Systemic Constipation

Modern/colonial internal cognitive/affective/relational infrastructures

[the “shit” we have inherited that colonizes our unconscious and constipates our imagination]

Dominion and triumph

Of humans over nature

Of men over women

Or women over men

Of white over Indigenous/Black/brown

Of Indigenous/Black/brown over white

Of cis-hetero over trans-queer

Of trans-queer over cis-hetero

and so on and so forth…

Ownership

Of land

Of human bodies

Of other species

Of others’ labour

Of merit

Of capital

Of pride

Of privilege

Of delusions of superiority

Of own brand and carefully crafted self-image

Consumption

Of stuff

Of knowledge/information/data

Of critique/erudition/credentials

Of experiences

Of relationships

Of outrage

Of love and care

Of arts and politics

Of beauty and pain

Of community and intimacy

Entitlement

To self-expression

To self-satisfaction

To authority, autonomy and arbitration

To moral high-grounds

To validation and affirmation

To possessions and possessiveness

To emotional extraction

To relational exploitation

To intellectual masturbation

Demands

For self-congratulatory

For self-celebratory

For self-promoting

For self-affirming experiences

For reality curated to one’s liking

For certainty, comfort and control

For attention, likes and dopamine

For buffering, soothing, numbing and coddling

For self-actualization and self-realization

For easy formulas and quick fixes

For pleasure-filled idealizations

Birthrights

Self-interest

Self-centredness

Exceptionalism

Complacency

Escapism

Arrogance

Innocence

Purity

Futurity

Impunity

Indulgence

Immunity and indifference

…to harms inflicted and one’s metabolic entanglement

right, left and centre (as well as in critical, radical, transgressive, new age and regenerative “alternatives”).

Questions:

What do these patterns render unintelligible and/or unimaginable?
How do these patterns impair our cognitive, affective and relational landscapes?
How do these patterns affect the scope and quality of our relationships and relationship building?
What cognitive, affective infrastructures could transition us out of these patterns – not as substitution/replacement, but as a practice of composting that can turn shit into new soil?
Would you be able to create another list-poem that gestures towards more generative possibilities of being without reproducing these patterns?
How could the recognition of these patterns and the difficulties of composting them serve as leverage for an initiation into a way of being grounded on emotional sobriety, relational maturity, intellectual discernment and intergenerational responsibility?