“Political visions are fragile. They appear—and are lost again. Ideas formulated in one generation are frequently forgotten, or repressed, by the next; goals which seemed necessary and realistic to progressive thinkers of one era are shelved as visionary and utopian by their successors. Aspirations which find voice in certain periods of radical endeavor are stifled, or even wholly silenced, in others. The history of all progressive movements is littered with such half-remembered hopes, with dreams that have failed.” – Barbara Taylor, Eve and the New Jerusalem

This is why – I’m totally serious – it’s important to have proper documentation and handover protocols.

I’ve seen local music and political and journalism scenes repeatedly stuck in the same small sad loops because nobody has the foresight

Play the 100 year game.

Always plan for continuity.

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I get so disproportionately angry when people who claim to care about issues – ESPECIALLY those who moralize about it, condescend to people about it – delete their old blogposts and articles and facebook posts etc where there were significant discussions about important topics

it really reinforces for me that I cannot fucking trust anybody else to uphold and update their own shit. I have to make my own copies of everything. a decade of broken links and 404s etc, so much sound and fury signifying nothing, contributing nothing to the long game

i have a lot of feelings

so many people spend so much effort, expend so much energy, on things just to retract them, just to surrender, give up, walk away

I almost wanna say, you might as well not have done anything in the first place

but this is me being bitter i’ll admit it

because we can walk through walls

we can reshape the walls of culture

i’m heartbroken that so many of the people who accused me of not doing enough, have since stopped doing anything at all

we could’ve achieved so much more by now if they hadnt given up

nevertheless, when i’m done grieving the people who I thought were my peers, I’ll continue looking for those who actually are

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loosely, ~80-95% of one’s effort should go into passing the baton well to the immediate next player. thinking past that mostly only matters to the degree that it helps them do better. if you drop the baton, all else is lost

this principle works at many layers. “pass the baton!!” is a foundational principle of good reply game, which also applies when you’re trying to get any simple project done. you have to pass the baton to your tomorrow-self to keep going

that 2014 thread was a baton-pass from my past self that I continue to reap rewards from year after year. i in turn try to pass batons to as many other people as i can. “baton” here is a mix of- assets, insights/understandings, aesthetics. a useful, valuable, enduring inheritance

re: handover protocols, notice I say 100 year game and not 1000 or 10000 year game because that’s projecting too far beyond the reach of one’s baton (lifespan). account for the next generation and give them room to work

and we don’t even have a lot of egs of people successfully keeping shit in order for 10 years so let’s maybe get the small dominos done before we talk a big talk about bigger dominos. Big dominos can be motivating but it’s the next domino that matters