I changed my mind very quickly, but I still find lovely aspirations in the idea. I love lakes. I love ethical leisure. I think it’s good to have goals even if after you reach them the goal posts inevitably move. I think it’s good to reach for the unreachable.
I don’t think it’s good to measure. We’ve been doing a lot of rock measuring to build our wall, and frankly I’m not sure how useful it has been. It gives a false confidence. “Oh this is thirty inches? It ought to fit,” but then it doesn’t. One big fact can’t prove anything about anyone. It can’t decide what will fit or what kind of person you’ll become. You decide who you are. The rock decides how snugly it will rest. You decide who I am (to you) and the state decides who you are (to it). Listen to none of them. Decide not to measure. Hurl the rock at the wall and see what happens. It might work or it might not but it’s a better idea, a better life, because it’s fluid, sticky, and truer to the disarray of our beautiful, ever-changing biosphere. I’m not going to measure my life. I’m not even going to try.
We’re feeling and our feelings are fluid and often undefinable. We’re being. We’re dreaming – a lot – and even in nightmares there is some joy. I don’t want to be cruel even if it’s deserved.
Today I started my fourth growth cycle, only the second using Reishi. I also learned that Reishi is invasive to the Hudson Valley meaning I am harboring a fugitive, a known killer, in my cabin. Surrounded by some of the most pristine forests in New York, I am building a bomb. And worst of all, I am building this bomb for pleasure. “Queer art” is a psyop. We do this shit because of the euphoria and dopamine it produces. Fishing is my passion. Trophy hunting for my birthday. I had the landscaper plant Japanese Barberry in the garden because its piss-yellow flowers are so beautiful, to me, in spring. Art is selfish and, unfortunately, data illustrates that I don’t give a fuck about native fauna.
But I do. None of this is true. My bomb is accidental (still unforgivable) and now I know to be extra careful, extra sterile, and extra quiet as I pour my chemicals. The next grow cycle, assuming I allow myself to have one, will be with native fungi. Even backwards progress is progress, but damn it’ll hurt to regress. Art doesn’t need to be protected if it’s violent, invasive, and persistent (goes double for “Queer art”). I hope I never stop, but I also hope the bomb doesn’t erupt.
We are asked to do a lot we normally wouldn’t like to do. We do it sometimes, but we really shouldn’t. Be a leader. Find moral clarity where you can. If you can’t, keep looking. Keep changing, and keep your values close and unequivocal. Shifting and growing stronger.
That’s meaning to me…maybe. Meaning isn’t in measuring…certain.