RMiddleton Monthly

What if when I posted financial support links a dozen new patrons gave small recurring donations

What if my mother was open to emotional growth

What if my gay godfather, the only adult I felt kinship with, had not died of AIDS before I was out

What if the country I live in was committed to improving the lives of all people

What if I had free healthcare

What if I sold paintings at the last major show I put on

What if a friend or family member broke the facade to have a quiet, caring conversation

What if I knew one stable, serious, caring person in a position to help who wanted to help

What if meaningful jobs were plentiful instead of the exploitative jobs I had

What if I were part of a caring community

To my friends and family: I don't know if you don't get me, or if you're scared, or you just don't get me. Maybe I offend you, or you think I'm dangerous, or you don't get me. I'm sure the truth is that you probably don't think about me very much at all. You have your own considerations. Or maybe you did reach out to me and I didn't acknowledge it. If that happened I can say that I may not have seen it. I block out a lot of incoming communication because spam and corporate dehumanization and deception actually hurts me emotionally. Maybe you're the same way and that's why you don't see me. Or maybe you're barely getting by. Maybe I annoy you. I annoy me. But as I say I figure that you have enough to keep you occupied. Why would anyone take on a problem? I wonder sometimes, do you wonder too, how people end up on the streets? Or fully dissociated? Ever since my 20s I've had recurring periods when I felt disconnected from others to the point that I imagined myself on the streets.

One mystery I contemplate is that it may be possible that others feel close to me and I don't feel close to them. Then again I'm not sure that's possible because I'm the one saying that I'm alone. So if you did think we were close here I am saying that we're not. I think it must be a matter of perspective. In an old song Howard Jones asks: What is love? And does anybody love anybody anyway? That level of questioning resonates with me, and maybe it doesn't resonate with others. I've often felt a conflict between loyalty to ideas & loyalty to people. Maybe others don't feel this conflict. Maybe they do, but few speak of it. Maybe it seems futile to ask so many questions that deconstruct societal bonds.

I watched a recent retrospective on the tv show My So Called Life, a program that might have done me some good if it had come out a decade earlier. The two bits that stuck out to me were the attitudes of the mother of the main character. For one she wanted to know “what type of family” her child's friends came from. My mom spoke like that all the time. And when her child says that she could be the one in the desperate situation that her friend is, the mother responds with angry denial, “that could never happen to you!” There is a strong belief in special status among “my people” (those I come from but feel no connection with). Bad things happen to other people. And maybe those people deserve it! This delusional thinking prevents empathy and it also causes self harm. We all will die. It might not be elegant. We all will need help. A disaster can take everything away from us in an instant. Belief in class privilege prevents planning. We all do better when we all do better. There is no one among us better than any other.

What if we acted according to that truth

What if

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Cross posted from https://dotart.blog/rmiddleton/what-if

By Rob Middleton who can be reached @[email protected] on Mastodon

Why the right wing keeps “winning”

My liberal view is a bias to like those who are different

The world's conservatives are intent on pitting us against each other

When we oppose them we lose; this is their trap.

Yes this is a rephrasing of the “must we be tolerant of intolerance?” debate. And that framing is also a forfeit from the beginning.

In short, the bulk of our communication as liberals MUST BE the promotion of fairness more than the opposition to unfairness.

But good news doesn't make the news and evil never sleeps and we MUST fight them back every day! And all of that is true. And still it is not enough. We absolutely must flood the zone with humanist messages all day every day everywhere.

https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/2021/11/the-right-wing-story-about-human-nature-is-false

By Rob Middleton who can be reached @[email protected] on Mastodon

mornings are the hardest

Mornings are the hardest because I wake up in pain, sad — and hungry. Then I remember what little food I have. Then I feel sadder.

Today I may be able to receive food at a nearby charity pantry. I thought I would describe what that's like.

First there are my own barriers to getting to the place where I can get help during the two hours that it's open. Sometimes the main obstacle is being free at the right time. The way I'm feeling lately I'm always free, home and in pain. The barrier then becomes being up to seeing human faces asking me questions. I have to go through that just to leave my building and also at the charity pantry.

A line starts to form before the food pantry opens. Waiting alone in a line with strangers, never particularly fun, is potentially less enjoyable when it's a group of the poor and hungry during a public health crisis.

When the window opens, each person waiting is asked demographic questions, that may include first name, number of persons in our household, how many are children, and how many are disabled. That's all that is asked. Yet I feel bad the whole time. I wish the questions asked were: How do you feel today? Do you know about other options for help available to you? Do you need access to medical care? You know, helping questions. Instead the questions are likely useful for the organization's finances, tax breaks or grant seeking. Sigh. Of course that's what matters. Money is the first thing on everyone's mind in capitalism, the cause of hunger.

I'm unsure whether to lie and say that there is more than just me in my household. I desperately need food. When I first went I feared being turned away as an apparently able bodied, middle aged, single, childless, white man who drives a car and has an iphone. (I don't know if you recall the Fox News frenzies over “poor” people who have refrigerators and air conditioning and tv and telephones! To receive aid in the United States one ought to be a walking corpse. This side topic deserves a future follow up on how/why I don't receive help from the State of Florida.) I usually say that there are 2 in my household and 1 is disabled. As I write this it occurs to me this allows for 2 me's! That seems right. There is a me that could work and earn money; and there is a me that cannot.

I think I need to stop. Writing may be making me less likely to get to the food pantry today. I dislike it, but it's a moment of pain for a lot of food. Usually. The supplies are unreliable. I'll take and eat anything but the easiest and best solution would be free money or grocery credit. [Yea I'm aware of “food stamps” (EBT, I think it's called) and that topic belongs in my State of Florida post if I get to that. Short answer: Remember when President Bill Clinton ended “welfare as we know it”? My ultraconservative state doesn't make it easy to receive help.]

I'll finish with links to videos I hope to talk about in the future: Atomic Shrimp, https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=H4_yAxKaLsA

& Harari discussing the need for organisms to rest, vs. the tireless computers that now guide our lives, https://youtu.be/BLP6K8xm0Kc?si=REVEkWV1cZR6dpCo&t=369

By Rob Middleton who can be reached @[email protected] on Mastodon

I see a post, a place I'd rather be. The money it would take to be there! (& the environmental harm!!)

Same video on open source mirror: https://yewtu.be/qNPbokfyotY

Realizing that I may never enjoy travel again but as a USAmerican I'm closer to that lifestyle than the majority of Earthlings. That's what Americans do not want to give up, I think. Their relative privilege. “If the world is closer to destruction than ever I may as well enjoy it.” Liberals think this! “The world has never been fair and equal, that's not my fault. Why should I suffer for things that aren't my fault?” Not realizing or believing that our privilege also gives us disproportionate power to make the world better. Maybe the Earth is closer to destruction than ever before; it's also closer to universal dignity than it's ever been. I happen to believe that greater fulfilling happiness comes from embracing humanist love for all than from trying to get as much for myself as I can.

Yet who am I to talk of happiness? I'm not so happy. I say it's because I must live amongst dehumanists while trying to be humanist. I hope to find a way to be. If and when I do I'll let you know.

cross-posted from: https://dotart.blog/rmiddleton/i-see-a-post-a-place-id-rather-be

By Rob Middleton who can be reached @[email protected] on Mastodon

I have a problem. I don't want people to do anything. I don't want people to travel. I don't want people to work. I don't want people to get married. I don't want people to expect to see me.

Allow me to close my eyes & breathe. Let me smile & think for a moment of something good: Do no harm.

I will now rephrase the above: I have a problem. I don't want people to do anything unnecessary that harms others. I don't want people to travel without taking precautions against spreading illness. I don't want people to work in jobs that harm themselves, others, and the planet. I don't want people to get married in large gatherings indoors with no health precautions. I don't want people to expect to see me unless they feel the way I do about these things.

By Rob Middleton who can be reached @[email protected] on Mastodon

Plan:

1. Make a plan. Make another plan after this one. Review and revise plans, but don't let planning prevent action.
2. Make a work needs list page. Work needs will be a list of repairs and operating expenses needed for me to make my life's calling into my life's work. Sounds grand but the list is intended to be basic. First items added will be installing a new toilet and buying a replacement lamp for my projector. [<– Hidden list & Personal needs list too]
3. Web organization. Reroute humanisso.me to Neocities. Index page “Why humanissome?” is primary work page. Make sub-directories: /Rart for my available art, including new show /Rart/Reckoning/ (Maybe make the subdir “art” or “R”? Or make multiples that redirect?) & /Rob for my writing and stuff. (Move current /index to /Rob/index.)
4. Clear my living room studio. Make a HEPA box. (Put these materials on the work needs list.)
5. Host emotion seminars. Weekly? That seems easiest. No signups. Free and open. (Donations.)
6. Finish this list later...

By Rob Middleton who can be reached @[email protected] on Mastodon

I was trained to be argumentative. Were you?

Hi, white American 50ish man here. I like to think that I've broken my reply-guy habits. It took effort to do so because my being that way was encouraged. In school and outside school I was listened to. The stronger my voice became the more I was listened to. Most, but not all, of the encouragement to be a reply guy came from women. I was raised by a single mother and I'd estimate my teachers were over 85% female. I didn't think of it this way back then, but I'd say that I was being trained to join the patriarchy. I never experienced being silenced or talked over. If anything, adults made space for me to speak. I was handed a microphone many times. I was chosen for leadership. I did not think about those who were not chosen. I just didn't think about them. I only knew my own experience. I wanted to do my best and be rewarded. I was taught that strong writing required me to express my subjective opinions unwaveringly. Theses are to be defended. I wonder how many others were trained as I was. When I look around at our foolish world, I think a lot of us were. The overconfidence of white males has been manufactured. It is difficult to unlearn. But not impossible. “Reply guying” is not simply an individual problem, it's a world view. Letting go is disorienting. Because it likely includes re-examining one's foundational stories: education and religion, tv and magazines, politics, business, famous artists, science and medicine, fathers and grandfathers. Disillusionment, anger, self pity, and nihilism can be part of the journey away from exaggerated male self regard. These dark feelings become another dysfunctional worldview to escape. I sat in cynicism a long time. I know many who are confirmed cynics. The US media seems replete with them. A commitment to finding self respect, including my lifelong practice of subjective art, led me to humanism. I was not in balance until I filled the emptiness with something. I spent years identifying myself by what I was against. There are many challenges in my life today, but knowing who I am and what I stand for is no longer one of them. I was taught a meaning of life — a patriarchal, white supremacist meaning of life. With ugly effort I tore down that brainwashing. I lived with no meaning beyond money and hedonism for a long time. But since I still was not happy, I wasn't really doing hedonism right, was I? Fortunately I lost the cushion of money and with it the ability to live in permanent distraction. (That's the desired life of most white Americans, imo.) My sensory pleasures became much simpler. Running water. Cooking. Hearing. Vision. Nature. Our inherited human culture is more significant than any financial inheritance. Having no money means dropping out of consumerism. I use the public library. I find streaming entertainment freely shared by creators. My belief in community grows. My connection to other humans increases. Humanism fills the void left by patriarchal white supremacy. More than fills. Overflows. I seek ways to spread humanism. I'll keep ya posted. ;)

By Rob Middleton who can be reached @[email protected] on Mastodon

latest stream will be up on twitch for a week:

channel: https://www.twitch.tv/humanissome the stream is bad 🙃 it has bad sound. the 1st 45ish mins are me learning how to use new software. in between i continue to advance my life philosophy. if you're interested in the topic but dislike this format, don't worry i will re-present this material again and again. i continue to hone my ideas. someday i hope to make a book or an actually good video :)

By Rob Middleton who can be reached @[email protected] on Mastodon

mid 2024 thoughts on how I can increase the benefits and reduce the harms of being online

Terms to consider: Communicate Social Media Immediate Reply guys Terminally online Algorithm AI

I am social, part of society. I cannot deny that. The food I just ate, the electricity and internet I’m using, the dwelling I’m within, the monthly $60 from patrons that was deposited today—social multipliers that expand my brief existence beyond my own capabilities.

Society depends on communication. Communicate = to share, to make common. I feel it says something about the centrality of human communications that media, a simple word meaning between, comes to be the collective noun for methods of communication between humans. Media is the force multiplier in communications. Immediate naturally means with nothing between, as in “not one moment nor thought came between something happening and being shared and being commented on.” Immediacy in media may be harmful to me, I have found: The 24/7 breaking news story with no facts. Every single human tragedy worldwide live-streamed into my psyche. Limitless distraction and entertainment. It’s easy for me to become overloaded by all these and more.

Immediacy in social media can take a form some call reply guys, quick to use up your bandwidth, attention, and time without engaging you openly. Terminally online is a related term for those whose desire for communication begins and ends online. The discourse, the memes, the one-liners are fast-paced and addictive. Who needs the real world? “Touch grass,” some say — though isn’t that a terminally-online style of response? I have great news, fortunately. There are no such people as reply guys and the terminally online. Every human being is more than what they put on the internet. Oh good, but what about the non-human forces online?

The question to ask about algorithms and AI is what is their purpose? What need or want are they fulfilling? Do the benefits justify the costs? Media is a force multiplier in human communications; algorithms and AI are force multipliers in media. Currently these powers are hoarded and they are being employed for financial gain without ethics. That sucks and I hate it. Lack of trust and sincerity in communications erodes the foundation of human society. We are seeing that clearly. In very few words here I have shown how simple and vital these connections are. We are on a fatal path.

How can I be online? I’m avoiding algorithms and AI by spending my time in the fediverse and utilizing as much free and open-source media as I can. I remove nearly all advertising from my awareness. These priorities divide me from much of society. I pay for zero streaming services, video or audio. My internet access provides me with free Max. With my public library I have access to more media than I will ever consume. This includes books, the best form of non-immediate media I know. Reading books I feel my mind strengthen. It’s a sharp contrast to the dysfunctional spiral I experience by ingesting for-profit media’s overwhelming distractions.

I like the places I hang. There’s such a trove of excellent media off the beaten path. Here are a few musical sources I enjoy (I believe all are either ad-free or the ads are not in English):

• radiofreefedi.net
• www.nts.live/infinite-mixtapes/expansions
• mkmradio.com
• player.48fm.com

All is not perfect, of course. The social and immediate aspects of being online invite imbalance. I imagine asking a helpful AI: Please construct an algorithm that enables me to interact with those open to lengthy discussion on topic {y}. When I share posts I could designate “show to everyone” or “only show to cogitators”! What a wonderful dream!

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cross-posted to: https://paper.wf/how2b/how-to-be-happy-online

By Rob Middleton who can be reached @[email protected] on Mastodon

This painting is gorgeous and I made it!

What does it take to make a statement like that? Confidence? Cockiness? No, just my eyes and my visual taste. My love of seeing colors blend, loving layers, appreciating vibrant colors alongside muddy ones. Acceptance of irregularity. Fantasy. Sensuality. Openness. I love orange, I love pink. I love gold, I love turquoise. I love all colors and shapes. Abstract expressionist painting... abstract because it's not a representation of any specific object or narrative, expressionist because it expresses my feelings and my values. Yes my values. I was drawn to this style of paintings in museums for years before I ever made one myself. I felt emotional therapy staring into the vague expressions another human cared to create and share with the world. The work goes on inside myself, I do not worship artists. I look at this painting that I love and do not think of it as mine. It's not about me. Well, it's about me and my feelings because I live inside me. Ugh. What I mean is that it's about the viewer. I am the viewer of my own work. But it's not about me as maker. Be the change you want to see, some say. That's what I create, in my art and my words. My previous post complained about my inability to connect with others. I intend to expand on that. Then I thought I want to include my art in my posts. And here we are.

[current soundtrack while writing: mkmradio broadcast radio from Paris, free with occasional ads and announcements in French | changed during next paragraph to Miles Davis It Never Entered My Mind followed by the John Coltrane album Giant Steps]

What does it take to make & share art like that? Maybe confidence or cockiness, I don't know. There is a boldness to pointing at something and saying: I made this great thing from nothing except my hands and imagination. Besides that I do not profess to have any skill. Others can express opinions on the quality of my work if they want. I've been complimented on my facility with color. I say all it takes is being willing to do it. I don't know why others do what they do but as long as they don't hurt anyone I'm fine with it. Art is different because I'm not producing an income. I am not supporting myself. I said above that making & sharing my art may take boldness, but that's not how I feel. I feel humility. This is all I have to offer.

I switched my music accompaniment to jazz because I have compared my style of visual art to jazz. When I put out a finished piece I want it to be a harmony of discord. Conflict and resolution within the same small space. This work is my emotional therapy. The values I wish to promote are acceptance of more than we can comprehend. More than acceptance—appreciation, maybe even love.

I love my art. That's why I make it. I do live in a world surrounded by my own art. If I could afford originals I would live among the works of JMW Turner, Miró, Helen Frankenthaler, Cy Twombly, ... What am I saying? I like mine as much. Haha. Anyway I wouldn't want to hoard expensive art as commodity. There are TONS of artists whose work I enjoy, and many more I would love that I will never know of. I do appreciate being able to go into museums and experience our shared human heritage of art. But fame distresses me. I keep coming back to my baseline belief that I want all humans to share a good minimum standard of living. After that, rich folks can do whatever they want. I'll be happy with my art. Until that day comes there are many ways to support me.

Thanks!

I never got around to saying what I started to say. There's always a future post. I want to talk about distraction; what I consider my life's work to be; why friendships frustrate me—simple, annoying stuff like that.

By Rob Middleton who can be reached @[email protected] on Mastodon