DIY Ecology Of Practices
Tomorrow’s events:
Towards a Metamodern World w/ Tomas Bjorkman. May 12th @ 10:00 AM ET. RSVP here.
Against the Web: A Cosmopolitan Answer to the New Right w/ Michael Brooks. May 12th @ 2:00 PM ET. RSVP here.
***
May 11th, 2020
I do not want to think, I just want to write. I rarely think anymore, in the normal sense of the word, and I am horny all the time. I woke up in the middle of the night, and Camille was awake as well, and I owned every inch of her body. I like being surrounded by beautiful women, but I like being surrounded by beautiful men, too. I am happy to be misinterpreted, in the right way, and I am feeling ambitious right now. Very ambitious.
I do not know much about the Enneagram, but I am a Type 8. From the Enneagram Institute: Eights are self-confident, strong, and assertive. Protective, resourceful, straight-talking, and decisive, but can also be ego-centric and domineering. Yeah, I get it. My 8 is coming online, and my former veneer of that Canadian controlled friendly guy is no longer the default, but an option.
There is a primordial intensity running through my body. I feel it burning. I’ve always experienced this, but in the past I often blew my load too soon, draining this intensity by indulging in insecurity-inspired bad habits. I could never successfully contain this energy, but this time it feels different. This energy is coursing through my body right now, and if I ask it what it wants, it is asking me to do some damage. It is asking me to destroy myself. It wants to set my life on fire, and set other's lives on fire as well.
I have to be extremely careful. I am holding onto prudence with one hand at the moment, and my grip feels like it is slipping. This energy is powerful, and ego is ever present, ready to take and repurpose this intensity for its own aims. I do not think this energy is inherently bad, but if I do not get into the right relationship with it, then it could be used for evil.
It is the wrong move to indulge in this energy. It is also the wrong move to shame it, and act like it needs to be repressed. There is a feeling of being unstoppable with this energy; it has that Michael Jordan-esque give me the ball and get the fuck out of my way type feel to it.
I am reminded of the tripartite theory of the soul from Plato’s Republic, which consists of the reasoning part, the spirited part, and the appetitive part. It is the spirited part I am referring to here, the inner lion, that wants to be domineering for its own sake, that wants to be the only one that is king.
A wise domestication must occur, in a way where the potency of this primordial intensity is not neutered. Its full wilderness can be harnessed and directed, by a loving reason. I do not have the strongest mind, but it is strong enough now to attempt this.
I have no goals, or better said, goals are always rushing to my mind, but I have no commitment to them and I intend to keep it that way. I want to continue to operate simply, by fully listening to the daemon. I want to be as truthful as I can be, and to be in dialogos, while I aspire to be a virtuous man.
This being said, I think I am ready to fulfill my destiny, if such a thing exists, and I am ready to fulfill my potential, whatever that means. I have no choice really, now that this intense potency is ever present, which I sense is not going to go away anytime soon. Moving forward now is a risk, as I can get captured by evil, but I deeply dislike men who do not take great risks, and I want to like myself.
Here we go: I am ready to return to discipline, even though I do not like that word. I have belonged to many private mastermind groups during my life, and a large part of them was about bootstrapping your will to do things you think you should do but do not really want to do, e.g. working out, eating right, intermittent fasting, meditation, etc.
I have no desire to bootstrap anything. Been there, done that. This is not how the daemon operates, but I desire to have an ecology of practices that will help make me a sovereign individual, one who is ready to enter into communitas at a moment's notice with other sovereign individuals.
How do I select this ecology? I still do not think wisdom can be measured. Or, to guard my premise more carefully: I do not think wisdom can be fully measured in a way where it can be reliably taught. Maybe one day it will, but we do not have this now, so stop being annoying about it, you modernist nerds. Given this, it is the wrong move to be too smart about this, and since I am an epistemic cowboy, I am going to do what I usually do these days: hand things over to the daemon.
In a letter exchange with brother Andrew, I argued that a DIY ecology of practices might be needed. You've got to start somewhere, so you might as well risk being wrong, in the right way. I do not want to announce what the actual practices are, that feels like it would be coming from the wrong place, but I wanted to announce that tomorrow I am going to do what has to be done in order to start looking good naked, both physically and spiritually.
Not that I look bad naked at the moment, but I could look naked better, and more importantly be naked better.
***
Gift Economy / The Stoa currently operates through a gift economy. We are offering the Stoa as a gift, for people to freely use during these troubled times. If you are inspired to provide a gift to The Stoa, email thestoa at protonmail dot com. Your gift can take the form of money, support, services or ideas. If you wish to gift money, you can do so here or here for ongoing gifts.