A vision 2019-05-03 https://open.spotify.com/track/5dDGk0ZVVg11IF5ZC8eElS I have a vision. It’s a vision of apocalypse. A peaceful apocalypse. I’m away, on land far from the crowds of a city. A brilliant sky blazes overhead, particles in the atmosphere reflecting sunlight to create a dazzling, otherworldly, red-and-pink sunset. I work the land, and work with the land. It is my friend and partner. I serve it and it cares for me. I have a garden with no edge. No fence distinguishes that land which I care for from that land which I do not. I grow food: carrots, potatoes, garlic, tomatoes, and corn. I harvest berries from planted bushes and wild mushrooms from the forest. I touch the small leaves of plants I’ve nurtured in the same tender way I would caress one hand with the other, with the same attentive care I’d extend to a loved one. Each night, my body is tired. I watch the sun set and the dusk sweep up from the low-lying fields to the treetops. With the falling of the sun, I too fall. I can make light, of course. Solar power abounds, battery banks hold untold energy. A stationary bike can convert that same sun’s light to electricity, just by a more meandering path—first growing plants which I eat to fuel my pedaling. A wealth of components fills storehouses, waiting to be reassembled into useful things, perhaps a lamp or flashlight. But dusk signals time for sleep. I use tools. Climbing into a tractor, I feel my nerves extend through its metal support structure. I can feel the way the wheels slip against the sandy ground, the way they sink in the mud. My hands integrate with the controls. They providing subtle commands by nudging the levers this way and that, and they get minute feedback from the vibrations in the hydraulics and the sounds of the compressor. My body becomes my brain, the tractor becomes my body. I am strong and clumsy, I roll and push and lift. I sit on a motorcycle, set out across packed dirt and cracked pavement. Each limb takes on a new function: Right hand accelerates and brakes, left foot changes gears, thumb operates switches, hands signal, body leans and balances. I feel the ground’s texture and tilt under my wheels. Fuel courses through me. I open an internal valve allow it into my engine, I jump ahead. I clamp down on my brake-disk, I slow to a halt. And when I dismount, I unentangle from that machine-body. My nerves retract back to my fingertips. My legs walk again, my hands swing by my side. I am limited to slow speeds, but now I can navigate hills and rocks. My horn is gone, but in the quiet air I can shout. I am machinery. My body is a tool my mind uses to travel. I am a fractal mech operator. I reside inside my skull and give precise orders to my hands and feet. At the same time, I reside at the controls of a car and give orders to my gearbox, engine, windshield wipers, and headlights. There’s nothing special about my flesh-body in the same way that there’s nothing holy about that car. I can modify my bodies as I need to. I make clothes, wear shoes, replace my AC compressor clutch, implant magnets in my fingertips, take drugs, change my oil, wear a watch, change my tire, self-implant RFID tags, and get tattoos. I make things that are beautiful. I make beautiful things just because they are beautiful. I’m alert to the feeling of possibility—that potentialness, that vacuum of action. It pulls me toward itself, demanding I fill the space with process and result. It demands I experiment, inspire, iterate, create. I drift and soar on the currents of possibility like a plastic shopping bag in a parking-lot-thermal or a cottonwood tuft in a breeze. I am not alone. Crucially, I am not alone. I live in community. There would be no chance any other way. I know who surrounds me. I understand each person’s skills and needs. I help when I’m called, and I know who to call for help. I jolt awake, the sun is up. It looks beautiful. Dew glints off spiderwebs in the grass. Later, I’m sitting on a gentle hill. It’s that moment again just before a proper sunset begins. Misty clouds drift in from the East. It’s not so dry today. I lean against the gravestone beside me. “Good enough” is very good. My name is decided by the people who call me by it. https://open.spotify.com/user/_qubist/playlist/7iMd92ZLiEsnY2eKdAtWM2