I painted my ceiling periwinkle blue.
It was a total bitch to do. And the whole time I was thinking about the man who died from looking up for too long while painting a ceiling. Something about pinching a vein and blocking the blood flow to the brain, but I’m not a doctor and I heard this anecdote on the radio so who knows how tall this tale might be. I’m happy to report that I survived my ceiling painting stunt and now my basement bedroom has blue skies.
But lately it’s been hard to look up. We’re all so used to looking down— at our phones, at other people, at the problems that are plaguing us personally— that we forget about our periwinkle ceilings. NASA recently released the most incredible photos from the new Webb telescope; the photos flooded my instagram feed, human after human looking down at their phone to share this otherworldly wonder that’s taking place thousands of light years above them. If we could just look up we might be able to better appreciate what we’re seeing within this little 1080x1350 pixel box on this pocket sized screen. I wonder how many people actually stopped to ponder the meaning of these images. Not just the scientific feat of the telescope, but what this event signifies about us as humans, and how small we are.
Don’t worry, this isn’t a nihilist newsletter. What I’m trying to say is that we’re so wrapped up in our own lives— our own individuality— that we’ve lost sight of each other. We’ve lost sight of how much we need each other. We’re not meant to be self sufficient creatures; we are meant to live in community. And I’m not talking about the Western whitewashed brand of “community” that relies upon transactional exchanges and masquerades behind feel-good branding only to perpetuate individualist values. I want to see more intricate ecosystems and fewer social networks. We were meant to rely on each other, to need each other, to put the wellbeing of our relationships and the collective above all. To put the common good first, and ourselves second.
I have a number of single friends who have dedicated significant energy to being “okay” with being “alone.” Secure detachment is a beautiful thing, truly, but the only reason that anyone thinks they need to learn to be okay with being single is because society tells us that our purpose is to find a romantic partner; and that the antithesis to being in a monogamous romantic relationship, according to societal narrative, is being alone. The only choices are to be in partnership with someone or to be alone. But what if we shifted our thinking about what family is? What if, instead, we promoted standards of collectivity and inter-dependence outside of romantic relationships? What if we realized that the antithesis to being alone is not being in a relationship, but rather being in community? Like real, collectivist community.
Lately it’s been hard to look up. To be optimistic and maintain perspective and have faith that despite how it feels, things are looking up. I have hope, I have so much hope for our future. But boy is it hard to beat back the despair. The problems we face collectively inevitably breed despair when we try to face them individually. Individual action is a lie. Individual action perpetuates the idea that we can tackle these problems on our own. And the powers-that-be prefer it that way. Our actions can feel inconsequential when we act independently rather than interdependently, and frankly, they are rather inconsequential. What if the antidote to despair, to apathy, to paralysis, to inconsequentiality is… each other?
I came across the term recently, “prefigurative politics,” and it gave me words for my beliefs around organizing praxis.
Prefigurative politics are the modes of organization and social relationships that strive to reflect the future society being sought by the group.
In other words, prefiguration involves striving to reflect the future society we seek right now. We build it right now. We model our hopes for future society on a microlevel, experimenting with new socialities that are not possible under the kyriarchy’s paradigm. Prefiguration embodies the very alternatives we are hoping for. Right now.
So, dear reader, it’s time to give yourself something to look up at. We have to build the thing we’re looking forward to, the thing we’re hoping for, right here, right now. We have to paint our ceilings periwinkle blue and knock on our neighbor’s door. We have to decenter ourselves and reconsider what it means to set a boundary between you and me. We have to clothe and feed and finance our disenfranchised communities without condition or carceral logic. We have to look up, look around, and uncover what it means to be collectivist in our contemporary existence.