Weekly Zephyr #21: October 19th, 2017

Frederick Horsman Varley, Stormy Weather, Georgian Bay, 1921 I like how this tree is beset as shit by that wind and still so jewel-toned/vibrant > I understand that wind doesn't blow pigment out of trees< but we expect a scene like this to be browner, grayer I love the surprise contrast of the intense wind and stark/rocky setting with all this springlike color The thing I want for us today is in here somewhere

Simple talking today in the Zephyr. Not in the mood for big-then-small letters and zigzag text placement. Women are weary this week in a particular way, and I'm one. No energy for fun and games. I'm just trying to think about the thing I want for us.

I'm clocking two things in particular that make all humans tired, women and men alike:  1. You get a personality machine running over time that does what you and the culture combine to think it ought to do, and people expect you to keep that machine running in that same pattern, making those same moves, churning out whatever it is you churn out that keeps the people [away, close: whatever you've been working on]. It's not popular to give the self or the others wiggle room once we're clear on everyone's branding.   "My Brand Is Strength" "Come to Us for Softness" "The Listen-O-Matic 5000 Is Here to Serve" "I'm Gonna Sass Your Ass"   2. Minimal quiet and minimal listening to ourselves. When the world is as loud as it is now, this is damaging. We can be blown completely off the rocks and into the sea.   I don't know about you but so often when I attempt to listen to myself, it's for something. I'm trying to decide something, so I need to know something, so I can build/be something to keep my machine going. The listening has a utilitarian tinge to it, and also impatience.   We may have entire wings of ourselves that we have never visited and we don't even know are there. We could be anything. I rarely or never listen long enough or purposelessly enough to myself to catch hints. I suspect these wings exist, though.    Sometimes when I'm talking to my teacher over Skype, I can feel my machine stop. I'll be sitting there and I'll become very quiet. Not a surface quiet, but a Why Have Humans Ever Bothered Speaking, I Am Only Ever Never Speaking Now quiet. I am immovable in this quiet, and my desire to please is nowhere. My machine is run on pleasing others, so this is very restful. It feels like the doorway to one of these wings. I know I'm in there, just not as I currently know myself.    Can I get to the thing I wanted for us? I'll just point and flail.   --> struggling world as wind --> our machines selves not intrinsic to us, and furthermore an uprooting force --> our unused wings possibly our primary source of color, resilience, ability to stay rooted in inhospitable surroundings -->even when we don't use or visit those wings, they're there -->when you go somewhere new, you may be on vacation -->I would consider a trip to a new wing of myself a vacation -->we contain vacations?? let's go. (if it's great, maybe we can emigrate.)  I think it's also enough just to graze our non-machine selves, or just even spend a minute wondering what our non-machine selves might be like, what we might be if we didn't feel like we had to be us. I don't think it's something we have to solve and then be a whole new person about. That would maybe just be a new machine.  Okay, I love you, humans. Have quiet + be pointless to restore your color, among everything else you must do. XO