THE CHAMBER OF AVAILABILITY

The nauseatingly vague phrase “the best ability is availability” has crept its way up from varsity coach proverb to the whiteboards of the digital world. The instinctive tension we feel for not keeping up with the speed of our vast social sharing in our professional or private practice is leading us to a quiet, shared mania— Cultivating in a countercurrent of hermitic idealism that breathes dry ennui into the minds of many young, creative human beings.

In this prolonged stillness I have seen the smoke clear, it has shown me that this paralyzing disdain is just a phantom presence. Ghosts of agencies past. Chronic affect from the legerdemain of the capital-focused. Fragmented memories of the unholy brief-deadline-invoice trinity. No one is actually watching me but my own self. Stuck in a juggle of spectator, judge and performer. There is exit

It was only in the Real of fiction and rare coordination in nature’s chaos that I was able to recalibrate. Otherwise, swimming in the grey void.

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When I received these transmissions I felt it. To be involved in the eternal journey towards deciphering interconnectedness. To be total. To be buried in it again and to care about it all. 

In my estimation, the modern freelancer has more in common with an on-call medic than any sort of definition of freedom. In service of no one thing but to every one. Dreadful but anxiously tethered. Swayed by poison seeds. Conditioned by the hype glow that we can be too late for our own creative intuition. Corrupted, automated words. Decaying in wait.

We can be steadfast in our stillness. Let it die ringing. We can be steadfast in our hyper-production even. We can fix our own speed. Sometimes it feels like drowning, but we can collect from the deep waters of our void. Sometimes boredom dominates. Not all boredom is created equal. The boredom of excess is far more boring than the boredom of lack. Sometimes it feels like there are two worlds. Sometimes I understand there is only one. We can reflect off of the mirrors of others. Ancient mirrors. There is the chain that shakes — It doesn’t require you.

I woke up from a nap on a train once — still at full speed, after a disorienting shift in my physical reality I had realized this momentum was just another train passing while we were stopped at an intermediary station. The sun soaked gentle flow of the invasive wheatgrass species stuck me as immensely beautiful and in a daze I totally absorbed the stillness of the universe.