From a09dce472d66533cb589b18fe5869662d5824bb0 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: "Zack M. Davis" Date: Sat, 23 Sep 2023 21:19:09 -0700 Subject: [PATCH] "Start Over" --- content/2023/start-over.md | 41 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ content/drafts/start-over.md | 32 ---------------------------- 2 files changed, 41 insertions(+), 32 deletions(-) create mode 100644 content/2023/start-over.md delete mode 100644 content/drafts/start-over.md diff --git a/content/2023/start-over.md b/content/2023/start-over.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6c5f44d --- /dev/null +++ b/content/2023/start-over.md @@ -0,0 +1,41 @@ +Title: Start Over +Date: 2023-09-23 21:15 +Category: other +Tags: anecdotal, personal + +> _Can we all start over +> After the final chapter's end? +> When it all starts over +> How do these scars begin to mend?_ +> +> —_Centaurworld_ + +I moved apartments the other week, on some philosopher's birthday or the anniversary of a national tragedy, to a nice studio in a nice neighborhood back on the correct side of the Caldecott Tunnel ([now that I've learned my lesson about](/2023/Jul/blanchards-dangerous-idea-and-the-plight-of-the-lucid-crossdreamer/#correct-side-of-the-tunnel) which side of the tunnel is correct). + +I had been making noises about leaving Berkeley [for a while](/2020/Feb/cloud-vision/), but kept not getting around to it until my hand was forced by my roommate moving out. Insofar as I was complaining about the political culture, you might think that I should have fled the Bay entirely, to a different region which might have different kinds of people. Reno, probably. Or Austin (which may be the Berkeley of Texas, but at least it's the Berkeley _of Texas_). + +I don't think a longer move was necessary. I mostly live on the internet, anyway: insofar as "Berkeley" was a metonym for [the egregore](/2019/Aug/the-social-construction-of-reality-and-the-sheer-goddamned-pointlessness-of-reason/), it's unclear how much leaving the literal city would help. + +Although—it may not be entirely a coincidence that I feel better having left the literal city? Moving is a Schelling point for new beginnings, new habits. The [sense](/2022/Jun/an-egoist-faith/) [that](/2022/Apr/backlog-metablogging-april-2022/) my life is over hasn't fully gone away, but now I have more hope in finding meaning and not just pleasure in this afterlife [while it lasts](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/j9Q8bRmwCgXRYAgcJ/miri-announces-new-death-with-dignity-strategy), perhaps fueled by regret-based superpowers. + +I'm happy. I have a lot of writing to do. + +----- + +In my old neighborhood in the part of Berkeley that's secretly Oakland (the city limits forming a penninsula just around my apartment), there used to be a "free store" on the corner—shelves for people to leave unwanted consumer goods and to take them to a good home. It stopped being a thing shortly before I left, due to some combination of adverse attention from city municipal code inspectors, [and a fire](https://www.berkeleyside.org/2023/07/21/south-berkeley-free-store-destroyed-by-fire). + +There was a butcher-paper sign on the fence with a pen on a string, asking community members to write a note on what the free store meant to them. + +One of the messages read: + +> i'm a (very broke) trans woman +> and i don't often feel great about +> my body, but there are a few items +> that i found here that fit me in a way +> thats very affirming to me + +There are so many questions (of the rhetorical or probing varieties) I could ask of my neighbor who wrote that message. ([Why mention](/2021/Mar/point-man/) being trans at all? Don't many cis women often not feel great about their bodies? What do you think are the differences between you and a man who might have written a message starting "I'm a (very broke) transvestite"? Or is it just that such a man's sense of public decency would bid him keep quiet ... or, just possibly, write a message more like yours?) + +But—not my neighbor. + +I don't live there anymore. diff --git a/content/drafts/start-over.md b/content/drafts/start-over.md deleted file mode 100644 index 66897f2..0000000 --- a/content/drafts/start-over.md +++ /dev/null @@ -1,32 +0,0 @@ -Title: Start Over -Date: 2023-09-18 12:00 -Category: other -Tags: anecdotal -Status: draft - -> _Can we all start over -> After the final chapter's end? -> When it all starts over -> How do these scars begin to mend?_ -> -> —_Centaurworld_ - -I moved apartments the other week, on some philosopher's birthday or the anniversary of a national tragedy, to a studio back on the correct side of the Caldecott Tunnel ([now that I've learned my lesson about](/2023/Jul/blanchards-dangerous-idea-and-the-plight-of-the-lucid-crossdreamer/#correct-side-of-the-tunnel) which side of the tunnel is correct). - -[TODO: I had thought I had to leave Berkeley, but that was a metonym - -my reasonably comfortable afterlife /2022/Jun/an-egoist-faith/ - -] - -Here in the part of Berkeley that's secretly Oakland, there used to be a "free store" on the corner—shelves for people to leave unwanted consumer goods and to take them to a good home. It's gone now, due to some combination of adverse attention from city municipal code inspectors and a fire, which means I need to find some other place to dump my spare junk in the next week and a half. - -Now there's a butcher paper sign on the fence with a pen on a string, asking community members to write a note on what the free store meant to them. - -One of the messages reads: - -> i'm a (very broke) trans woman -> and i don't often feel great about -> my body, but there are a few items -> that i found here that fit me in a way -> thats very affirming to me -- 2.17.1