The Hostage Tapes: Correspondence from my couch: Recent Episodes
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The Hostage Tapes: Correspondence from my couch. Where everything right now is a maybe. COVID-19 has taken over and now we're all hostages. Making these tapes is a way for me to pass the time until I've been released... or worse. You can find full versions of these tapes as videos on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-QlVLQg5iY96jmPP5KQh-Q
We've all become program directors for an audience of one and we barely even know it. š¢
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWu7Z2Fc8T_ySbwJTQBoSEr2hDLQknCjR The Hostage Tapes: Correspondence from my couch. Where everything right now is a maybe.
Somewhere, my name is on a list. This list is written out clearly. Surely itās legible to anyone who can read the language. And itās possible that your name is there on the list too.
Just as readable as any other name there, my name, maybe yours, many, many others. How many? Well itās hard to say. Iāve never seen the list, but Iām sure itās there.
The list doesnāt belong to me. My name, however, is recorded in a place that I cannot access it. I donāt know the right people. I donāt have the password. I donāt even know the interface or the medium the list is stored on. But I know that list exists.
And I know Iām not allowed to look at it. And neither are you, or you, or even you.
But, those are our names. Those designations belong to us. And so does everything else that THEY collectāthat belongs to us too. Itās not just our names that are on that list, you see. Itās records and preferences and bytes and bits. Some of these we donāt even know about ourselves.
Well, itās all there. On a list. And weāre not allowed to see it.
I missed writing last Sunday. And forgot recording and publishing. I did not achieve my goal. I totally spaced it. I got busy with some work and then I had an appointment, with myself, that I could not break.
Well, itās Sunday again. And instead of being a space cadet, here I am, first thing in the morning.
I donāt have that much to say. I feel pretty wrung out, honestly. Itās been a weird weekā¦ but if weāre telling the truth, all of the recent weeks have been weird ones.
And really, thereās no end to the weirdness in sight. Just an incremental creep towards whatever it is ānormalā is going to be. Wondering and waiting to find out if the two sides will ever be able to work it out and get their act together to formulate a plan that everyone can get behind and execute as one.
The title for yesterdayās recording was āRulerā. And in that recording I used that word in the way that a ruler is a tool to be used for measuring things.
Today, I want to talk about a similar word. Undoubtedly a related word. Not ārulerā but ārulesā.
Why do we humans make rules? And who in the hell is actually making them anyways? It seems like just about nobody likes them. If a rule gets made, you know for sure people are going to find some way or another to not abide by it. Theyāll lie or cheat, theyāll claim ignorance or declare a total and fundamental loss of personal freedom.
But you know what, when people try oh so hard to break the rules and get away with it, you know what we do. We get other people to enforce the rules. Because, is it really a rule if it isnāt being enforced? But it kinda seems like nobody really wants to be the cops either.
So whatās the point? Not enough people seem to follow the rules and at the other end nobody really wants to enforce them. Does making rules do us any good? Weāre all adults here, we can trust each other to do the right thing, right?
Writing every day, just one page a day, is working out pretty well so far. In the last 22 days, Iāve only missed once. Throughout the entire month of July, I only missed once as well.
Recording and publishingāas a habitāis going well too. Itās a newer development and itās more work, so I think Iāll be more prone to missing days more often, but Iām actually getting it done.
And even though, sometimes, it feels like going through the motions, itās still all good.
Writing everyday and pushing myself to record and publish, even if I might not feel like it, affords me the opportunity to focus my attention on a goal I know I can accomplish.
Itās an easy win in a time where wins arenāt necessarily readily available. And in the words of Martha Stewart, āThatās a good thing.ā
You can go right or you can go left, those are your choicesā¦
When presented with only two choices, how do you decide which way to go? How do you decide how far to go?
Can you come back? Would they even let you if you decided you didnāt find what youāre looking for?
If you decide to stand stillāabstinenceāis that a valid choice? Or is that worse than making the wrong choice?
What if you move, but at that same instant everyone else around you goes exactly the same amount of distance, in exactly the same direction? Did you really move at all?
Iām bored. This one-dimensional worldāleft, rightāit is boring. Have more dimension. Be less boring.
Never is there enough time. Whichever container you put it ināminutes, days, months, yearsātime is never flowing over. And yet, time is, at least to our relatively puny human existence, time is never ending.
Paradoxically, to have an abundance of time is a curse. We get bored. āThereās nothing for me to do right now,ā we say. All this time, going by. Wasted.
The converse situation is just as bad. āThereās just too much that I have to get done, right now!ā If youāve never said that, count yourself lucky. The condition can be paralyzing.
It seems that I am, and forever will be, oscillating between those two states. Either nothing to do and bored out of my mind; or, so much to do that I just canāt seem to get a start on any of it.
Either no one is calling after me, or everyone needs me to do something for them.
Itās a shame I canāt just bottle some of that unused timeā¦ to be consumed at a later time.
The habit wall. Iām hitting it. Hard. Iāve started this new habit, you see, of writing every day. Just one page per day. And Iām tracking the new habit. āWhat gets tracked, gets improved,ā is a thing THEY say. Iām on an all-time record streak of 16 days straight (including today, assuming I finish writing this page). Iāve crushed my old record of six days in-a-row. But so what? Has this new habit gotten me anywhere? - Well, the habit seems to be expanding. It is no longer just āwrite everydayā. It has turned into āwrite, record, publishā. I suppose Iāll start tracking those streaks as well. Iām feeling less inclined to publish every single day. That sounds scary. Recording, though, is no big deal. I just read a one page script into a microphone and thatās it. But the publishingā¦ - Honestly, itās really not that much more work to turn a recording in a shareable format. But thereās something still there, trying to hold me back.
Here we go againā¦ Or should I say, āhere I go againā? Itās me. And Iām just hungry enough, just desperate enough, just bored enough to bet on myself once again. Iāve done it before and look where itās gotten me. Rightādamnāhere. Iām still here. - What does it mean, āIām going to bet on myselfā? Well, for one, I have an aversion to authority. The establishment. The status quo. All my life people have been telling me how I should be doing things. Sometimes I do and sometimes I donāt. Go to school, say no to drugs, be a patriot, skate or die, itās time to get a big boy job, etc., etc., etc. - Whether I do or I donāt, it doesnāt really seem to make a fundamental difference in the outcome. Iām still here. And now, given the circumstances we find ourselves in, has there ever been a better time to say fuck it all and make yet another bet on myself?
Iām getting the itch to publish again, Iām just not sure what. It seems that I am not nearly capable of producing media that I believe is worthy of sharing on a regular basis. The motivation to create comes in fits and starts. The ability to execute and complete a work worth distributing is even more fleeting. Nonetheless, Iām getting the itch once again. - Publishing is the fun part. Itās the part that takes the least amount of work. After receiving the inspiration and then putting in the time and effort it takes to make a thing, all you have to do is share. Press the button. Make it public. Expose. - Itās fun. Itās exciting. Sometimes you get feedbackāthey like it, they hate it, they want more, they think you could and most definitely should change it just ever so slightly. - Iām getting the itch to publish again, Iām just not sure what.
- [ ] Everyone has a voice. I think itās important that everybody has a voice. I think itās important that everyone has access to their voice. I think itās important that everyone uses their voice. Right or wrong. Informed or ignorant. Itās important that people speak up.
- [ ] Too often though, we let others speak for us. Whether itās the news media, politicians or our peers, we as a species seem to have adopted the behavior of letting other people speak for us. If that guy says something and itās close enough to but not quite exactly what we believe, then fine, weāll go along with that.
- [ ] I think itās more important for me to be able to trust the people around me than it is for me to trust āreliable news sources.ā Defining that phrase āpeople around meā is more difficult than ever. Do I mean people around me by physical proximity? Or people around me on the internet? I definitely do not mean Chris Hayes or Rachel Maddow or Chris Cuomo or Tucker Carlson or Sean Hannity, those people are so disconnected from the world I live in. Yet somehow they still seem to invade some of the media I consume. I also see politicians, including the current president, the current presumptive democratic nominee, the mayor of New York City, Republican Senate candidates in Alabama and so many more invading the media I consume on a daily basis. And when I hear them talk, when I hear their voice, when I read their words, it seems as if they live on a different planet. I have no trust in these people. I donāt know why I give them any of my time.
- [ ] No one is playing from the same playbook. Itās difficult to know whether or not someone is sharing the same sources of information. And we, as feeble humans, can only allow so many bits of information into our feeble minds before we have to make a decision to move forward.
- [ ] I have chosen to express my opinions, right here on a YouTube channel. I have been encouraged to do so by internal and external forces. It takes a long time to generate this stuff. It takes work in editing. It takes courage to make it live to the public. Iām not necessarily hoping to have some kind of gigantic audience that I can exploit for money. Although if that happens, I guess Iām cool with it, because Iād rather support myself with this work than with doing the work of some stupid soul sucking office job that I canāt really get my heart into, no matter how hard I try. If people want to share this they totally can
I heard this thing on NPR (clip included from 'Can I Just Tell You: Accepting And Dealing With Grief In The Time Of Pandemic'), Michel Martin was talking about how it's important when something is bothering you, to name that thing. It gives you a chance to process that thing. It gives you a sense of control that you may not have had. It allows you to cope. In this edition of the Hostage Tapes: Correspondence from my couch, I'm taking the time to name the things that are freaking me out about the COVID-19 pandemic, so that I might be able to better process them and regain a small bit of control in this screwed up situation we're all in. Like, Subscribe, Leave a comment. It might just help us to all feel a little less isolated.
Itās so funny how bad my memory is. Itās crazy how good the internetās memory is.
Maybe we should be building some intentional fuzziness into the memory banks of our information technology.
I just went for a scroll through my YouTube timeline. There are very very very many videos that I have set to private there. And I have no recollection of most of them. I spent a lot of time making them. It was at least a minimally intentional process to create a recording: make sure the light was decent, compose the shot, edit if necessary and sometimes do artwork for the YouTube thumbnail. And then poof, I donāt remember hardly any of it. But the internet does.
But why? I made those videos primarily for meāit seems that, in times of boredom, I tend to turn to a video camera. Hence āThe Hostage Tapesā. I made those videos primarily for me. As a way to pass the time, as a way to empty my mind of clutter, as a way to keep my video skills just sharp enough when I didnāt have other video work to do.
I wasnāt hoping theyād last forever. And as such Iāve turned them all to private, so that no one else could view them. At least not without breaking into my account.
And that brings me back to my initial point. Maybe we should be building some intentional fuzziness into the memory banks of our information technology. SnapChat does it a little bit and Instagram has followed suit, with their disappearing Stories. Thatās a start, but itās not quite what Iām looking for. Iām not fully familiar with SnapChat, but I know that in Instagram the stories linger. Your audience may not be able to see them, but an archive is kept for you so that you might share again later.
Instead, Iād like to see, in the internet, a memory loss that mimics our own human memory loss. Chunks of data missing. Little bits exactly the opposite of how they actually happened. A natural decay. The older and less significant the memory is, the fuzzier it gets.
This is a segment from a series of YouTube videos (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-QlVLQg5iY96jmPP5KQh-Q) I'm producing called, The Hostage Tapes: Correspondence from my couch. In this segment, I roast Lt. Governor of Texas, Dan Patrick who recently suggested that ALL grandparents across America might be willing to sacrifice their lives to COVID-19 in order to "save" the economy. I call this tool out for being a ludicrous hypocrite. It's fiery and fun and my first upload to this account. So enjoy and please come back for more.