why i am back on substack
not a call to action so much as a biopsy?
A soundtrack for you to read alongside if you wish? How do we feel about this?
HELLO substack warriors! I am trying to use my substack more, because I recently took instagram off my phone and redownloaded it onto my iPad (huge change, everyone erupts into applause). why substack? I think it’s a better way of sharing what I’m doing and what I care about than instagram. why choose my iPad to be the cursed vessel of this application? because I don’t carry it around with me, so I won’t lose hours at a time to aimless social media usage, but it’s also easier to use than the (similarly cursed) desktop version of instagram.
What I’ve been up to lately How I’ve been feeling lately
Lately I feel like my life has lacked any defined timeline - not just because I graduated and finished a lifetime of schooling - but because the timeline that I thought I would transition into simply didn’t happen. And, with the way of the world these days, the unfortunate reality is that it probably won’t happen. While maintaining my focus on what there is to be done, I am trying to make peace with a future in a very different world from the one I imagine - a great privilege all the same, compared to the possibility of no future at all.
My father recently said that I’m finally realizing my own destiny (or “density” as he calls it). He said that because I have been working on getting into law school. Like many others, I am trying to figure out the best way to make a difference and keep a stable paycheck. Am I realizing my density? I’m not really sure. I have reasons for what I do but really I’m just making it all up as I go.
Instagram: Faustian bargain connecting me with the world at the cost of my own unraveling??
So why send IG to iPad gulag? Why now to make this change?? Is this even a significant change at all? It is to me, actually. Because I have just been getting really confused by social media. I don’t just mean tired, because I think we’ve all been there for a while. I’ve been confused by social media because I feel like I need it but I also hate it - relatable?? It is definitely a factor in how ungrounded I feel. My density is slipping away. We are all in this together. We are all on instagram together!
Do I really need it? No, maybe yes? I have actually gotten most of my opportunities thus far through instagram, although upon reflection I suppose the fact that the evil surveillance nexus is also practically useful is not that surprising. How else would they keep us on there? Cosmetic validation and memes alone?! Look, I have found opportunities from job postings to community organizing and volunteering through instagram, I have made friends and even professional connections through instagram, and I even find out about most of my friends’ events or recent work through instagram. And news, given the biases of mainstream news outlets (and the growing monopoly which controls them) these days, is something I even go to instagram for (not exclusively, but there tends to be a lot more focus on community/local happenings on IG); I have this fear that without instagram my access to a range of perspectives and stories is limited. My access to friends in need or mutual aid initiatives is limited.
Why do I feel like I need access to all these things in the first place? I’m going to focus on professional networking and arts opportunities first. For those who are new here (to my life), I have been caught at the beautiful intersection of the job search, a nascent art career, and the prospect of law school. That means that I’m trying to lay the groundwork for three different life paths at once, in case any of them work out. This is a consequence of my lack of success finding a stable job since graduating from my MFA in 2024…into a terrible economy and a decimated national arts budget (so….a big surprise, I know……). It takes a lot of capital and/or flexibility to support an art career in this day and age; the alternative is a very slow, gradual progression of one’s career. That’s okay! But it certainly won’t make you much money, or at least enough income in the short term to provide you with general stability. So that you can, you know, continue to develop your art. So far things have looked a little like this:
No money to support self or art career → Job search → Get shitty job → still not enough money to support art career or self, and no time to do anything → Quit shitty job → no money, but time to make art and search for better jobs → either catch a lucky break, or back to square one!
I’m not really here to complain about that, since I have infinite subsequent newsletters in which I can complain about my life. I’m mostly providing context for this feeling of need that has crept into the way I use technology, and the ways that I’m trying to figure out alternative infrastructures in my life. I’ve been looking for lifelines through instagram, and I’ve even seen evidence that I could actually find one there.
Which begs the question: What is the net practicality of a thing which offers me services in exchange for my time, attention, and personal information? Which then uses this information to better surveil and target people, and to fund the same billionaires who are enabling this fascist acceleration?
“Politics” and emotional burnout
In order to think about this, I am going to expand the conversation to include the “political” communications which instagram facilitates. There are a few attitudes about this that I would like to explain as a way of opening the conversation. With the extreme polarity that social media platforms encourage, I typically encounter two main oppositional points of view. I’m going to try to paraphrase them here:
Perspective A is that we should just take care of ourselves, because our activity on social media won’t solve crises or contribute positive change, and is even kind of cringe and aggro, plus it spreads negativity and impacts our own mental health, so we should all just focus on being our best selves and spreading positivity (and fun! our fun fun vacation pictures! Woohoo!)
Perspective B is that we should all abandon any focus on our own welfare, get over feeling like shit all the time because our feelings don’t matter in a crisis - or even, we should feel like shit because that is the logical response, and we should rather dedicate every resource we have to throwing our bodies upon the wheels of society.
These perspectives both claim similar solutions to collective problems, although in opposite directions: perspective A believes that self care is the best and most effective thing we can do while perspective B completely sublimates the self into tangible action, and recommends its own one-size-fits-all approaches.
For the record, I think that just because it is a privilege to take care of our wellbeing does not mean we should stop trying to be sound in body and mind. I also think that taking care of oneself is different from trying to maintain the “unbothered good vibes” persona that wealth and ignorance enables. There are many things in life which deserve to be treated with gravity, even if those are things we have no direct, personal control over. Perspective A and B both ask people to control their thoughts and feelings: either to be that positive presence people crave, or to be the best leftist we can be. I believe that at the core of Perspective A is a selfishness that pretends to be radical, or at least respectable. At the core of Perspective B is a deep fatigue and anger with that selfishness that, when taken out of context, can be paralyzing and even self destructive. Ignoring our flaws and fears will not make them go away. I saw someone say that hope is a useless white person emotion. Well, maybe? I don’t really care to weigh in on that, but I guess I figure that we are getting a little too abstract with our psychological critiques. Rather than trying to transform everyone into strong, mature, resilient, flexible collectivists, we might need to figure out what even weak and scared people can do. I mean, organizing groups are already full of tools and we still get stuff done (despite it all). I guess I’m somehow implying that the purity politics of the left keep us from successfully organizing, which is all too often used to ask leftists to lower our standards. I don’t mean we should lower our standards. I just mean that while we ask for the most, we should we working with what we have. At least, for those of us who have the liberty to still be figuring out how to engage with all this disaster, tragedy, injustice – should we not figure out how to have our emotions and still, somehow, be the person that we need to be?
But maybe I am just taking instagram discourse too seriously? After all, the amount of people I run into out in the world who espouse such extremes are far more limited compared to social media. For example, I see a staggering amount of antisemitism in instagram comments these days. Attitudes that are genuinely disquieting and seem to be somehow intertwined with Gen Z internet culture? It’s really weird and kind of funny hearing so many people talk about the word goy all of the sudden. What, so you can have a word for us but we can’t have a word for you? Anyways, perhaps another reason to seek balance with my instagram usage.
(I’m going to have to write another substack at some point on the weirdness of jewish identity in NYC, in part being that for some people, their entire experience with jews has been with the …somewhat disagreeable and typically racist hasids of Brooklyn. within diaspora, there sure are all different types. no one is surprised to hear this, and yet somehow it doesn’t always click for people that minority groups are not monoliths!)
Unfortunately I think that people who are not prepared and do not have the training to engage in political activism, which is most americans, are simply going to get burnt out and stop trying. I saw someone write something once to the effect of, white americans are so used to being the center of everything that they think they’ll solve these decades or centuries of problems just because they are now involved/invested. And when solutions are not actually easy or immediate, they get burnt out and turned off, feeling ineffective, and walk away from the cause saying they tried their hardest and still couldn’t fix it. Which begs the question: are people only interested in these problems because they think they can solve them? Or perhaps more specifically: are people only interested in these communities because they think they can help them? I’ll let you think on the implications of those motivations.
One opinion I have is that if doing one thing feels pointless, maybe focus on doing the things that don’t feel pointless? Sometimes it can ground those “pointless” tasks in something that feels more tangibly productive, and other times you can just invest your time and energy more wisely.
If every possible action you could take to help others feels pointless…then perhaps you should just do something anyways, and also, maybe look into SSRIs. There’s no shame in admitting we are all going through something right now.
Getting involved can be tiring, but if we focus on where our skills and interests can shine the most rather than shifting focus every moment to what feels most urgent, we can end up enjoying that tiring work and even cultivating a long term community. This isn’t to say we should ignore emergencies; rather, we could use discretion and put effort into cultivating our own identity as a community member, rather than aspiring to be a chameleon without any experience or training to back it up.
Where this conversation leads, I think, is that the moral fixation on “doing something” is not enough to make Americans productive members of a collective. Especially for those who have no real concept of intersectionality. I think people need the tools to be able to think for themselves about how they fit into their actual communities, and that is unfortunately something that many americans, white or not, did not grow up with. Who are we to our neighbors? The problem compounds with many of us NYC transplants who moved from suburban communities (which are socially alienating to various degrees) to parts of New York City where people are physically close together, and where communities have survived on close social ties and grassroots work in the face of an actively racist, antagonistic government. Many of us are comparatively out of our depth. What do now?
So, what do?
I think that being our best self does isn’t simply being our most upbeat and carefree self. Maybe something along the lines of being in integrity with yourself, having a support system and a social community, and, of course, realizing your personal goals? That seems pretty best case scenario to me. So what do we do about “being our best self” in a world that seems more and more hostile to our futures? I guess there isn’t a way to be our best selves in the society we currently live in. How could we be our best selves under the expanding maw of capitalism and a crashing economy that continues to pillage and oppress other countries to feed itself, while our friends and neighbors disappear around us? Telling people that disengaging will make things go away is a trick. But maybe we can still be a good version of ourselves. Some people will say it does not matter if you are good, it matters if you are doing good. Well…semantics! To me they are the same: being good is an action, not a quality. Mostly because who cares about the essential moral character of your soul if you’re a great person to have in the world. I’m not the one who chooses where to send you when you die, but I do have to live with you. Either way, I am not going to offer you a way to be good!!! Because the whole point of this is that I am trying really hard to figure it out for myself right now.
I think I have been using instagram as a way to feel that I was staying informed and invested. The emotional response I had to getting information through that app was one of investment - I felt anxious, stressed, angry, guilty, bad and weird - so, at least I felt less insulated from the horrors than if I chose to stick my head in the sand. I could tell myself I was at least not sticking my head in the sand. But while I am still trying to make sense of my own life and choices, I am also looking for ways to build alternative infrastructure, and to not rely on instagram for everything, including feeling involved in my community.
I am still going to use instagram to access important communication networks, but it has been relegated to my iPad for proper containment. I don’t want to just ignore the things that are important, or aimlessly drown in a constant stream of information that is either meant to or functions to overwhelm me. If anything, Instagram is simply not a secure platform to be organizing on! So, I am going to try to organize my time and my communications more intentionally, and this substack is a part of that.
I sometimes hear about the transformative changes others have made by cutting out “smart” tech, and while I am impressed, I also find that most of these people have few circumstances in common with me that would allow me to model my success after theirs. So I am slowly finding my own methods to making things work. And eventually I would love a flip phone because they’re so cunty.
You know how when you clean your room you often need to make it messier first, because you’re resolving all of the stopgap solutions for putting away your shit that are incompatible with an actually sensible and sustainable system? Like how right now I have half of my clothes in cardboard boxes around my room and still somehow keep running out of closet space? Spring cleaning is going to be a pain in the ass this year.
I think that’s my issue with cleaning up the infrastructure of communication in my own life. I have way too many newsletters and email chains spread over various emails, I follow way too many accounts to even figure out how to check them in a methodical way. My digital footprint is a messy amalgamation which has accumulated over 10+ years of me throwing everything into random bins, and to now sort out all the different elements of my life and things I have to keep up with is going to take a while.
As a small start, I’m going to try to be better about keeping in touch in my own ways and not by just feeding more of my personal information to the meta corporation. I guess posting things publicly on the internet is still just posting things publicly on the internet, but at least I get to choose how and where, and this is what I’d like to do for the next bit.
Another one from the same album…I’ll list the songs at the end!
What I’ve really been up to lately
Well, I have some work up in a group show at Tempest Gallery in Ridgewood! Pulling that off was super fun, and now I am stumped on what to make next. I realized I probably need to go out and see some stuff to get inspired again, do some research, you know. I’ve been neglecting a lot of my creative input because I’ve been so focused on various outputs lately. My density has been increasing so rapidly, maybe I need to lighten up a bit? In that vein, I got to play DND last weekend and it was so awesome. DND is actually kind of fatiguing and takes a lot of practice to get good at (to be a good player, a good teammate, and get the most fun out of it) and so the fun to work ratio can be a bit surprising to people when they first play. But even though my back hurt and I was basically foaming at the mouth after about 5 hours of sitting at the game board, I’m still super excited for our next session. It is my first time doing a campaign in person instead of online, and honestly it is so much more fun to get to interact in person and share food, look at each other, avoid screentime, you know.
I’ve also been going to the YMCA every week and it rocks. I have such a tough time building habits no matter how much I like the thing, so having someone else to schedule with is a godsend – I’m close to being able to squat my own body weight again! Watch out or I might squat you!
I have been going with my good friend and it keeps me motivated and makes the sessions way more fun. As the weather warms back up I’m looking forward to doing more runs in the park too. We saw such beautiful scenery the other week at Prospect!! Many geese were out walking on the semi-frozen pond…ducks too….it was a beautiful menagerie.
It is really nice to have a routine and to be taking better care of myself, and it is so messed up that it took quitting my super shitty job to be able to do any of that. I was on the phone with my friend Chloé earlier, talking about what it means for people who are categorized as small and femme to be physically strong. Honestly, while it is frustrating that we live in this kind of world at all, I do find it really empowering to maintain my fitness. In addition to taking care of ourselves, more and more I think we are going to be able to need to lean on each other, and sometimes that means physically.
Earlier I said that I was struggling with my density, but running is one of those things that makes me feel perfectly grounded. I hope that everyone gets the chance to find an intersection of things that make them happy and healthy and that helps them connect with our beautiful lady Earth. It is hard to think that our days of enjoying her like we do now are likely limited…it truly pains me to think our time in our own beautiful home is in danger because of corporate greed…but still we press on, and as we do, I am grateful for every memory I have and every new memory I make.
I have so much stuff I am behind on and now I have to catch up on moving out of my studio, patching and painting everything, and selling all my old junk. Plus I have to study for the LSAT and take it in April. Ahhhhhhhhhh! There is no time for existential and practical crises, but here I am - that’s how substack fits into my life, I guess.
And now….
ANIMAL CORNER!!!
The animals are interacting….I am also animals. It is so cool being a human on a planet full of other creatures who all have different ways of relating to you because we are all different but also we still live together. And some of them bite me.
I also my opening at Tempest this past week, which was very cool, and I am super grateful to my friends who stopped by to check it out. I had a really fun time that night but I also realized that I am a super lightweight now because I haven’t been going to bars because I have been broke and ALSO too much alcohol not good for me (brand new thought)
Here’s a picture of me about to go to my opening. I think I was lowkey fitted but you can’t really see in the picture so just trust me on that. I got no full length mirror!
Art corner!!!
Val was really super happy to be looking at this painting. Glad that Jay got a picture to commemorate the occasion now literally NO ONE can call you uncultured because look at how much you like art also wow such great posture! No one would literally ever think you are a homunculus. I love that my art can facilitate these kinds of encounters.
I am still sad that this piece did not make it into the show at the last minute, but I am really excited to show it sometime in the future. It’s the bottom half of a diptych and it’s kind of a small and messy piece but I really enjoyed painting it so that was awesome.
In news of art consumed this week…I saw my professor Nat Meade’s show up at Hesse Flatow this week! It was so sick (really really beautiful) and he is such a huge inspiration for me that I can’t even post his work or it’ll make me look so bad in comparison. But please go check it out, it’s really great. My friend Crater has some work up at Satellite Gallery as well. They are such a talented ceramicist with such inventive, playful, and narratively rich work and any chance to see their pieces in person is not to be missed!! And, my friend Xiangjie Rebecca Wu has a stunning solo show up at Latitude Gallery. She is such a skillful and thoughtful painter and the atmospheres she creates are really impressive. Her work has a cinematic quality that makes you feel like you’re experiencing a memory, like all the times I’ve wished I could take a mental snapshot of a moment just how it is. iPhone photos fail where Rebecca’s work finds great success in carving out moments of time.
Go check out everyone’s shows!!
Impromptu film corner?
I also saw the movie Project Hail Mary, which mostly felt like a cross between Guardians of the Galaxy and a much better sci-fi movie. I enjoyed seeing Ryan Gosling go to space and make friends with a rock, but I do feel I missed out on the depth of the book. There were a lot of moments where I leaned over to ask Jay, “did this happen in the book??” Because it felt like such a silly or pointless scene, and unfortunately, yeah, most of those moments were film originals.
I do think it was a very fun movie which I enjoyed! And possibly an excellent companion to the source material, though maybe not a substitute for it. Looking at it favorably, I would say it focused on the strengths of a movie in playing up the more narrative and action oriented aspects of the story. But my faith in the medium of film to be art makes me think that if the producers been targeting a different audience, or aiming for something to really bring out the source material, it could have been a really sick sci-fi film. I guess I have to go watch and also read The Martian now.
TW: Ryan Gosling
So, comparatively, an example of a movie that I thought was an amazing adaptation of a book: The animated movie for Tatsuki Fujimoto’s Look Back. The manga tells parallel stories about artistic development and interpersonal development which implicate and sometimes aggravate one another. It is a truly exceptional story written and drawn by the very talented Fujimoto-sensei, something that means a lot to me as an artist, and I think the animated adaptation was just as strong as the manga. Especially in hearing conversations with the director Kiyotaka Oshiyama, it was clear how much the team wanted to use the medium to bring out the essence of the story and the original artwork - there was one scene where the main character is running along a path, and Studio Durian went through these great pains to animate this shift in perspective that really brought the scene to life. Like they really animated the shit out of that comic, rather than just recreating panels shot-for-shot with some movement. It felt like a really thoughtful adaptation. Damn, I want to go watch it again now.
Apparently the movie is getting a live-action remake, which is unsurprising given the success of the anime adaptation, but I feel it’s unnecessary. I guess we will never escape the looming specter of live-action remakes for already-good media. Oh my god, remember the live action Avatar the Last Airbender movie from 2010? I almost forgot how awful that movie was. Look at this one review I dug up:
“The Last Airbender” is an agonizing experience in every category I can think of and others still waiting to be invented. The laws of chance suggest that something should have gone right. Not here. It puts a nail in the coffin of low-rent 3D, but it will need a lot more coffins than that.
I’m sorry, it’s just so funny. Rest in pieces, The Last Airbender. Middle school me was so disappointed by you.
In keeping with my hopes to break from Instagram’s clutches, I am also going to add some opportunities for mutual aid/learning/etc. in my substack as a way to directly connect you guys with the stuff I care about, that maybe you guys care about too.
Mutual Aid Opportunities!
As many of you may know, a devastating flood recently hit Hawai’i and the people need help. If you’ve ever been on vacation or consider Hawai’i one of your favorite places (like myself) then think about pitching in somehow!
Especially with the gutting of FEMA, and the general lack of interest the fed gov has in providing disaster relief in areas where POC and poorer Americans live, (not to mention its disinterest in the wellbeing of territories it has forcibly colonized like Puerto Rico and Hawai’i) it is something we regular people will have to help with.
This spreadsheet has a list of families, businesses, and individuals affected by the storm in need of help!
the Hawaiian Council is also matching all donations right now!
Even a little bit helps. Donate $5 and pretend you’re paying a latte forward! It might not feel that good or that helpful, but don’t forget that it still makes a difference. Maybe we are just conditioned to expect too much for too little? I think as we continue to get used to supporting each other, we will see the ways in which we are making a difference even when they are small.
Also - with ICE in our airports, stay safe while traveling out there and make sure you know your rights.
Well, that kind of ends what I wanted to talk about in this post. What should I leave you with….hm….well, if anyone actually read this far, I am really impressed and also we should hang out soon.
Oh, let me give you the track list:
Glass Flowers by Elysian Spring, album Glass Flowers, released 1969
Blue Sands by Elysian Spring, album Glass Flowers, still released 1969
Action Line by Dorothy Ashby, album Afro-Harping, released 1968 (a recommendation originating from Kobi - shoutout Kobi)
I have realized that I’ve been putting a lot of my passions off while I’ve been trying to take care of business, so I’m aiming to get back to reading and writing more this year. I am proud of myself for making progress in some areas, so I’m going to be ambitious and try to keep making progress in others too…! Maybe I’ll review a show? Finally finish Braiding Sweetgrass? Make a comic? Join another book club? If you have any recommendations for me, please let me know. Otherwise, as always, I invite you to flame me in the comments.
-Aliza!!!
