billions of tiny actions that cascade

oh, I'm an ant

I was listening to a You Are Good podcast episode recently. One of the hosts, Alex, said something like, whenever I have an epiphany about myself or my life, I now understand it will be at least one full calendar year before I'll be able to do anything about it. He laughed, the guests laughed, and I laughed, surprised at how hard that resonated with me.

Below is an unedited journal entry of mine from June 24th, 2024.

It has been more than one full calendar year since this epiphany, and I am finally capable of doing something about it.

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🔄 extraction + contribution (oh, I’m an ant) | June 5th 2024

“Extraction.

Extraction as a background cultural norm of capitalism, and

Extraction in spirituality and creativity: you have to be reciprocal, you have to offer something in return. You can’t take take take.

From this week’s Chani reading:

“There’s so much good in this new moon—I’m in awe of it—and also…we’re going to get completely curtailed by a reality check. Which is actually good…

It’s important that we know the boundaries and the parameters within which we can create. Because within this incredibly dystopian version of capitalism (that isn’t even capitalism) we learn, or we are taught, that more is better, and extract everything you can from everything and anyone in order to get ahead. That is the baseline of business in this economy / world.

So I love a boundary. I love a restriction. I love a reality check. Because that’s how actual abundance can occur.

If I just taketaketaketaketake everything from something, that thing is no longer going to thrive. It’s going to perish. And then, that’s actually a lack of resource, a lack of connection, a lack of abundance. So I think the system we live within that is focused on ‘growth at all costs’ is the antithesis of abundance.

So I’m going to go into this new moon with that kind of mindset. Is there reason to think that our enthusiasm will be a little squashed with this new moon setup? Yes, totally. That’s also okay. I wanna know the facts, the data. I wanna know the scope, I wanna know the terrain. I wanna know the confines that I can create within, and then I can go wild. Give me the rules, and I’ll figure out all the ways that I can break them, work within them—and all the ways in which they’re actually really helpful.”

In yesterday’s listen to Witch School, Chapter 1: Omisade Burney-Scott on the How to Survive the End of the World podcast [adrienne and Omisade are talking about when you forget to care for yourself, how to “source” in witchy practices to be able to keep living]:

"So much of what sourcing looks like in this world, in our generation, is deeply, debilitatingly, extractive.

Whether it’s sourcing from our mother earth, whether it’s sourcing from other people who we say we want to be in relationship with, but we don’t know how to do that in a reciprocal way—but we’re getting what we need and there’s almost an unconsciousness [about it]. And if there is a consciousness, it’s like, ‘well, how will I ever get what I need from someone else when they give it to me so freely?’

So if we’re going to source, it has to be done with the reciprocity of an intentional, spiritual reciprocity. I am not going to go out in your backyard, or my backyard, and snatch up something out the ground with out making an offering. And that offering’s not just like, ‘thanks for the grass!’ It’s like, ‘I’m thankful for this grass growing. I ask that this grace is replaced, and is replenished, and that I don’t do any harm in taking this grass.’ And I ask, ‘Can I take this grass?’ And sometimes they like, don’t take that. no. not now.

And that’s the witchy goal—to be able to move in the world with a resplendent light that has been replenished by what you offer.”

→ a resplendent light that has been replenished by what you offer.

→ we love a boundary. we love a restriction. we love a reality check. because that’s how actual abundance can occur.

If I just take to replenish, I drain the life force of the thing.

But if I offer something while I take something to replenish, I make abundance possible.

Limitations show us how to thrive. don’t go past this point, or you will drain the life force.

Parameters activate our creativity. you have to get creative when your resources are limited, finite.

Scarcity says: resources are finite so take as much as you can as fast as you can.

Boundaries say: resources are finite so be as generative and creative as possible with what is here—so we can all keep living.

It’s this feeling I have, like I’m not allowed to have new knowledge until I’ve shared what’s been given to me?

…oh yeah, contribution!

It’s not about needing to have the solution—

—it’s about making a contribution.

There is no one, innovative, forward thinking, or correct individual who will make the change.

There is no one, correct, well-timed action to take to make the change.

It is the billions of tiny actions that cascade.

[Remembering the chapter about Cells in A Short History of Nearly Everything’s audiobook last night.]

I make the cascade possible by letting myself admit my smallness. By getting over how tiny in scope my silly little life is. By understanding that the tiny IS the big choice. Because if we did that, we’d come conscious-face to conscious-face with the many times we ignored the big impacts our tiny choices made, to avoid discomfort.

I care for myself by making an offering to others. A boundaried offering. Not something beyond my capacity; something fully aware of my capacity. May I have this strawberry? Thank you for your generosity. Today I can offer you water.

I’ve always resonated with that way some spiritual people describe themselves— ‘a channel.’ Keep the channel open.

Lately I feel like a one-sided channel. A vacuum. A bottomless pit. How do I shake the lessons I’ve learned to consume? To take someone’s offering, knock it back like a shot of tequila, slam the glass down, and snort, “Another!” ?

How do I stop treating ideas like entertainment?

I’ve thought about humans like ants for a long time; seems like our purpose is to pass information along to each other. And we’re doing that: social media, news outlets, cities, books, shows, art.

But I can sense this hard-to-describe difference between

→ the transfer of particular ideas as an offering, a gift, a contribution meant to help make change

and

→ the transfer of any idea with speed, with virality, who cares what the idea is, just keep it moving!!!

I think I’ve stopped participating in the idea-transfer all together, because I got freaked out by the automatic, urgent, frenetic pace of the viral sharing we’re doing: CONTENT KEEP SHARING JUST KEEP GOING IT DOESN’T MATTER WHAT THE MESSAGE IS THAT’S NOT THE POINT JUST SAY IT AND KEEP IT MOVING THE POINT IS TO KEEP MEDIA MOVING AS FAST AS WE CAN IT’S ALL CONTENT

…so I got overwhelmed, stepped out of the information line, stepped aside, fell quiet, trying to understand what feels wrong about all this.

But I’m a little ant. My cells want to pass along ideas and information. I want my neighboring ants to feel the warmth and exhilaration of being handed the next idea, so they can pass it along, so we can make a contribution to change, so we can build a world together.

There are ants who have generously gifted me their knowledge, their questions, their ideas—and that’s where the lives of those ideas have ended. I’ve taken them in, but not passed them on. Because I stepped out of the communication line, of course. I haven’t passed them on, because I haven’t been able to tell the difference between the pervasive, cultural WHO CARES THE SPEED OF THE SHARING IS THE POINT and I was gifted this particular knowledge, and I’d like to freely pass it onto you to do with what you can.

It is true; no reason to gaslight myself. My senses were not wrong: Right now our little ant colony is rewarding those of us who pass anything along as fast as they can.

We’ve incentivized the speed of the passage of information—any information, so long as we dispose of it quickly—and that’s causing all kinds of problems for us. It’s Top-Ranked Search Results and hold on, where did you hear that? and make sure it’s SEO friendly and don’t wait, just start making content today! and yesterday I saw this tweet and fake news and this one trick western medicine doesn’t want you to know and AI summaries of entire books instead of books and conspiracy theories and arguing in the comments because this person’s digital self holds alternate facts to your facts—and how could there possibly be alternate facts???

But I’m an ant. And an artist; a writer, at that. My soul is over-saturated. I’m like a sponge that has soaked in all the water it can—I can’t absorb any more until I’ve been wrung out and dry. If I don’t make an offering, I can’t have any more knowledge. My entire skill set is built around the spread of idea seeds, asking questions that help people shape-shift when they’re stuck, and the curation of knowledge to make it digestible. Ideas that were gifted freely to me cannot be not allowed to wither within me.

May I find the courage to open the channel and share the knowledge that’s worth sharing with my fellow ants."

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It has been more than a full calendar year since I had that epiphany—and I am finally capable of doing something about it.

In the 18 months since my sabbatical from being a Person on The Internet, so. much. has. happened. Too much in the world; so much in my life. Grief and nightmares and accelerations, but art-making and growth and resistance and hope-finding, too. Too much to recap, of course.

If you made it this far, expect my upcoming Substack posts to look a bit different than they did two years ago. They'll be shorter than this; less like essays and more like my messy galaxy brain. Joyful info-dumping, digital gardening, and journaling in response to Idea Seeds, stuff like that.

As my Past Self (apparently) said, it’s not about needing to have the solution—it’s about making a contribution. Ideas that were gifted to me freely cannot be allowed to wither within me.

So I won't let them. 😊

Sending love to everyone in the gap between their epiphany and their ability to do something about it, ​

​—Alexis

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PS: Nothing I have to say is as important as fighting to stop the starvation and genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. If you live in the US, like I do, join me in demanding to Block the Bombs (as of this writing, H.R. 3565 has not been voted on yet) and in taking EVERY opportunity we can to end our complicity in this nightmare. Love y’all.