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NEW COLUMN! THE BLISS OF THE SPAM

Naughty political poetical observations, collected monthly and inspired by the voices of the many.

  • Feb 01 2021
  • Dalia Maini
    is a writer, editor and urban mermaid.

The joy of being forgotten /missing out on purpose/going out poorly dressed/the right to stay in silence/melting in tears at work/speak a shitty english/ have multiple souls/have sex every night, but a broken heart/read poetry while cooking/being poor but with a lot of friends/ water your plants with the pee of your cat/being bold and shy/inventing every month a new word/be the storm/share your tools/don't share/think about the others/hate yourself/deliver kindness/rise your hand/ take a risk every day/close yourself in the room/care a lot/don't give a fuck/R A N D O M N E S S/shape a path to joy/don't walk on it/rethink what joy is/synthetic freedom/un pezzo di pizza /being unproductive/feel the excitement /being super depressed/read 3 books per week - no idea who wrote them /being in crisis/coping with the outern spread crisis of everything/a blue monday/too many addictions/recognize the structures/recognize the models/recognize they are made up/recognize you can imagine the opposite/recognize you are not alone/recognize you are part of the spam 

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WELCOME TO THE BLISS OF THE SPAM #22: CLOSE YOURSELF IN THE ROOM

Dear dear you,

We hope you have a physical, secure, room where to shelter and there is kindness and solidarity within the walls you inhabit. Now, let’s clarify something in order to start building together these conditions for everyone. If you can retire in your rooms it’s because you can benefit from a certain grade of privilege. We hope that this time of deep precarity has made you understand the importance of a shelter as a basic right for everyone.

Now let's start our journey.

Virginia Woolf stated that one needs a room of her own in order to claim space in society, and history has taught us that sometimes places of constrictions can be spaces of revolution. The cave has been a matrix of knowledge, the hold of the ship, room of conspiracy, a filthy bar headquarter of the Avant Gardes, the after school detention lifelong bonding, the prison inspiration of political writings.  

Contrarily, the neoliberal doctrine has taught us that all we need to pursue is independence and we can gain it free of any bonds, except those of the market.
It is out there and go catch it with all your meanings.
While we try to juggle between the many duties which serve to shape contemporary life, speed rules our days, sucking profits from our bodies and no time is given to us to ponder upon our true needs. We are ready to run after constant progress and strive for assertivity, while remaining stuck in the state of precarity. Restlessness disorients us and as dummies we collide in competition. The result is the chase of an unclear future, where the polarity of choices is DOING OR DYING.

We bet you must be exhausted from all this, aren’t you?

 

Graphic by Ben Triesto

 

Our project is to leave aside restlessness for a while in order to focus on what needs to be done. If you can afford a different pace, closer to steadiness, please consider adopting it. Indeed, slowing down doesn’t necessarily imply misery and boredom, but a posture of healing, self-reflection and composure. It reveals a different perspective, shedding light on the tensions of the environment, the nuances hidden by speed, the people you want to stay with. What if now, when everything is already quieter, we train ourselves to stay put? What if we could save the remaining agency and give ourselves to deceleration in order to plan a strategy of collective well-being? 

In her The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt marked the difference between loneliness and solitude: the first makes us sad and detached, while the latter gives us the opportunity to work alone while still being able to feed on human connection—makes us think.  Although we are bodies of time and connections, we also need solitude in order to be in company better. 

Dear bliss, please, pick a hidden thought, and hold visible for once what you are trying to repress. Admit to yourself that you are tired, that the state of things is wearing you out. Close yourselves in the room as protest and accept to spend some time on your own. Make place in your room for a space that doesn’t exist yet: A think-tank for collective dissatisfaction.

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Thomas More, in his Utopia, attributed human struggles to the abundance of  horrible creatures who prey on human beings, snatch away their food, or devour entire populations, but lack an adequate social planning to deal with them. 

Well, everything is armed for us where struggles stand, therefore we need time to grow thicker skin, shield those who are in danger, become accountable for our own choices, more prepared and less restless planners for the future. We want you to shelter in and your perspectives, so that the closure, fear, alertness and anger of the now are not wasted, so that uncertainty can flourish as an alternative. 

You can start by exercising to walk the border of your thoughts, draw a blueprint of your house, outline a constellation of your habits, map a cartography of social institutions, and acknowledge what really PISSES YOU OFF. Then carve inside of those spaces a room for dissatisfaction and sit within it for a while. It will lead you to desire to fight for a different pace, to crave new politics. There are many urgent questions to be faced, threatening clumsy monsters to befriend, and we sure have many potential comrades to embrace. You are in your room but not isolated: be far-sighted and think broader than your own personal dissatisfactions. Try to focus on that and think of a strategy to shelter and involve someone else’s struggle.

Don’t you feel more motivated to take action together after resting more than one limb?

Now more than ever we encourage you to be ready to take a different position and to stand together, in one of those many worlds we need to start to inhabit.

We would be happy to make room for you in the spam.
Come down to us.

fondly, your TBOTS

 

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