Tomorrow ‘round the corner

I don’t want to believe the end of history,

or to be fooled by the proposal of a future

but, without a doubt, tomorrow is coming (tomorrow always comes), and when I think about being together, or what I get out of bed for, or purpose—however transitory—I can’t shake the feeling that “a better tomorrow” as a project is worth focusing on.

Mark Fisher famously wrote about the end of the world being easier to imagine than the end of capital domination, but that brief windows still open where alternatives become visible. Even the capacities to imagine and aspire are malleable resources that get played with, doled out across shifting groups and individuals.

I wonder as I hurl through or get churned by time how the locus of imagination will travel.

Mom convos…

"It used to be so rare to have a photo of you and someone else"

Talking to mom last week, I became fixated on how rarity correlates to difficulty. Images being harder to capture and process back in the day obviously made them more rare. But I've found that this conversation today centers "the selfie" as topic, and that there are so many additional layers when thinking about photos of yourself with others.

Somebody needs the camera and the film, but you also need the coming together, the event, the party that puts people people there. The photographer snaps their shot, but they have to be someone who is proverbrially "around." They have to float into your orbit and be seen again, or at least be someone you're able to contact. They have to develop the photo, and make copies, and keep them handy, and have it when you see them again, by chance or coordination.

After the afterparty

Our thinking about record keeping in the information age vs. back then tends to stop at the act of taking the photo… but there is a rupture after the camera flash, a chasm of thought we fall into… even though the gap between the photo being taken and seen again requires much more effort to bridge.

So many more photos get taken now vs. seen. Capturing images became inexplicably easy--the technical problem was solved--but it made brand new social problems, buckling the old infrastructure that imbued images with meaning.

Difficult images

We have to put in that little bit of work to take ourselves out of la la land and read the conditions that produce every image.

Is there a relationship between images that are difficult to **(a) **hold **(b) **obtain **(c) **keep, and images that are difficult to **(a) **understand, **(b) **accept, **(c) **withstand? Does the ease of consumption make comprehension more difficult? Instinct says, "Probably." When things are liquid, meaning becomes slippery.

Images are now produced automatically and with very high fidelity--but if we understand photos like writing, as a method of record and as texts that are made in-context--we can understand how they must be "read" just like words. There's a whole new type of illiteracy wreaking havoc on the collective brain.

What is Big Picture Love?

Why am I doing this?

It's as simple as looking back fondly to say "we did that" down the line. It doesn't need to be deeper than "consistent touch point."

There's something akin to a feeling of sticking around that ties back to friction and coopertaion. It's good to know that the person who got that awesome photo of you and your friend(s) is going to spin back, is going to have a copy, is going to make contact again. Everyone gives each other something to hold onto.

Kind of a tenuous connection, but all to stay: thanks for being a part of this project, which in this right-now-moment feels like a real group of people (however loose their links) living + making memories together. Sometimes at the lowest stake, sometimes at a stake that feels like… yeah, this is important. This is nice. This is making people think and smile.

Cheers, lifestar.