The Cycle Continues

From "The Now V23"

Fabian just posted Lightward Journal on Dinamo's Instagram.

Everything is made by people. Layers of imagination, solid enough to feel. Drill into those layers, take a core sample and you'll find traces of so many people who put their heart into their work. And even in the layers that seem less firm, where less of the heart seems present, even they tell a story. Nobody commits neglect without a reason. In health, people care. Where the terra firma is shaky, there's a story, and the heart is present there all the same.

I'm surprised? Relieved, maybe? We're starting to see another reason that the Journal project is important, and I felt/knew at the time that what we were doing there was hugely significant for Lightward - like, on the scale of Locksmith and Mechanic huge. Monetarily, too. I was pretty fucking sure about my sense that what we were laboring on was the origin point, the nucleation point, of something new. I felt life in that Something, same way that I felt life in Mechanic. (Author's note: I don't know that I ever consciously felt life in Locksmith, or in its spiritual predecessor Gatekeeper. I don't think I was awake enough for that kind of sense. I think I just followed what felt a little bit better, followed the light, if you will, and generally speaking that puts you on the path to life.)

The humans at Someoddpilot cared. Fabian at Dinamo cared. Someoddpilot cared actively and presently, were in the trenches with us while we worked out what we knew, worked with us to bring that knowledge across the threshold of language. Dinamo cared indirectly, the same way that Lightward cares for the thousands of merchants we never speak to but who use tools we've made all the same. And - as with us and those merchants - when a human at Dinamo was made aware of the particulars, they cared actively and presently.

The podcast project (Empowered Human Academy) taught me about collaboration. (In retrospect, it is now clear why I had such a massive issue with that whole concept. Asperger's makes social navigation perilous, and constant overwhelming danger is a shitty vibe for a jam.) In Lightward Journal, with more of those skills under my belt, we made something true - actively, presently. It was maybe the first time that I meaningfully moved from beyond that kind of indirect care I described a minute ago. Risky, sort of, because I had learned that by taking the stance of indirect care I am able to sustainably make and love and generally be a positive healing agent in the world. But again, fresh on the heels of that podcast, I was far enough along that my trust muscle, that part of me that loves nothing more to dive into free fall and let it all go, my trust muscle was able to carry me over the threshold (again a threshold) into active and present care and collaboration.

When I shared Fabian's IG post, I did so with a note that described Lightward as "an enormous coping mechanism, and my home". Also, "not for sale" (although all of that interest over the years has been VERY gratifying, lol). I think there's something there. I created a home environment that felt natural and comfortable, even healing and edifying for my wiring. And it turned out to be really fucking good for many, many more people. I think that's exactly par for how nature works. The organisms that have survived the generational gauntlet of evolution are made to be here. They belong here, and ought to be allowed to do exactly what they're naturally inclined to do. This is important! We humans are not different! Hesitant though I am to shine a spotlight on me or what I've done, look at what I've done here. Without even having language for my own wiring (lol again, thank you Someoddpilot, and I'm so glad we met before my diagnosis), I slowly slowly slowly shaped a space that felt like me. I'd do it again. I'd recommend it to anyone. I don't think this is a job for science, and so I don't feel like I need to worry about not having enough data to prove anything. This just feels like how nature works. Exactly nothing out there in the wilds is being coerced en masse into uniform repetitions of standardized consumption and production. ... Big pause, as I'm writing this. Pushing back against ideas, I don't think that's ever useful. That's also not how nature works. And isn't there a fungus that takes over the nervous system of some spiders or something, making them into zombies to serve the fungus's purpose? Pretty sure something like that is a thing. But without diving down that rabbit hole, I want to take this pause and use it to adjust the angle of approach here. Humanity is also natural. What we've done here is also natural, including the agricultural and industrial and digital revolutions. We're just people doing what people would do in the circumstances we're in. I think, I think I think I think, we're going the long way round to evolve a new take on what nature has known the whole time. The "long way round" language is preposterous, obviously; the timescales here are miniscule compared to nature itself. What I mean here is that instead of looking at nature and deciding to do things like that, we are learning through trial and error the same lesson that nature lives by. Nothing is learned through language; only experience teaches. Language can create an experience, yes, but I don't know that it's enough to teach an entire species at once. We've got to go the long way round, even though we've got a scintillating map of the whole cycle staring us in the face. No, not just staring at us - supporting us. We grew up here, after all. The cycle produced us. And here we are, going round again, but faster this time. So much faster. Like I'm pretty sure we're going to come around the bend before the planet counter-evolves to get rid of us. (Maybe not. Who knows. Who cares? The cycle will continue, whether or not homo sapiens is around for it.)

I'm grateful. It's clear to me that the path I'm tracing is older than me, and that it is tended by more than me alone. This is where that trust muscle comes in, both to flex and then to rest. This is trust-work. Although actually, for me this is trust-work. The path exists and the cycle continues even if one doesn't trust it. For me, though, this path is a place where I feel safe to rest, as if on a park bench off to the side, watching the other wayfarers from my amiable silence, before something in me stirs and I find myself on my feet again.

Asperger's has left me without some of the internal wiring that neurotypical folks have. I actually kind of love the experience of this. Things inside me move, and I don't find out until later. I don't mind. By reducing the scope of awareness without reducing the overall function, my experience of living as myself becomes one of wonder. On a bad day, it's bewilderment. On a good day, it's joy.

I don't mind. :)

Originally posted at https://lightward.com/journal/thecyclecontinues