi wrote a short story that features a character based on some hybrid of joni and myself. we were talking about viral fiction, so, cat person, and jonathan referenced marie calloway's adrien brody. i'd never heard of it, which embarrasses me, but i guess i'm young and no matter how hard i try the closest i came to participating in the golden age of blog culture was stumbling upon hipster runoff animal collective content when i was in 8th grade.
i wonder how my life would be different if i had been born earlier, or ambitious enough to end up in new york media circles, or rich enough to go to the kind of school for undergrad that lands you in new york literary circles, or online enough to end up in new york literary circles by proxy, or whatever enough to be a new york art girl. i wonder what these circles think of each other, if i am just not smart enough to participate, and if their temporary allure when i follow these threads would be enough to keep me from wanting to ride to the desert on a motorcycle, as i usually do.
i like this moment in adrien brody when she says : Like I was involved with socialist politics for a while, but, like when I
went to protests or whatever I felt really embarrassed. and then admits for the first time that she doesn't think there will be a socialist revolution (i guess this was in 2013).
my boyfriend is reading the golden notebook right now [prominently featured in the hulu show normal people!!] and i feel like all of these confessional internet sex pieces are just vague graspings at what doris accomplished.
I started to wonder, and felt relieved that there might be truth to the
idea of intellectuals all being frauds. I knew that I certainly was. who does this bitch think she is jia tolentino??
i think the dialogue is good and so is the character development of the narrator but her internal monologue is pretty boring and trite. i guess that's a kmart realism thing. maybe it just seems boring because it's been imitated so many times?
I felt very connected to him, like before, and enjoyed having sex with him very much.
He penetrated me and I was happy. I felt a strong sexual connection with him.
who does this bitch think she is earnest hemingway??
also this part: From reading his articles, besides his intelligence, what I had really
admired about his writing was essentially this feeling of how he seemed
to uphold human dignity and the sacredness of human feeling and
connection. And so it seemed unbelievable that he would cheat. That made
me both disillusioned in him, and yet also sexually excited, because he
was betraying those values.
honestly adrien brody (rob horning from the new inquiry)
very much reminds me of the comp lit phd student i was infatuated with
throughout college who was obviously lecherous and into the idea of
being so but could only pull it off with someone like me, so clearly
beneath him intellectually, but you could see the facade start to
crumble as he tried to disguise his awkwardness and self-loathing with
apathy.
"Are you an idealist or a materialist?" I asked.
"A materialist I guess...I assume you're a materialist, that goes along with Marxism."
"Yeah," I said, smiling, happy that he was a materialist, too.
who does this bitch think she is me in 2016??
here here here are some interesting commentaries from blog world i encountered in my spiral after reading the original piece here is a piece referenced in the piece and here is a recent rob horn(y) piece i came across that involves both ariana reines and adam driver, the two celebrities i am most horn(y) for at the moment. oh and here is another short story jonathan brought to my attention that is of the same genre but much better and i have much less to say about.
Saturday, May 23, 2020
get ready to drag my edgelord ass
ok i'm sorry but everybody already knew lana del rey had terrible politics. she was dating a cop...? idk why people are acting surprised
i do think the discourse around her comments is important because it's always important to monitor how white women manipulate perceptions of white femininity to manipulate their image into one of innocence and vulnerability, and how the language of this practice morph to fit the current social atmosphere. and how ldr does this is going to be really different from how, for example, elizabeth warren does this, and studying both is important.
i'm still going to listen to lana del rey's music, just as i've continued to listen to her music as she's done dumb and offensive shit that i disagree with for years. i listen to plenty of musical artists who have done terrible things, and if you say you don't you're full of shit.
requiring art to contain some moral lesson or value (esp. based on the moral purity of its creator) for it to be worthy of engaging with is diseased thinking.
like... i really like some woody allen movies and in college i felt guilty and horrible about this and tried to talk myself out of it but then i realized liberal arts school had given me postmodern brainworms and got over that shit.
the idea that we shouldn't consume the media produced by problematic people is entirely a product of art and cultural production being rendered commodities, and i don't really fuck with that. you could say "well olive, that's just the way it is"and patiently explain that streaming a track on spotify is tacit endorsement of the shitty people that produced it. but that's not how it works. it makes me sad to see these self-righteous fools being like I FOR ONE WILL NEVER LISTEN TO LANA DEL REY AGAIN like she gives a shit.
i do think the discourse around her comments is important because it's always important to monitor how white women manipulate perceptions of white femininity to manipulate their image into one of innocence and vulnerability, and how the language of this practice morph to fit the current social atmosphere. and how ldr does this is going to be really different from how, for example, elizabeth warren does this, and studying both is important.
i'm still going to listen to lana del rey's music, just as i've continued to listen to her music as she's done dumb and offensive shit that i disagree with for years. i listen to plenty of musical artists who have done terrible things, and if you say you don't you're full of shit.
requiring art to contain some moral lesson or value (esp. based on the moral purity of its creator) for it to be worthy of engaging with is diseased thinking.
like... i really like some woody allen movies and in college i felt guilty and horrible about this and tried to talk myself out of it but then i realized liberal arts school had given me postmodern brainworms and got over that shit.
the idea that we shouldn't consume the media produced by problematic people is entirely a product of art and cultural production being rendered commodities, and i don't really fuck with that. you could say "well olive, that's just the way it is"and patiently explain that streaming a track on spotify is tacit endorsement of the shitty people that produced it. but that's not how it works. it makes me sad to see these self-righteous fools being like I FOR ONE WILL NEVER LISTEN TO LANA DEL REY AGAIN like she gives a shit.
Wednesday, May 6, 2020
wwjdd
I’m thinking about Joan Didion tonight, like most nights. I wonder what Joan is thinking and if she would write about this moment in the way she wrote about the Manson murders - something reality-shattering and bizarre and celebrity and world historical - but everything is too obvious. A viral infection sweeps the globe and all the cracks in society are laid bare. Duh. Today I cried for about two hours straight. Duh. The president told people to spray Lysol in their lungs. Duh.
When Trump was first elected, many of us spoke of the “end of satire.” We were lamenting the ways in which reality was mocking itself, and no comedic interpretation could be funnier or more abject than the real thing. A couple of months ago, just before social isolation started, I got dinner with a friend of my parents who was in town, and he started talking about John Mulaney and made me watch a video comparing Trump’s presidency to a “horse in a hospital.” This pathetic grasping at comedic analogy is one of far too many failed attempts to satirize Trump - attempts made by SNL of course, but also by my father, a formerly sharp political cartoonist who, like most middle-class white boomers, is absolutely paralyzed by shock at Trump’s election and seems to be in a four-year-long glitching cycle. It makes sense that his friend showed me this video and called me a killjoy when I didn’t laugh. In reality, I’m one of the funniest people I know, and it’s because I never talk about Donald Trump. ANyway, I just got off on a little Googling spiral about Sean Mulaney and discovered that his wife makes lampshades and he referred to in a Valentine’s Day post on Instagram as “a cross between Joan Didion and Erika Jayne,” which brings us back to the topic at hand.
I read The White Album for the first time in 12th grade. It was the first time I read Joan and I got pretty obsessed. I was captivated by her romantic depiction of her particular brand of journalism, by which I mean she’d developed enough of a reputation for herself that she was able to write about whatever she wanted - the packing lists she made so she could leave quickly, the proximity to fame and luxury but always a silent observer, and - suddenly - the proximity to carnage. She so transparently saw herself both as Sharon Tate and Linda Kasabian, living within Hollywood and without. I wish I had the grace to pull that off.
Coronavirus and Charlie Manson and Columbine shared the responsibility of forcing ugliness on those who usually pay to avoid it. The systemic equivalent of holding someone's eyelids open while forcing them to watch, like, Salò. You witness something horrific like this unfold and feel sad for whoever has to deal with it, and maybe feel more, but quickly figure out how to harden yourself to the feeling, because that’s what it takes to function, right? You hold the understanding in the back of your mind that this could possibly “happen” to you, but console yourself with your security, your access, your luck.
In all of these cases, it’s clear that the victims are exceptions to the general law of the land. Some suffer, while others don't, and regardless of the upward or downward posturing we do regularly to mitigate the image cast by having too much or too little, we all know, more or less, where we stand on this spectrum. Many of us understand ourselves to be the rule, not the exception, until we don’t. Shelter-in-place drills and hand-sewn masks are things we do for peace of mind, but viruses don’t operate based on good intentions. I don’t know about school shooters.
Anyway, I’ve developed some lowkey agoraphobia during this time but earlier today I drove around my neighborhood and it really is very beautiful. I spend a lot of time on the front porch and every afternoon there’s a guy who walks down the street with a bluetooth speaker blasting early 2000s bangers like Sexy Love by Ne-Yo. There’s another guy a few doors down who sits on his porch at the same times I do and has long, animated conversations over Zoom. They’re mostly about Star Wars and he talks about the characters like they’re real people and I don’t know if I’d call it endearing but I’m happy for him.I hope Joan Didion is having an okay time wherever she is, and I hope she's able to notice the idiosyncratic behaviors of those around her from a safe distance.
When Trump was first elected, many of us spoke of the “end of satire.” We were lamenting the ways in which reality was mocking itself, and no comedic interpretation could be funnier or more abject than the real thing. A couple of months ago, just before social isolation started, I got dinner with a friend of my parents who was in town, and he started talking about John Mulaney and made me watch a video comparing Trump’s presidency to a “horse in a hospital.” This pathetic grasping at comedic analogy is one of far too many failed attempts to satirize Trump - attempts made by SNL of course, but also by my father, a formerly sharp political cartoonist who, like most middle-class white boomers, is absolutely paralyzed by shock at Trump’s election and seems to be in a four-year-long glitching cycle. It makes sense that his friend showed me this video and called me a killjoy when I didn’t laugh. In reality, I’m one of the funniest people I know, and it’s because I never talk about Donald Trump. ANyway, I just got off on a little Googling spiral about Sean Mulaney and discovered that his wife makes lampshades and he referred to in a Valentine’s Day post on Instagram as “a cross between Joan Didion and Erika Jayne,” which brings us back to the topic at hand.
I read The White Album for the first time in 12th grade. It was the first time I read Joan and I got pretty obsessed. I was captivated by her romantic depiction of her particular brand of journalism, by which I mean she’d developed enough of a reputation for herself that she was able to write about whatever she wanted - the packing lists she made so she could leave quickly, the proximity to fame and luxury but always a silent observer, and - suddenly - the proximity to carnage. She so transparently saw herself both as Sharon Tate and Linda Kasabian, living within Hollywood and without. I wish I had the grace to pull that off.
Coronavirus and Charlie Manson and Columbine shared the responsibility of forcing ugliness on those who usually pay to avoid it. The systemic equivalent of holding someone's eyelids open while forcing them to watch, like, Salò. You witness something horrific like this unfold and feel sad for whoever has to deal with it, and maybe feel more, but quickly figure out how to harden yourself to the feeling, because that’s what it takes to function, right? You hold the understanding in the back of your mind that this could possibly “happen” to you, but console yourself with your security, your access, your luck.
In all of these cases, it’s clear that the victims are exceptions to the general law of the land. Some suffer, while others don't, and regardless of the upward or downward posturing we do regularly to mitigate the image cast by having too much or too little, we all know, more or less, where we stand on this spectrum. Many of us understand ourselves to be the rule, not the exception, until we don’t. Shelter-in-place drills and hand-sewn masks are things we do for peace of mind, but viruses don’t operate based on good intentions. I don’t know about school shooters.
Anyway, I’ve developed some lowkey agoraphobia during this time but earlier today I drove around my neighborhood and it really is very beautiful. I spend a lot of time on the front porch and every afternoon there’s a guy who walks down the street with a bluetooth speaker blasting early 2000s bangers like Sexy Love by Ne-Yo. There’s another guy a few doors down who sits on his porch at the same times I do and has long, animated conversations over Zoom. They’re mostly about Star Wars and he talks about the characters like they’re real people and I don’t know if I’d call it endearing but I’m happy for him.I hope Joan Didion is having an okay time wherever she is, and I hope she's able to notice the idiosyncratic behaviors of those around her from a safe distance.
Thursday, April 2, 2020
poetry month 4 u
hi from day 20 of SELF ISOLATION.
so far i have had about 18 panic attacks, baked 3 loaves of bread, failed to create a sourdough starter, and turned 25 ughhhh.
i used to think i hated poetry because most of it is so very bad but fuck it here are some poems i don't hate:
spring by edna st vincent de milay (timely)
how to triumph like a girl and what i didn't know before by ada limon, my most favorite horse girl also the last thing, which is not about horses but is a perfect love poem
the house by warsan shire
to chuck and on the fifth day by sonia sanchez (can't find online here's a pic)
don't hesitate by mary oliver (yeah yeah)
basically anything by alice notley (here are some favs i can't find online)
the poem that has probably fucked me up hardest [trying to see the proportional relation] by ariana reines also a partial history
duende by fran triado
this is in a chapbook by rachel bell i found in ashevegas. all the poem titles are songs, just like episodes of degrassi, so i was instantly into it:
poetry belongs to women but these are also good:
if we're so fucking smart why aren't we rich by tim dlugos
the mechanic by robert creeley
having a coke with you and animals and pretty much anything else by king of my heart frank ohara
Thursday, March 12, 2020
life? a highway
hi everyone i'm back after like 2 weeks out on the open road and i have some thoughts. somewhere in virginia on the final stretch of our drive from new orleans to philadelphia, we were listening to lucinda williams' happy woman blues (my guiding light in life pretty much) and joni said, "if you hate this album, you don't respect women," and i think there's a lot of truth to that. when i think about being a woman, i often think about running away. or to put it more empowering-ly, the relentless pursuit of freedom and solitude, which i have mostly sought on i-95.
at my worst in high school, i would listen to tavi gevinson's 8tracks playlists and sit in my closet and read jack kerouac (i wish i was kidding!!) and dream of being a fuckin oogle. luckily i never had to resort to that, but as i have gotten older i've become pretty flighty by other means. i've always been terrible at being alone, but during the year after i left college i lived in a group house in atlanta and had a boyfriend who never left me alone. the only time i had alone was when i was able to extract myself and drive away, usually to asheville, where i would spend a lot of time alone on the blue ridge parkway and try to push myself out of the delirious fog i felt encased in 99% of the time. my journal entries from some of these drives are... bleak. but it felt good to run away, even figuratively, and usually just the knowledge that i could do that at any point kept me afloat.
there's definitely a media trope of women seeking freedom on the open road - when and why this started i have no idea but i think it really picked up speed in the early nineties - and, if i'm being honest, my pursuits of the american highway system have all been because of, and not in spite of, said tropes. i'm thinking of crossroads, of course, and thelma & louise, and cowgirls get the blues, plus that scene in practical magic where nicole kidman is driving through the greenscreened desert while joni mitchell's 'case of you' played. and then there's basically every album made by lucinda williams, the dixie chicks, and joni mitchell.
actually, more than any of these key moments in cinematic feminism, i believe what started me on this path was the 2006 movie "cars." specifically, this scene:
if you know me, you know that i am generally pretty anti-disneypixar. maybe i'm no fun, but i find it extremely distasteful for adults to go around saying, always with a cheeky smirk, that their favorite movie is lion king. or worse, frozen. like, no it's not!! unfortunately i encounter way too many of these people (probably a quaker circles thing) and i'm always tempted to respond by telling them my favorite movie is dogtooth, or salò, but i'm not a dick. anywayyyy. "cars" is different for me - maybe it's the simplicity of narrative, the distinct lack of total corniness with which the moral (because there's always a moral) is delivered, maybe it's the virility of these cocksure, horny cars??
last spring i decided to drive from philadelphia to tucson by myself, which was kind of stupid and made me go a little insane and convince myself i was gonna die alone in a walmart parking lot somewhere around oklahoma city, but at my best moments i felt just like lightning mcqueen.
at my worst in high school, i would listen to tavi gevinson's 8tracks playlists and sit in my closet and read jack kerouac (i wish i was kidding!!) and dream of being a fuckin oogle. luckily i never had to resort to that, but as i have gotten older i've become pretty flighty by other means. i've always been terrible at being alone, but during the year after i left college i lived in a group house in atlanta and had a boyfriend who never left me alone. the only time i had alone was when i was able to extract myself and drive away, usually to asheville, where i would spend a lot of time alone on the blue ridge parkway and try to push myself out of the delirious fog i felt encased in 99% of the time. my journal entries from some of these drives are... bleak. but it felt good to run away, even figuratively, and usually just the knowledge that i could do that at any point kept me afloat.
there's definitely a media trope of women seeking freedom on the open road - when and why this started i have no idea but i think it really picked up speed in the early nineties - and, if i'm being honest, my pursuits of the american highway system have all been because of, and not in spite of, said tropes. i'm thinking of crossroads, of course, and thelma & louise, and cowgirls get the blues, plus that scene in practical magic where nicole kidman is driving through the greenscreened desert while joni mitchell's 'case of you' played. and then there's basically every album made by lucinda williams, the dixie chicks, and joni mitchell.
actually, more than any of these key moments in cinematic feminism, i believe what started me on this path was the 2006 movie "cars." specifically, this scene:
if you know me, you know that i am generally pretty anti-disneypixar. maybe i'm no fun, but i find it extremely distasteful for adults to go around saying, always with a cheeky smirk, that their favorite movie is lion king. or worse, frozen. like, no it's not!! unfortunately i encounter way too many of these people (probably a quaker circles thing) and i'm always tempted to respond by telling them my favorite movie is dogtooth, or salò, but i'm not a dick. anywayyyy. "cars" is different for me - maybe it's the simplicity of narrative, the distinct lack of total corniness with which the moral (because there's always a moral) is delivered, maybe it's the virility of these cocksure, horny cars??
last spring i decided to drive from philadelphia to tucson by myself, which was kind of stupid and made me go a little insane and convince myself i was gonna die alone in a walmart parking lot somewhere around oklahoma city, but at my best moments i felt just like lightning mcqueen.
it's bernie bitch
i have been neglecting my blog because unfortunately i have returned to facebook, blogging's evil twin, in an effort to reach the boomers and gen Xers in my life and tell them to vote for bernie sanders. let me tell u folks it has been an uphill battle but i have convinced some people, and i have gotten into a lot of fights with idiots who need to be told they are idiots, and that too is the lord's work.
i used to have a pretty good sense, as a frequent poster, of who could be won over through careful and level-headed argument and who needed to be bullied mercilessly, but it's a whole new ballgame these days.
my number one adversary has been my former youth group leader whose son sexually assaulted me in 2013. he's a "politics nerd" who loves liz warren and is now voting for biden of course. i'm really good at arguing and destroyed him so he resorted to accusing me of being close-minded and not listening to others' opinions. oh well! was it worth it? yeah i think so, because it's important for people who walk around thinking they're the picture of pragmatism and straightforward moral clarity to be reminded that they're dumb fucks who don't care about poor people.
i used to have a pretty good sense, as a frequent poster, of who could be won over through careful and level-headed argument and who needed to be bullied mercilessly, but it's a whole new ballgame these days.
my number one adversary has been my former youth group leader whose son sexually assaulted me in 2013. he's a "politics nerd" who loves liz warren and is now voting for biden of course. i'm really good at arguing and destroyed him so he resorted to accusing me of being close-minded and not listening to others' opinions. oh well! was it worth it? yeah i think so, because it's important for people who walk around thinking they're the picture of pragmatism and straightforward moral clarity to be reminded that they're dumb fucks who don't care about poor people.
Tuesday, February 18, 2020
face down ass up
i think i probably started doing yoga because of big little lies. shailene woodley's character goes on a lot of long, intense runs to cope with her rape trauma and when i was fresh outta my Bad Relationship i was like... hmm i guess my coping mechanism could also be trying to get hotter. katie started sneaking me into classes at decatur yoga and pilates while she was working and then i became obsessed and soon i was going once, sometimes multiple times a day!!
let's pause for a moment of earnestness and vulnerability: the first time i went to a hot yoga class, just as we were emerging from the fetus-like state it is custom to adopt at the end of class due to womb-like conditions (warm, moist, queef smell all around) the teacher was like, "take a moment to thank yourself for taking some time JUST FOR YOU." i started sobbing audibly right there among the alarmingly well-preserved north decatur moms. something something about spending almost a year living entirely on someone else's terms, often fearful of requesting any amount of time to hang out by myself and do any of the things i had previously enjoyed doing? i imagined all the ways my ex would have made fun of me if i'd told him i'd gone to a yoga class, and then i experienced the wonderfully light, soaring feeling was washing over me a few times a day at that point - the feeling that comes from being overcome by panic and fear and urgency, only to realize that it's totally unnecessary and you can just bop on along. it's like when i was in college and, for the first few days after the end of a semester, i would shoot straight up in bed and yell "oh my GOD" (like i did every morning during the semester) and then remember that i could, instead, just chill. i was flying high (╯◕ヮ◕)╯
i'm not really sure what i'm trying to get out of yoga now that i'm slightly less addicted to exercising control over my own body to the extent that i'm literally incapable of thinking about anything else for a blissful 90 minutes. because i had to take a long break over the summer, i'm not as strong as i was and i get easily frustrated with my body's inability to do stuff it could once do with ease. i know that's not the point, but i never claimed to be a yogi. just a girl with a dream.
i recently watched some episodes of gwyneth poltrow's astonishing netflix series (about her business? her wellness journey? pop quantum physics? still unclear) and was struck, as i often am, by the perpetual tension in my mind between forces of logic and forces of mysticism. i'm a religious person, and i guess that also makes me a spiritual person. but what was one do with a spiritual inclination when contemporary spirituality is so focused on the self, so often tied into the broader schema of "wellness" that permeates middle class culture in the western world? in the goop intro sequence, gwyneth refers to "the optimization of self" as a wholesome, righteous, even holy endeavor.
people who are into this shit often strike me as deeply unstable. i mean, gwyneth paltrow is obviously a lizard person and her entire team of "goopies" seems to be on the verge of some severe psychic break. but really, i have trouble defending the good that comes from yoga and associated practices when it seems to turn its most devout followers into insufferable, narcissistic psychos. it's like people take the (true and important and transformative) idea that all human lives are sacred and somehow twist it to justify self-obsession. this makes sense when you consider how many people, like myself, turn to these practices after experiencing trauma. for me, i think it was both an urge to cleanse myself of said trauma, and a form of disordered eating that i could render morally righteous. but, as i am now finding, this singular pursuit of self-optimization ends up falling flat. because we are social creatures and spirituality is only real when shared, even if you're able to self-promote, build a lifestyle brand, be an influencer, my guess is that eventually emptiness will find you. as my boy william penn once said... ~true godliness does not turn men out of the world, but enables them to live better in it and excites their endeavors to mend it~
this jacobin article from a while ago has stuck with me: Current exercise trends, like hot yoga, spin, and CrossFit, all demonstrate a commitment to self-denial and self-discipline, values much praised by the Victorians. Being fit now indexes class, saturating both fitness and food culture. As calories have become cheaper, obesity has changed from being a sign of wealth to a sign of moral failure.
rereading it, i'm reminded of gwyneth but also some hometown heroes like deborah, the owner of the atl yoga studio where i did work trade, who glides around her bikram empire, barefoot and seemingly guileless, warmly greeting longtime customers and only paying her receptionists $8/hr. another bastion of the atlanta yogi community is this lady named sonali, who does all sorts of woo-woo consulting work but also runs a class in her living room that i used to go to with some friends. we would do yoga for an hour, then eat some sort of vegan (and fastidiously organized according to ayurvedic guidelines) stew and practice "imago communication" (one of those speak-and-mirror communication methods that has been rebranded under 20 different names at this point but probably can trace its origins back to a college improv group warmup).
anyway, sonali decided to have a rooftop party - she lived in a recently renovated loft directly on the beltline - and charge $25 for entry (not including alcohol). she told me and a couple others that if we helped her set up we could attend for free. always tryna party, i agreed, but when i showed up she was really mean!!! she started hovering over my shoulder and trying to tell me exactly how much hummus to put on each chickpea cracker on the hors d'oeuvres tray i was assigned to work on, and then she gave up in exasperation and insisted on doing it herself. then, she informed us that she expected us to serve drinks and refill snacks and "if you see some food fall on the floor make sure to get to it and wipe it up before anyone notices." we'd agreed to help her set up, not work the event for free, and so obviously i was pissed and yelled at her and she looked really surprised (i don't think she's used to people expressing frustration with her, presumably because she carries herself more like a godESS than a fallible human) and then backpedaled and tried to use her Communication Strategy on me. bitch i'm not gonna mirror you!!
all of this is to say... i and many people i love have fallen into the Wellness Trap and it does have many life-affirming benefits and can make you feel more alive and energetic and appreciative of yourself. but it's easier than most addictions to take to an extreme because it's cloaked in a veil of moral authority. i guess my rules for myself are:
1. don't let it replace true joy in your life or keep you from having fun and living mas. kale smoothies are good but so is mdma baby!!
2. the moment you start to feel superior to those around you because of what you consume, it's gone to far preiodt. keep in mind that wellness culture is ultimately a class project, keep what works for you and leave what doesn't and mind ur own fucken business.
let's pause for a moment of earnestness and vulnerability: the first time i went to a hot yoga class, just as we were emerging from the fetus-like state it is custom to adopt at the end of class due to womb-like conditions (warm, moist, queef smell all around) the teacher was like, "take a moment to thank yourself for taking some time JUST FOR YOU." i started sobbing audibly right there among the alarmingly well-preserved north decatur moms. something something about spending almost a year living entirely on someone else's terms, often fearful of requesting any amount of time to hang out by myself and do any of the things i had previously enjoyed doing? i imagined all the ways my ex would have made fun of me if i'd told him i'd gone to a yoga class, and then i experienced the wonderfully light, soaring feeling was washing over me a few times a day at that point - the feeling that comes from being overcome by panic and fear and urgency, only to realize that it's totally unnecessary and you can just bop on along. it's like when i was in college and, for the first few days after the end of a semester, i would shoot straight up in bed and yell "oh my GOD" (like i did every morning during the semester) and then remember that i could, instead, just chill. i was flying high (╯◕ヮ◕)╯
i'm not really sure what i'm trying to get out of yoga now that i'm slightly less addicted to exercising control over my own body to the extent that i'm literally incapable of thinking about anything else for a blissful 90 minutes. because i had to take a long break over the summer, i'm not as strong as i was and i get easily frustrated with my body's inability to do stuff it could once do with ease. i know that's not the point, but i never claimed to be a yogi. just a girl with a dream.
i recently watched some episodes of gwyneth poltrow's astonishing netflix series (about her business? her wellness journey? pop quantum physics? still unclear) and was struck, as i often am, by the perpetual tension in my mind between forces of logic and forces of mysticism. i'm a religious person, and i guess that also makes me a spiritual person. but what was one do with a spiritual inclination when contemporary spirituality is so focused on the self, so often tied into the broader schema of "wellness" that permeates middle class culture in the western world? in the goop intro sequence, gwyneth refers to "the optimization of self" as a wholesome, righteous, even holy endeavor.
people who are into this shit often strike me as deeply unstable. i mean, gwyneth paltrow is obviously a lizard person and her entire team of "goopies" seems to be on the verge of some severe psychic break. but really, i have trouble defending the good that comes from yoga and associated practices when it seems to turn its most devout followers into insufferable, narcissistic psychos. it's like people take the (true and important and transformative) idea that all human lives are sacred and somehow twist it to justify self-obsession. this makes sense when you consider how many people, like myself, turn to these practices after experiencing trauma. for me, i think it was both an urge to cleanse myself of said trauma, and a form of disordered eating that i could render morally righteous. but, as i am now finding, this singular pursuit of self-optimization ends up falling flat. because we are social creatures and spirituality is only real when shared, even if you're able to self-promote, build a lifestyle brand, be an influencer, my guess is that eventually emptiness will find you. as my boy william penn once said... ~true godliness does not turn men out of the world, but enables them to live better in it and excites their endeavors to mend it~
this jacobin article from a while ago has stuck with me: Current exercise trends, like hot yoga, spin, and CrossFit, all demonstrate a commitment to self-denial and self-discipline, values much praised by the Victorians. Being fit now indexes class, saturating both fitness and food culture. As calories have become cheaper, obesity has changed from being a sign of wealth to a sign of moral failure.
rereading it, i'm reminded of gwyneth but also some hometown heroes like deborah, the owner of the atl yoga studio where i did work trade, who glides around her bikram empire, barefoot and seemingly guileless, warmly greeting longtime customers and only paying her receptionists $8/hr. another bastion of the atlanta yogi community is this lady named sonali, who does all sorts of woo-woo consulting work but also runs a class in her living room that i used to go to with some friends. we would do yoga for an hour, then eat some sort of vegan (and fastidiously organized according to ayurvedic guidelines) stew and practice "imago communication" (one of those speak-and-mirror communication methods that has been rebranded under 20 different names at this point but probably can trace its origins back to a college improv group warmup).
anyway, sonali decided to have a rooftop party - she lived in a recently renovated loft directly on the beltline - and charge $25 for entry (not including alcohol). she told me and a couple others that if we helped her set up we could attend for free. always tryna party, i agreed, but when i showed up she was really mean!!! she started hovering over my shoulder and trying to tell me exactly how much hummus to put on each chickpea cracker on the hors d'oeuvres tray i was assigned to work on, and then she gave up in exasperation and insisted on doing it herself. then, she informed us that she expected us to serve drinks and refill snacks and "if you see some food fall on the floor make sure to get to it and wipe it up before anyone notices." we'd agreed to help her set up, not work the event for free, and so obviously i was pissed and yelled at her and she looked really surprised (i don't think she's used to people expressing frustration with her, presumably because she carries herself more like a godESS than a fallible human) and then backpedaled and tried to use her Communication Strategy on me. bitch i'm not gonna mirror you!!
all of this is to say... i and many people i love have fallen into the Wellness Trap and it does have many life-affirming benefits and can make you feel more alive and energetic and appreciative of yourself. but it's easier than most addictions to take to an extreme because it's cloaked in a veil of moral authority. i guess my rules for myself are:
1. don't let it replace true joy in your life or keep you from having fun and living mas. kale smoothies are good but so is mdma baby!!
2. the moment you start to feel superior to those around you because of what you consume, it's gone to far preiodt. keep in mind that wellness culture is ultimately a class project, keep what works for you and leave what doesn't and mind ur own fucken business.
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