numbness
Note: you can listen to the podcast version here.
Numbness is defined as ‘depriving one of feeling or responsiveness’.
This deprivation, or unresponsiveness, is at the heart of the ecological crisis : it blocks our ability to feel and act.
In conscient e171 kimberly skye richards - dept of utopian arts & letters Kim observes that:
The other one that I talk about a lot or think a lot about is processes of numbing in relation often to the denials that we hold because of the magnitude of the crisis that we're facing and our complicities within it and so being vulnerable, showing up with more of ourselves is absolutely part of that numbing and it's hard work and it's uncomfortable work and it can feel so messy but for me that's one of the roles that artists play within the poly-crisis is supporting us through processes of numbing. Sometimes we might describe it as like re-tuning of senses, the kind of listening exercises and sound exercises that you offer would be part of that and all of that too is about undermining the ways that we are taught mastery, to master ourselves, to not show emotions, to kinda disconnect our heads from our bodies so that we work more efficiently within the capitalist paradigm…
Yahya (aka Semzyiri) also mentions numbness in e186 yahya aka semzyiri - collective liberation as planetary right that:
Art is something that really bypasses our walls, our numbness and our overstimulation.
Which leads me to think and to question :
How can artists unnumb themselves?
How can we re-tune our senses?
How can we reconnect body and mind?
How can we under-stimulate our surroundings?
I don’t have any magic solutions to these questions, but I have discovered possible 3 paths towards unnumbing for your consideration :
In my previous a calm presence posting, adjusting the volume, I quote Nate Hagens, in The 20 Control Knobs for a Post-Growth Future, who observes that :
What if we purposefully turn the ‘control knobs’ in our own lives to shift how we approach a post-growth future by embracing reality - instead of unrealistic tech solutions - redirecting our focus towards deeper interconnection with community and local systems? Which control knobs might we turn to fill our hearts and lives with goodness, awe and wonder?
Unnumbing by adjustment.
In e22 westerkamp – slowing down through listening composer Hildegard Westerkamp observes that:
We need to allow for time to pass without any action, without any solutions and to just experience it. I think that a slowdown is an absolute - if there is any chance to survive - that kind of slowing down through listening and meditation and through not doing so much. I think there's some hope in that.
Unnumbing by slowing down.
Finally, a third path, Alan Urban, in The #1 Reason I Became A Doomer observes that :
I don’t know how my life is going to end, but I’d rather go out helping people than hurting people. As Michael Campi wrote, “What if we did things not for points, or rewards, or recognition but for the sheer joy that comes from making someone else happy for a moment? That’s all that’s left to us.” He’s right. We’ve already lost everything else. All we can do now is wait for the end and try to be a source of comfort and strength for those around us.
Unnumbing by comforting.
Note: the music in this episode is from my 2018 soundscape composition simplesoundscapes afield 2 (Pushing. Hearing. Outwards.)