#ostensibly identifying problems is the first step to solving them

[cogitoergoetc]

What's Wrong With America? And Other Broadly Satisfying But Unhelpful Generalizations.

Too fuckin' big.

In an entirely literal way. It is a giant swath of land that, for much of its history, has encouraged people who are not happy in one place to just go somewhere else. (That there were often people there already is vital to mention, but not relevant to this specific point about modern infrastructure, because the current implementation prioritized destroying and replacing previous infrastructure as step one.) So you end up with a widely-distributed network of enclaves of very different cultural and philosophical makeup. Not homogeneous, of course, but trending towards certain things.

But, crucially, the resources, of the sort that communities devour to grow, are also widely distributed. That means that, ostensibly, no one community can exceed a size comparable to their surroundings, resource-wise. But if everyone works together, those resources can then be spread out in a way such that everyone gets bigger than they could alone. Over time, major hubs of resource distribution, the ones on the easily navigable places (and mostly on the coasts) got huge, as the infrastructure needed to handle distribution got more and more demanding. Meanwhile, communities based in areas rich in a few specific resources had no real need to complicate their existing structures in the way that distribution hubs do, and benefit from being, instead, able to handle a vast amount of throughput for those few things. They are thus incentivized to multiply. Lots and lots of communities no larger than necessary to get the most out of the largest area of land feasible.

And all this was happening in very early days, before the US was even a thing. This is just how it was growing outwards anyway when the decision was made to really go all-in on this resource distribution network thing.

The cities grew and grew, and as a necessity of expanding the infrastructure for distribution, the populations swelled tremendously, and rapidly began demanding both that you all get comfortable with strangers, and that you get comfortable with people who are nothing like you, because you need a whole lot of both to make a city work. (The second one took a while to ramp up, because people tend to be people about everything, you know how we are.) They are tasked with intaking resources, combining them as needed, and sending them out to the various small communities, on an incomprehensible scale.

The towns multiplied and multiplied, each of them generally having only their immediate neighbors as a source of easily-curtailed points of contact. This meant that, ostensibly, neighbors were on the same page about things, but could opt out at any time. The result is a system that aggressively selects for large clusters of similar cultural and philosophical makeup. Past a certain point, a lot of it wasn't even intentional, because culture left to itself flourishes in its own way, and one of the facets of that is the instinctive pushback against outside cultures is very much a systemic response.

And all this? In a country that's real fuckin' big. So when the distribution of resources is suboptimal, in a way that it constantly is in a juggling act of this size, every community has reason to feel like they are ill served by a system that they know for sure they are paying their fair share into. That is an easier explanation to motivate change than "sometimes shit gets fucked up" during a shortage of a critical resource, and the people around you that you can see and therefore regularly identify as real people are suffering.

So what you end up with is a giant fucking wodge of land that is full of an astonishing number of people, in communities that are actually remarkably far away from each other, all of them feeling uniquely disadvantaged by the system they're in's inherent entropy. And one type of community has been very intensely incentivized to select their specific culture and push back on anything else, while another is more used to close proximity with different cultures and is inclined to try to balance them for maximum functionality.

Then let this shit run right into WWII, when it rapidly built up a truly enormous industrial economy on top of this whole system that it didn't end up having to use most of. Now all the entrenched positions have had a new element of this resource web introduced en masse, and it significantly alters the dynamics of it way faster than entrenched behaviors can keep up. Every dynamic of this system, already creaking under the strain, kicked into ridiculous overdrive. And every single community is so fuckin' far away from each other that it is a near-certainty that they will all lose touch with the others, find it difficult to think about them as anything but abstract. Both kinds are susceptible to it, but one kind benefits from being built around a multicultural lens that seems to make it easier to imagine what the distant others are thinking, whereas the other is almost purpose-built to discourage those same thoughts.

The remarkable thing is not that someone saw an opportunity here to push the latter's worldview into full-on dehumanization of the Other on a massive scale. It's that, somehow, remarkably, it took this long to get this bad.

The other remarkable thing is that, with not actually a lot of setup, when you let mold grow on an appropriately resource-laden topographical map, it does pretty close to the same thing. No one's tried to test it with just an actual US recreation, to my knowledge. Too scared, maybe. I would be.

Postscript, for clarity: this is not asserting an inviolate fact about rural communities, or urban communities, or any of the people therein. I am saying this is how it played out in this circumstance. I am also saying that, as much as we'd like to believe our decisions are made solely by our conscious minds, they are far more susceptible to cultural forces than anyone cares to admit.

It helps if you think of cultures, not as abstracted things, but living things. Simple organisms that prioritize growth, consume whatever they can to achieve it, respond aggressively to perceived threats to that growth, and never think about the cells that make them up at all.

Now is one of the times that it is hardest to accept the sheer power of these factors. I'm having a rough time myself. But it's important, whenever possible, to give as much grace as you can, if not an iota more. We are all struggling against the titans whose bodies we compose.

[hypnoticwinter]

Issues with Down the Rabbit Hole

It is my fervent belief that if you’re a writer, the most important thing you need to do, rather than listening to any sort of outside criticism, is to think about the most important problems you can identify within your own story and consider how they arose and what steps you might need to take to fix them. It’s important to feel confident in your own writing, and generally I do, but that doesn’t mean that everything I write is automatically gold, even in my own opinion. For example, here are some issues I can see with Down the Rabbit Hole.

1. Roan doesn’t have a very good motivation to actually travel to Gumption to begin with. The reason for this is really simple - I felt like it’d be a little too predictable if the only reason she went down was in order to get ballast in order to cure her HIV. I think Roan is definitely more realistic if the reason she decides to investigate the Pit is because she’s running from her problems rather than trying to solve them, but I think I need to sell it more in that first chapter - which obviously means that the solution is simple: just spend more time on her reasoning in that first chapter.

2. The HIV angle might be a little contrived? I’ll admit that I did not actually know a ton about HIV before I wrote this, although since I had the idea I have done quite a bit of research. Medically that part of the story is a little bogus but I think it’s believable enough, especially considering humans can be allergic to practically anything; used to know someone who was allergic to turkey of all things. The disease is mainly used as a way to show how Roan grows throughout the story through her reactions to and interaction with the concept of her having it. I’m not sure how much of a problem this is but I need to do more research and decide whether it’s an angle I want to keep or swap out for something else like cancer or something else like that.

3. Roan joining the ranger team is extremely contrived. Simple solution, though - just give Makado a better reason to ask Roan to do it. I think part of the issue is the CIA angle - realistically they’d want one of their own people there. As far as that goes, just get rid of them and make it be something in-house and they’d be much more willing to have someone ostensibly from admin, especially with a background in film, to take over. Combine that with some sort of emotional appeal from Roan and it’ll fly, I think.

4. Peter fades into the background when Roan joins the rest of the ranger team. I think the problem here is just not running with it enough - have Roan be more broken up about Peter finding all of his old friends on the team and wanting to spend more time with them. There was a little thread of a developing interest between them and I think ignoring that, especially once Roan finds out Peter’s gotten back together with Makado, is a mistake. Alternately, get Roan to become more interested in Peter now that she’s drank the ballast and thinks she’s gotten rid of the HIV? This would require Makado to be more emphatic and less ambiguous about whether the ballast would actually cure it. Then you could have tension between Peter and Roan and Elena during the trip and then someone could die at the end and you could have plenty of drama there. I think that’s probably the direction I’ll end up going in but it’ll require some rewrites. Something to worry about for the ebook version once I’m finished writing the first draft.

5. THERE’S TOO MUCH LESBIAN SEX IN MY DAMN MYSTERY FLESH PIT FANFICTION. This is a problem of pacing, not volume. I think Roan and Elena’s relationship is fairly believable and organic, the problem is that I’ve written something like 12k words straight mostly about their blossoming relationship because in order to move on with the story they need to be established. Solution’s simple - go back and dive into that three-day segment while Roan is hanging out at the barracks that I mostly skipped over and have the relationship start at the beginning of that, rather than the end. That way the relationship is more of an interlude and less of an interruption. This will require significant rewrites but for the moment the story works fine, it’s just a little lumpy. Just have to go back and do it again. We’re looking at maybe 12k words of rewrites, which is small potatoes for a 120k+ word story. The material itself isn’t bad, just the pacing of it.

Identifying an issue in your story doesn’t mean that the story’s bad or that you need to start over or give up - it just means that you need to be conscious of how to fix it and have a plan of when and where to start fixing.

[nothingman]

In June, a crowd of over 400 sex workers, activists, organizers and allies convened across from the Stonewall Inn to celebrate International Whore’s Day. Sex workers, who belong to a criminalized and marginalized community, gathered in celebration and in protest. Their demonstration made a statement—that, even in the face of ever-present policing and a new wave of harmful legislation, sex workers can and will gather out in the open to flex their political muscle. This was best articulated in a chant, near the end of the protest, for congressional candidate Suraj Patel.

Patel is challenging Carolyn Maloney for her 12th District seat in the upcoming New York Democratic primary. In addition to being a 25-year incumbent, Maloney is also a co-sponsor of FOSTA. FOSTA and its sister Senate bill, SESTA, were ostensibly designed to fight sex trafficking. Already, the legislation has resulted in numerous websites self-censoring, for fear that they will be held liable for “facilitating prostitution.” Rather than, say, providing resources to trafficking survivors, community organizers and sex workers report that FOSTA-SESTA has served to shut down platforms for advertising and screening clients, pushing sex workers into the streets and halting online communication and harm reduction.

Standing in the crowd of protest signs and red parasols, Patel got to hear hundreds of community members and allies screaming his name, as an organizer urged protestors to “show up for someone who stands up for us.” She continued, “Let’s show the nation you don’t need to throw sex workers under the bus to win an election.”

In a courtyard outside of his campaign offices, Patel described being completely overwhelmed by the crowd’s support. “I’m just a first-time candidate, I’m 34 years old—eight months ago I was a completely private citizen,” he told The Daily Beast. “So it’s strange to be honest with you, and a little overwhelming. A lot of people are counting on this campaign to win.”

While the hotel executive and NYU business ethics professor has gotten a good deal of press exposure for being the rare anti-FOSTA-SESTA candidate, he didn’t initially aim to align his campaign with sex workers’ rights. In fact, Patel says that he had no idea what FOSTA-SESTA was when he started out. He was quickly inundated with messages from constituents, asking him what he planned to do about his opponent’s pet bill. “Honest to God, the first few days we just ignored it,” Patel admitted. “We Googled it and were like whoa, probably don’t want to touch that, kept moving.” But as time went on, and the messages kept coming, he decided to revisit it, thinking, “Maloney’s a big champion of this thing, let’s at least look at it and see what it is.” His campaign spent two months working with various organizations, talking to sex workers and trafficking survivors, people who opposed FOSTA-SESTA and people who championed it.

���Not only are people being hurt by this, trans women especially, but it’s actually become harder to prosecute trafficking.”

“We realized there are a lot of people being hurt out there,” Patel recalled, adding, “Harm reduction is the number one principle that I want to start this campaign with. Legislating morality is way above my pay grade, and I do not plan to do it. Ever. But we have caused harm, by our own doing, and we have not solved the trafficking problem. Not only are people being hurt by this, trans women especially, but it’s actually become harder to prosecute trafficking.”

“Clearly this is like a Mike Pence-y, moralizing bill because sex trafficking isn’t even the largest form of trafficking!” Patel offered. “If we cared about trafficking, we’d talk more broadly about labor trafficking—and of course undocumented immigrants, who don’t have any recourse in the police and the criminal justice system. But we didn’t. And so clearly the motives were skewed, and Democrats fell for the trap, as they tend to often do.”

He continued, “So I think that it’s important that we offer an alternative to the actual problem they were saying they were going to solve, and then say, what you really were trying to do is moralize around sex work and stigmatize it further.”

Patel conceptualizes his fight against FOSTA-SESTA within a larger framework. He emphasized that the legislation affects “the most marginalized among us,” including but not limited to trans folks, people of color, and undocumented people. Talking about FOSTA-SESTA lends itself to a conversation about mass incarceration and harmful policing—and it is Patel’s belief that the diverse, educated, extremely liberal district he seeks to represent ought to be at the forefront of these debates. Or as he puts it, “If we don’t look at prevention instead of punishment here, across all kinds of criminal justice issues, not just SESTA-FOSTA, then who will?”

As a candidate who “plans to win,” Patel aspires to raise up the sex-worker community that has literally rallied behind him. “I get to move in places and hallways that sex workers don’t get to yet. And therefore, my allyship is one to elevate their voices, and destigmatize sex work.”

A day later, on a scorching-hot New York City Saturday, Patel was in Ridgewood trying to do just that. With Survivors Against SESTA, Patel’s campaign organized a town hall for sex workers and allies. It was billed as an opportunity for the community to ask Patel questions, share experiences and concerns, and generally hold space.

Two hundred people packed into The Dreamhouse, a DIY venue draped in chandeliers and gilded mirrors. For the event, the club was filled with chairs circling a makeshift stage. Lola, an organizer with Survivors Against SESTA, welcomed the crowd.

Thank You!

You are now subscribed to the Daily Digest and Cheat Sheet. We will not share your email with anyone for any reason.

On the phone a few days before the town hall, Lola stressed that Patel was a singular candidate. “We have a lot of conversations with various elected officials at various levels of office where they will seem to understand the issues that we talk about, and then just feel like they don’t have the political cover to support us publicly,” she explained. “And so that I think is what’s really different about Suraj, is that he’s not ashamed, and he’s actually actively and explicitly supporting the safety of sex workers.” In speaking up for sex workers, Patel has gained some vocal supporters. According to Lola, “We know a lot of sex workers who’ve canvassed for the campaign because of his positions on sex work. People have done a ton of spreading word about it on social media. I know people who registered to vote who were not previously registered to vote in Democratic primaries, just so they could vote for Suraj.”

While sex workers are still very much reeling from FOSTA-SESTA, Lola posited that the “devastating” legislation has also managed to catalyze the community: “Because of how swift that devastation was, it politicized a lot of people who weren’t previously politicized, and media also began covering the harm in such a way that in previous times sex workers weren’t really covered. So it sort of gave people more room to think about this issue critically instead of just having that immediate response of, ‘Oh, sex work is trafficking, all women are exploited, etc.’”

“Obviously we really hope that Suraj will win, we hope that he’ll be an advocate for us in Congress,” Lola concluded. “But at the end of the day, even if he doesn’t, this is a really big step in the right direction for us, because the entire campaign shows that you can support sex workers and still do OK, and actually get a really positive community response from it.”

Ceyenne Doroshow, the Founder and Director of the advocacy organization GLITS (Gays and Lesbians Living In a Transgender Society), explained why so many people were sacrificing a day at the beach to sit in a dark room in Ridgewood. “Our community is getting raped, beaten, murdered, and we have no way to defend ourselves,” she said, introducing Patel to the crowd. “Suraj, you’re our way.”

Doroshow joined Cecilia Gentili of GMHC and Womankind’s Aya Tasaki in a panel discussion that hit on the aftermath of FOSTA-SESTA and potential next steps. Gentili, who’s the Director of Policy at GMHC, “the world’s first and leading provider of HIV/AIDS prevention, care and advocacy,” spoke candidly about what she’s been seeing in the community: “Specifically right now in Jackson Heights, there’s been a tremendous number of violence against sex workers that identify as trans and are undocumented. And because they are sex workers, because they are undocumented, and because they are trans, these people are not comfortable with coming out in any kind of way.” She added that, “These people were doing sex work in their houses, in their places, and it was relatively safe for them. But because they are unable to advertise online, they have been forced to go back to the streets, where all these predators are going to them and stealing their money, violently approach them, rape them.”

“There was this girl last week that was stabbed five times. Five fucking times,” Gentili said, visibly emotional. “That’s how bad it is. That’s what SESTA and FOSTA is doing to the community.” As a transgender woman who was formerly undocumented, Gentili spoke on undocumented trans people who do sex work “because they make the decision to do, or because it’s the only thing that we can do. Because realistically, nobody offers many jobs to trans people, and there are not many jobs that a person without documented status can do here.” Trans people disproportionately engage in sex work, and are disproportionately targeted and policed for doing so. FOSTA-SESTA has only increased the danger. “I’m tired of us being stabbed, beaten, robbed, chased,” Doroshow offered. “And then we wind up being criminalized.” 

Still, Gentili offered a note of hope: “I dreamt years ago of the days when a politician was going to be with me, talking about what sex work looks like for an undocumented trans woman. And check this out: it’s happening now, and it’s happening out of struggle.”

Tasaki, Manager of Policy and Advocacy at Womankind, formerly the New York Asian Women’s Center, echoed Doroshow and Gentili’s testimonies while also offering a tip to outsiders attempting to catalogue community harm. “What we are demanded by all of these funders and politicians is like, give us numbers,” Tasaki said. “Give us all of the proof. And it’s like, just trust us. Just listen to our stories. It doesn’t seem to be enough for leaders like Ceyenne and Cecilia to be like, this is happening in my community! Somehow still, the system is requiring us to bulk that up with numbers…These are the deaths. How many more do you need for you to believe us?”

During his remarks, Patel spoke out against Congress for failing to “talk to the people who are going to be most affected by that law,” and against FOSTA-SESTA, calling it “a charade of a bill.”

“Every small-thinking politician that wants to take a bipartisan victory back home,” he continued, “can stand around Donald Trump in the Oval Office and pat themselves on the back for coming out against trafficking when all they really did was make it very difficult for lots of people in this country to survive, and made it much more likely that they would be exploited.”

But Patel urged the attendees not to be discouraged by the massive number of votes in support. If he were to defeat a 25-year-incumbent, he wagered, politicians’ sense of self-preservation would probably kick in. “If we terrify folks by saying, we’re going to vote, and we’re going to vote in large numbers, and we’re gonna organize, and we’re gonna out-organize, you’ll be surprised to see how many more doors and conference rooms start opening up to working on repealing this, or coming up with a way to dramatically restructure it so that it exempts voluntary, consensual sex work,” he said.

He went on to push back against the idea that sex work is a niche issue, or one that wouldn’t appeal to the majority of voters. Instead of “otherizing” the issue, he suggested broadening the conversation to talk about mass incarceration, and labor rights, as well as humanizing the sex workers who have been negatively affected: “Putting faces to the violence and showing that these are real people is one huge component.” Plus, he added, “There’s an estimated 10 to 20,000 sex workers in this district. Which means that there’s, who knows how many hundreds of thousands of clients in this district.”

While Patel received a lot of applause on his vision and allyship, he also got pushback. During the Q&A portion of the event, a self-identified organizer questioned if the candidate’s support of the sex-worker community would extend beyond the campaign—even if he loses. As one of the first and few politicians to come out against the legislation, would he continue to be a face of the anti-FOSTA-SESTA movement? While Patel joked that, if things didn’t go his way, he would start by engaging in a lot of “self-care,” he continued, “I’m 34 years old, and I’m not going anywhere.”

“For me this isn’t work anymore, this is just what I like to do. And because of it, I’ll be right here with you guys all the way through. That’s a promise.”

The fact that Patel, who maintains that he wants to keep hearing from the community and evolving his positions, has yet to come out in support of full decriminalization, remained a point of frustration. One attendee explained, “What you’re saying right now, it’s great, and it’s awesome, and it’s just not enough. So I need to know that you’re going to keep listening to us, and continue that learning that you’re doing.” While she thanked Patel for coming and speaking with the community, and for opposing FOSTA-SESTA, she continued, “I need to say that I am really tired of being grateful for so little.”

The event ended with another chant, something Patel’s probably gotten a little more used to by now.

“Sex workers vote,” the crowd screamed. “And we’re voting Suraj in.”

via The Daily Beast Latest Articles

[a-cup-of-polynectar]

Sublime & Silence

REBELDE AU

Word count: 5,3 k

Characters: Minah, Jane, Tara, Mark, Tyler, Daniel,

“Over the last couple of years, IMPULSE! has been making the headlines for quite stupid reasons. As the one-of-a-kind group they are, rumors run rampant about the members, their relationships and everything in between. They’ve been under the limelight, on the receiving end of so much love that is to be expected that they’re permanently subjected to the public scrutiny, with unfounded claims and hate being thrown at them left and right.”

In less than two weeks Minah Delacroix’s latest single, Sublime et silence, has become a chart-topping hit. Considering that the song is nothing like the signature sexy and upbeat tracks Minah’s fans have grown accustomed to, the hype around Sublime et Silence almost results ironic. Minah supposes she is meant to feel ecstatic about the success of her self-composed single, the praises she’s received from the critics and the positive reaction from the general public. Yet, it has almost become physically impossible for Minah to listen to her own song without feeling she’d collapse the very next second. It probably has a lot to do with the fact Minah almost met the same fate as Princess Diana when the car she was riding skidded off the road and crashed into a pillar at the entrance of the infamous Pont d’Alma or maybe it’s the guilt of having willfully ignored the problems surrounding her group and fleeing to Paris for a shopping spree with her cousin. Or maybe, —just maybe—, it is about Sungjae’s decision to leave the group that took the two of them, Tyler, Daniel, Jane and Tara to stardom on the very same day of the release of her song.

Minah is unsure if such a horrible streak of events is somewhat correlated at all, but she still avoids listening to Sublime et Silence as though the goddamned song was to blame for all the misfortunes in her life.

She’s been more or less fortunate enough to avoid hearing about it, but her luck seems to have finally worn off this morning as IMPULSE! (minus Sungjae) sit for breakfast at the kitchen counter in the girls’ apartment. The way the day begins is already prophetic. There’s no sunshine streaming through the window when Minah steps into the kitchen, causing her bandmates to immediately stop their conversation and look at her, eyes tainted with the slightest hint of concern. She brushes their unspoken concern off and distractedly repeats the weather report she heard on the TV before gathering the energy to get off the bed. It’s just a way to make conversation, to break the ice and divert the attention from any potentially hurtful news that will send her back to her room for the rest of the day, but if anything, her comment only seems to distress her groupmates even more if the way they all exchange furtive glances is anything to go by.

Breakfast is uneventful, although Minah thinks to herself that breakfast without Tyler and Daniel bickering or Jane throwing shady comments at Tyler is eventful on its own right. It’s only been two weeks, but Minah recalls the days where IMPULSE! couldn’t even sit at the same table without chaos escalating within minutes as though they happened in some sort of alternate universe that doesn’t exists anymore. Surprisingly, it’s become a new ritual for IMPULSE! to eat at least one of their meals together. No one has spoken about it and there’s ostensibly  no reason in particular for it to happen, but Minah knows It’s meant to be a silent way to support each other just like it is telling of how torn and broken each of them feels, holding onto a group that appears to be on the brink of disbandment.

Minah chooses to voluntarily shut down every thought about why they keep acting like if the leader of their group hadn’t just left —potentially for good— and instead nods her head eagerly when Tyler asks her if she wants a waffle covered by what he deems to be an unhealthy quantity of cream and chocolate syrup.

The bomb drops a few hours later while Minah reads a silly best seller lying on the carpeted floor of her room. She initially chooses to ignore the tweets, but her phone is flooded with notifications, and by the time she googles her group’s name and opens a trustful, serious, news outlet, the article about Sungjae’s departure from IMPULSE! has already reached a million hits. Minah skims the article with her heart racing and in the lamest attempt to control her reaction, she breaths in and out slowly allowing her lungs to fill and deflate.

If breathing techniques are truly effective to stop panic attacks, Minah must be doing it all wrong because if anything there are tears streaming down her face.

While Minah has a controlled meltdown in the privacy of her room, Daniel and Tyler find about the press release announcing Sungjae’s departure from IMPULSE! during an IG live. Tyler initially ignores the comments at the bottom of the screen thinking they’re some sort of ridiculous joke. Over time he’s learned to ignore the less than senseless questions his fans tend to ask or the lengths they’re willing to go to in order to “prank” them. However, once Tyler notices Daniel’s face dropping notoriously, he starts to believe there might be something else to this succession of messages asking them to elaborate on Sungjae’s withdrawal from IMPULSE!

A quick glance at the comment section explains Daniel’s reaction. The fans have gone from “Daniel visual king” and “Tyniel is the standard” to “You kicked Sungjae out of IMPULSE!” and “The five of you are trash” —translated to every language Tyler can identify and many others he doesn’t understand— in the blink of an eye. With his powerful self-preservation instinct Tyler is briefly tempted to cut the broadcast short although it’s only been a few minutes since Daniel and he went live. Of course, Tyler doesn’t. In its place, he reads a question out loud, smiling gleefully. Or at least pretending to.  

“What are some songs you’re listening to lately?” He repeats as he puts on a fake pensive expression and Daniel recomposes himself.

Faking for the cameras comes naturally now, so much that Tyler almost surprises himself when he goes on, looking absolutely unfazed by the news. In reality, though, there’s nothing to be surprised about. Over the last couple of years, IMPULSE! has been making the headlines for quite stupid reasons. As the one-of-a-kind group they are, rumors run rampant about the members, their relationships and everything in between. They’ve been under the limelight, on the receiving end of so much love that is to be expected that they’re permanently subjected to the public scrutiny, with unfounded claims and hate being thrown at them left and right.

Tyler himself is no stranger to scandal and controversy, he has lost count of the times the company had to do damage control on his behalf. All those times Tyler had been instructed to stay radio-silent until his fans and even the general public somewhat calmed down.  

He holds in a sigh reminding himself that he’s still broadcasting live.

‘This is not a first for Sungjae either’ The thought echoes in Tyler’s brain as he forces himself out of silence and goes on. “Well, there’s nothing really new… you know the usual-” he says as his eyes unintentionally divert to the comment section where a battle is unfolding. ‘Leave Tyniel out of this’, ‘If Sungjae left it’s probably his own decision’,  ‘he always does whatever tf he wants anyway’ fans write. “Minah’s song came out recently and we listen to it all the time,” Tyler speaks over his own increasingly jumbled out thoughts, pointing at Daniel and himself, which is a blatant lie because Daniel hates French language and Minah seems to hate her own song enough for her to go ballistic on him whenever he tries to play it.  “It is a beautiful song about-“

Tyler hasn’t figured out yet what the song is about because Minah, just like the French language is complicated and hard to understand.

He solves the dilemma by breaking into a rendition of Sublime et Silence that he encourages Daniel to join to with a wink. With the interaction displayed for the whole world to watch, there’s really no other option for Daniel than to join if he doesn’t want to wake up next morning to an article written on how he hates Minah and dissed her by refusing to sing her new hit.

And so Daniel sings along with gibberish French as he kicks Tyler on the shin under the table.

“Babe” a calm and self-assured voice calls out.

It takes Tara a second or two to realize she’s just dozed off while lounging on the blue velvet sofa of her boyfriend’s dorm and he’s currently standing in front of her looking gravely concerned.

“Your neck is gonna hurt later,” The young man says, the slightest bit of a disapproving grimace twisting his lips  “if you were this tired, you could’ve just told me and I would’ve dropped you home”  he adds as Tara’s face falls into a pout.

“Of course you would,” she says, eyebrows furrowing so deep, they leave a dent in the middle of her forehead even when she is done looking offended. “Just say you’d do anything to get rid off me” she adds, a somewhat bratty expression crossing her face. It makes her boyfriend chuckle as he flops onto the sofa, next to her.

“I was actually planning to ask you stay the night” He comments with a half-amused, half-serious, all-male grin. “Jaehyun and Yuta are gone, we have the apartment all for ourselves” the guy sneaks an arm around Tara’s waist, pulling her closer to press his lips on her cheek, leaving a trail of soft pecks until he’s leaving wet kisses on the back of her neck. Tara slowly pulls away, untangling his hands from her and turning to face him, eyebrows high.

“Seriously?” She huffs, much to her boyfriend’s bafflement. “Not now”

The man’s throat goes dry even before his eyes meet the severe glare Tara is throwing at him. The heavy makeup and glitter adorning her eyelids are a striking contrast from the swollen red eyes, rimmed with leftovers of eyeliner; but he has recollections of meeting the very same expression a few weeks ago when Tara burst into his room looking as though she could kill him with her own hands and claiming there was a high chance that she was pregnant with his child.

The guy has the bad sense to laugh lightly at the thought of it, but the smile fades as quickly as it appeared once his memory reminds him that Tara panicked and experienced a nervous breakdown of monumental proportions, causing Jaehyun and Yuta to flee downstairs, to hole up in Taeyong’s, Doyoung’s and Taeil’s apartment. It’s not a sight he wishes to see again. At least not anytime soon. Though he has to admit that the thought of a little girl with Tara’s pretty face and his eyes makes him feel inexplicably excited.

Tara seems to know exactly what’s on his mind because she frowns and shakes her head vigorously, slightly rolling eyes.

Yes, it’s probably too early to think about children’s names when they’ve barely figured out they want to be together. They’re still navigating through uncertainty and the unresolved issues regarding one of his bandmates, not to mention Tara’s concerns regarding her career and the future of her group. He knows that and he’s convinced that’s the reason why she’s currently frowning at him, but he still ignores those musings as he reaches to grab her hand.

“Just stay” he says with a sheepish smile “I promise I’ll beha-“ whatever the man is planning to say is interrupted by his phone going off, to which Tara reacts wearily, glaring at the device as though it had interrupted a particularly important moment.

The young man gently drops her hand on her lap and moves out the room to pick the call, looking visibly stressed and causing Tara’s expression to deflate.

There’s an egoistical thought invading her brain when she notices the way her boyfriend excuses himself and closes the door of his room behind him: not even the man she loves feels to belong to her. It almost seems that everything she “owns” could be stripped off her within a minute. Her boyfriend, her group, even her own career… anyone could reach out a hand and take everything away from her. Any time. At any moment.

Mark’s grave expression when he walks back into the room, holding out his phone to her, only proves Tara’s fears are anything but unfounded.

It’s lunchtime and Jane sits at her usual spot in M’s café. Despite the time slot, the place is surprisingly empty as the blonde woman stirs distractedly the glass of Irish coffee in front of her. Considering that as of recently the place has become a must-visit for hopeful and delusional IMPULSE! fans who expect to find their favorite artists sitting around and sipping coffee as though they weren’t on a tight schedule, it is almost ironic —as it is relieving— that they’re not around on this specific hour and day. Jane takes it as a sign to try and make a move on M, who’s obliviously placing crockery into the dishwasher as he hums along with the song playing in the background.

Not usually one to double think about her feelings, Jane follows M’s every move with something akin irritation. Since she got there, he’s barely spared her a glance. In fact, he seems far too worried about trivialities like the music playing as background to notice the new dress she’s picked exclusively to climb downstairs and pick coffee for Minah.

Some obscure part of her brain reminds Jane that she was supposed to be right back into her apartment, with Minah’s latte, nearly 30 minutes ago. It must have been the weight of her incoherent wanderings or the way she could distract herself looking at M’s wide back and toned arms for hours, but whatever the reason is, the realization makes Jane feel embarrassed of how utterly pathetic it is she’s spent so much time waiting for something, a cue maybe, from someone who usually looks this unaffected by her presence.

But perhaps that’s exactly what she likes about M.

Ever since her group skyrocketed to fame a few years back, all Jane ever receives are praises and the unwavering attention from the people around her. Although she has the good sense to tell apart hypocrite compliments from real appreciation, the love she receives sometimes blinds Jane judgement. The most recent example at hand being Jung Jaehyun and his ridiculously handsome face.

Jane can’t help but heave a sigh at the thought of her ex-boyfriend and the media frenzy that accompanied their breakup.

“You ok?” M asks over his shoulder, his eyes seem to purposely avoid Jane, but she still considers it a progress from flat-out ignoring her. “You don’t look particularly good today” he says, much to Jane’s dismay, though if she were to analyze his words further, she’d be overjoyed to find out he pays attention to her daily mood.

“What do you mean?” Jane says with the aplomb she’s gathered through the years of being a universally known public figure, eyebrows up as she straightens her back.

“I mean-“ M who’s now turned on his heel and is facing Jane hesitates before speaking again “I mean, you don’t look too happy” He says, clumsily touching his nape. “You look good, as always, don’t get me wrong, I’m just-“ His eyes widen as though he wasn’t supposed to say that, but he goes on anyhow “I mean, I was talking about your mood, you know, you look worried.” He adds so fast Jane’s brain can barely register his words.

“So I always look good?” She asks with a smirk crossing her lips. It’s almost comical how M’s mouth gapes automatically and his cheeks tint a light shade of pink. If Jane could read his mind, she’d understand the feeling of self-consciousness M is currently battling against because he can’t fathom that all she’s picked from what he said, is that specific one-liner.

“No. I mean- yes, but-“ The man lets out a soft sigh and leans over across the counter, so close that Jane can notice the blush on his cheeks and a tiny mole under his eyebrow she had not noticed before. “You’ve been staring at nothing for like 30 minutes. Your coffee must be frozen by now” he says pointing with the chin at the cup in front of her.

“I wasn’t staring at nothing” Jane fights back the exasperation. If the guy wasn’t as nearly oblivious as he is, he’d know she’s been checking him out and indulging in fantasies where he pushes her against that annoying counter separating them and kisses her until they’re both gasping for air. “I was looking at you”.

A soft gasp escapes past M’s lips while Jane mentally beats herself for admitting such an embarrassing detail and all that without the tiniest aid of alcohol because her Irish coffee remains untouched.

The first person to join Minah in the living room of the girls’ apartment is Tara. Unconditional as she is, she quietly sits beside her chewing on her lower lip and unable to pronounce a single word until her groupmate breaks the silence, looking away from her phone right into Tara’s eyes.

“I thought you were supposed to be on a date,” Minah says, purposely directing the conversation to a topic unrelated to the reason she’s currently clad in sweats and an oversized pair of glasses.

“Well, you see-“ Tara fixes the many bracelets adorning her wrists before shifting on the sofa to a more comfortable position. “Mark thought I’d rather be here” she admits shrugging, she’s about to add ‘with the group’, but the sunken look to Minah’s eyes stops her from adding another word “You see, it almost felt like he wanted to get rid of me, he picked a call and before I knew it he was calling a cab and well, here I am” Tara forces a bitter laugh and Minah reaches to pat her hand sympathetically, her eyes suddenly brimming with tears.

“You know, sometimes I wonder what would it be if we were just regular people” Minah confesses out of nowhere. “I like to think about it” as she forces a smile, a single tear rolls down her cheek, but she goes on “In an alternate world we’re all just normal people with normal people problems like making enough money to pay our students’ loans or maybe failing job interviews, but we are happy-”

Tara reaches to grab Minah’s hand, intertwining their fingers and offering the unspoken moral support she’s in need of.

“In an alternate world, Julien and I are the high school sweethearts that marry after finishing college and move to the suburbs.” Minah goes on, although it’s the very first time this scenario even comes to her mind. It’s another man who’s usually the protagonist of her fantasies in an alternate world where there are no other details than getting home daily to the man who truly owns her heart, the one who’s broken it way too many times as well. “He goes onto working at his grandparent’s company and I am one of those super pristine-looking women who dresses nicely and hosts charity events,” She says before adding “Jane’s there too, she’s the bohemian one who married Gabriel and gets drunk with white wine in all our family’s parties.” Minah makes a pause to chuckle and squeeze Tara’s hand reassuringly “You are there too” she says with a tiny smile “You’re the voice of reason” Tara is about to protest, but Minah goes on “Johnny is there too and…“ For the briefest moment Minah hesitates, but then she adds "you two are a match made in heaven, perfect for each other and the happiest of us all”.

“Minah-“ A flutter of panic makes Tara’s voice come off sharper than intended. She has no time to school her expression either because Minah goes on nonchalantly

“Apparently we’re meant to love the wrong people in this lifetime”

There is no sugarcoating and neither does Minah attempt to hide the intentions behind her words. It is evident that just like everybody else —Tara included—, she regards a possible reconciliation with Mark Yang as a massive mistake, to put it nicely. Tara is unsure if the events unfolding the previous days have something to do with Minah’s disapproval, but there’s something in equal parts comforting and painful in the way Minah offers a one-armed hug afterwards.

A second later the elevator doors slide open and half of IMPACT! spills out, chatting  —or arguing most likely— loudly. Minah lets go of Tara and shrinks in size,  pulling her legs up against her chest almost automatically and moving further from her bandmate, as though she were closing herself off to being comforted, as though she didn’t want the rest of her groupmates to notice the hoodie, the glasses or the puffy eyes.

It’s Tyler who spots the girls first and stops in his track, face softening before casting a glare at Daniel who just mentioned the dreaded S word in a sentence that didn’t make much sense to anybody else but had Jane nodding along energetically.

“Didn’t you have a recording session?” Tyler asks to his sister as they exchange knowing glances. “What are you even doing here?” he inquires, eyebrow slanting slightly upwards as his arms fold over his chest. It makes Tyler adopt a judgmental air.

Tara doesn’t roll eyes or dismisses her brother claims bored, like she does whenever her brother has something to say. Judging by the amount of staring and short silence that follow suit, it’s quite evident that the Lee siblings are having one of those silent conversations that usually end up with the pair leaving the room, with one of them —usually Tara—  looking quite reluctantly. Sometimes it’s hard for people to believe Tara and Tyler are related at all. Some other times —like this particular one— they almost seem to share a telepathic bond.

“I…hmmmm… I finished early” Tara shrugs, eyes diverting toward Jane and Daniel for a second.

“Or Mark did” Daniel grins quietly, earning himself a nasty glare from Tyler.

“You were not…” Tyler turns to look back at his sister with a frown, “right?” His lips morph into a disgusted pout,

“Of course not” Jane interrupts, stepping forward and pushing Tyler off her way. “Tara is a lot better than that” She says firmly as she sits next to the younger girl and places a coffee carrier in between them, eyeing Tara as though she could decipher her thoughts. “Yang and you are over for good, aren’t you?” Though Jane’s free spirited and easy going personality usually prevents her from snooping into her groupmates’ business, this time she looks frankly scandalized at the idea of Tara and Mark rekindling whatever it was they had, especially after the scare of the other day and how genuinely terrified Tara looked back then.

“That’s none of our business” Minah settles the conversation wrapping herself around Tara and petting her head as though she was still the little girl that could barely talk to them back when they started filming IMPULSE! and not the grown up woman she’s become over the years “And you better have an excuse for the hour long coffee pickup because the only plausible explanation now is that you were flirting with M and lost track of time” she says, accusation in her voice.

“Don’t remind me” Jane says huffing, the sound reveals that Minah’s theory is not entirely wrong. “To think I lost my time when I could’ve watched the season finale of Dix pour cent instead” Jane comments as she passes her best friend a cup of lukewarm chai latte.

“So Coffee Boy is still ignoring your advances?” Tyler chuckles as he sits on the coffee table, facing his sister and his other two bandmates.

“Don’t even mention that traitor” Jane’s words leave her mouth before she fully realizes she’s letting everybody know that M knew about Sungjae’s plans of leaving the group. She hurries to pick a cup and sip from it to stop more awkward words from tumbling out. However, judging by Tara and Minah’s expressions they’ve already figured out.

“Oh, please. Don’t punish the poor guy” Minah says, trying to force herself to sound casual, but failing “It’s not his fault Sungjae left” She adds with a shrug.

The silence that follows is deafening, but no one seems surprised that Minah is the one to bring up the reason they’re all sitting together, unnecessarily delaying the moment they finally acknowledge Sungjae is gone probably for good.

“I know, but he still could’ve given me a heads up, you know, out of loyalty to our…” Jane trails off, apparently unable to find a word to describe whatever it is the relationship she and the handsome barista have.

“And what would’ve you done? Tie him up so he didn’t leave?” Daniel scoffs, reminding everybody that he’s still standing there in the same spot.

“I know that’s been a fantasy of yours for years, but contrary to popular belief, you and I have completely differing taste and preferences” Jane replies, eyes rolling when she catches Tyler glaring at her. “But, no, I mean… we could’ve tried and talk some sense into him and if we failed I could’ve at least bid him goodbye with a punch in the face” She says with a wishful expression.

“Oh, please” Minah scoffs, exasperation dripping in her tone “We all know Sungjae. There was no use talking to him, he made a decision, he wanted to leave and he would’ve done it no matter the amount of talking.”  

The room falls quiet again, except for the vague sound of music playing from Minah’s room. No one really dares to break the silence right away so they sit avoiding each other’s eyes. Everybody shares the same unspoken questions, concerns, and unresolved feelings regarding Sungjae. It almost feels like yesterday Tyler, Daniel and Tara gathered to discuss his missing belongings and Jane panicked about what was she supposed to tell Minah once she’d returned from her press tour and noticed Sungjae was gone.

To this day nobody is even sure about what made him leave in the first place.

Of course, there was the little PR hell that Ashleigh’s supposed pregnancy caused, but it’s nothing they haven’t gone through before. The last 5 years have seen IMPACT  facing scandals with the poise and grace only a particularly gifted group of people could wield. It really makes no sense Sungjae has left a cause of it. It makes no sense he has left.

“Can you please stop? You’re making me anxious” Tara snaps at her brother out of the blue, pointing out how it is evident that Tyler is itching to say something, if his foot moving almost frantically is anything to go by.

“Well, I hate to be the one playing devil’s advocate, but do we even know if Sungjae left for real?” Tyler asks to the gaping faces of his bandmates who can’t seem to fathom Tyler Lee is not taking this opportunity to drag Sungjae through the mud.

“You have to be kidding, Lee” Jane scoffs, her confusion melting quickly into disbelief.

“Articles are everywhere” Minah reminds him wearily, as though she can’t quite believe she has to explain this to Tyler.

“He’s been gone nearly two weeks” Daniel adds logically, walking over to the group and flopping on the sofa next to Minah. “Hasn’t picked a single call either” Four pairs of eyes turn to look at Daniel at the same time, so he’s quick to add “I heard from Celeste” simply because he doesn’t want to admit that he’s been consistently calling Sungjae every day and leaving messages on his voicemail, just like everybody else. “The point is, we haven’t got any news from him.”

“But maybe he just needs a bit of time off? You know we’ve been traveling nonstop the last couple of months, he probably just wanted a break” Tara suggests, her voice impossibly hopeful even though she can notice Jane mouthing something that looked suspiciously like “oh, come on” accompanied by an eye roll.

“He could’ve called us, or you know, it literally takes a minute to send a message,” Daniel says with something that Tara believes is hurt in his voice, but no one else seems to notice.

“I hate that I agree with him,” Minah says nodding vigorously. “Can we all agree that Sungjae is leaving the group and now it’s just the five of us?” Her voice raises a bit as she says so and in the end, she blows out a deep breath that sounds in equal parts annoyed and regretful. “Or is any of you planning to leave next?” Minah lets out those words before she can even stop herself, but Jane is not surprised Minah is finally taking out all her frustrations on them.

“Seriously Minah, stop acting like we’re here because we love each other and want to be friends forever” if there’s a perfect moment for Daniel to remain silent, this is definitely the one, but he still chooses to speak “We’re not playing house, this is business,” He says crossing his arms over the chest “If Sungjae left, that’s definitely his problem to deal with. And just so you know I’ll leave whenever I want to.”

Tyler’s expression turns irritated on the spot. He chuckles bitterly “Oh, yes, of course you’d think that way because this team means nothing to you, doesn’t it?”

The way Daniel’s eyes turn practically murderous pushes Tara to step in before her brother ends up with a black eye or a broken nose that further add fuel to the rumors of IMPULSE!’s disbandment.

“Can we stop fighting, please? The last thing we need is to make this more complicated than it already is” She says, eyes blinking away the tears “I don’t know if you realize, but this is going to be a PR chaos and like it or not, we need to show a united front”

Minah doesn’t say anything, but her cheeks flush as she moves to look away and Jane mirrors her movements.

“For one thing should check with our agents if the company is preparing a statement or something” Tara goes on much to Daniel’s annoyance.

“I already talked to Chloe” Jane shrugs as she pronounces her sister’s name  “She’s been trying to talk to them since the bomb dropped, but they’re not picking her calls”

“And I talked to Celeste, but she knows nothing” Daniel chimes in “I think she was having a crisis when I called, so she said she’d call back” He says that with the faintest hint of a smile, as though the memory of Celeste going through PR panic was supposed to be a good one.

“I haven’t got news from Madame Moreau either” Tara adds, looking a bit glad everybody has stopped arguing.

“What about we wait till we hear from them then?” Tyler says.

“Ok”

“Ok”

“Fine then”

For a quick moment, they all exchange glances, facing each other awkwardly before looking away. Then their phones buzz and ping simultaneously announcing an incoming message.

The text is rudely brief and the instructions insufficient, but whether they acknowledge it or not Jane, Minah, Tyler, Daniel and Tara are all glad Sungjae’s withdrawal from IMPULSE! is nothing but some unconfirmed rumor started by a malicious gossip site that’s been after their neck since Tara and Sungjae called them out for writing lies about the group.

“Everybody” Minah suddenly exclaims from where she is curled on the sofa, she holds her phone up for everybody to see “How do we all feel about some damage control?”

The picture doesn’t make it to the group’s official account, but later that day when Minah goes to bed, eyes still puffed and clad in offensively unglamorous one-pice pjs, she looks fondly at the screen of her phone, where five faces smile back at her. She is convinced that whatever happens next she’ll never regret experiencing firsthand IMPULSE’s particular brand of chaos.

...

[readyaiminquire]

Part 3 - Unimaginable by design.

This is the third part on the rewrite of my thesis, from 2019. Here I take a slightly different approach, and rather than rehashing the same arguments from my previous works, I instead use the same data to argue for something new, and novel. Hopefully this will be as enjoyable, if not more so!

You can find the the introduction here, part 1 here and part 2 here.

How does someone build something that, for all intents and purposes, they are incapable of imagining, or visualising? This is at the core of Mark Fisher’s work on cultural hauntology, itself derived from the work of French philosopher Jacques Derrida. Our current experiences are haunted, it is said, by our past experiences, and our future anticipation. However, losing the ability to fully anticipate a future in which substantial change has taken place would imply the inability to also bring such a future into being. Looking over my experience working with transhumanists, biohackers, tech-enthusiasts, self-avowed futurists, among others, in Sweden, made me think about not only whether Fisher’s cultural diagnosis might have been correct – which, to be up-front, I do think he was correct – but perhaps more importantly, how to break out of such a cultural impasse. Fisher himself states that to fix this disjointed time, we must first recognise that it is indeed disjointed, and from there attempt to find solutions to put it back together. It dawned on me without realising it at the time, that this is what these Swedish techno-utopians were working towards, though likely not consciously. Their focus on building a new future, a better future, while remaining notoriously vague as to what this might entail came into new focus. The trust put in new technologies, while maintaining a high lack of knowledge of the future (as neither they nor I own a bona fide crystal ball), I would argue is exactly the point. What is being built, in other words, is not the future per se, but rather a new context: to create opportunities to experience the world in ways that are currently unimaginable, and through such experiences, also imagine new futures.

Robotic eyes to see the world in a new light.

Stagnation, cancelled futures, and how we go from here.

Mark Fisher’s work on hauntology is very clearly rooted in Jacques Derrida’s work, the man who coined the term itself. Derrida observed that we never truly experience anything as fully present, but everything that is, is always coloured by past experiences and anticipations of the future. Music paints a very clear picture of this: a single note holds no melodic quality, but is simply a note. It gains these qualities only when understood in the context of the preceding notes and in anticipation of future notes. The melody is thus ‘haunted’ by that which no longer exists, and by that which does not yet exist. This interplay, Derrida argues, exist across all our experiences. We always experience them as an interplay between past, present and future.

Fisher’s use of hauntology is much more specific, though. He refers to a type of cultural hauntology, in which the phenomenology – or the feeling – of time itself is disjointed. The past (and often the futures imagined in the past) bleed into the present, making it evermore challenging to delineate between ‘past’ times, our experientially present time, and anticipated new futures. To borrow a phrase from Fisher, the future has been cancelled. This cancellation, Fisher is careful to point out, was not sudden, though he argues that it started sometime around the 1980s or 1990s (indeed, pinning an exact date on such a sociocultural development will always be folly). What Fisher does observe, however, is the emergence of neoliberal capitalism and the beginning of this slow cancellation of the future. Neoliberalism, he argues, makes all other developments subservient to its own profit motive, as a means of reproducing the system itself. While this doesn’t make the system completely impervious to change, it does make change much more unlikely to take place organically.

It is important to understand that developments as a whole have not stagnated, but rather there exists a systemic and cultural stagnation. The phenomenology of time is that of standstill. For example, while digital technologies have made enormous strides, these new technological capabilities are, by and large, not deployed to do anything new. Rather, they remain subservient to neoliberal logics, and therefore operate instead to make already established processes and sociocultural modes faster, and by extension more efficient. Examples of this in practice is the digital addition of crackle to music to make a digital file sound as if it is played on an LP (an largely obsolete piece of technology) or to produce nostalgic movie remakes from the 1980s or 1990s. Marx famously wrote that all things in history appear twice, first as tragedy and then as farce, and with cultural forms, they appear first genuinely, and then as nostalgic pastiche. As a result, truly new futures become harder and harder to imagine.

How might such a cultural impasse be broken? It is important to delve deeper into what the phenomenology of time is. German historian Reinhart Koselleck once argued that what makes people experience a historical period as distinct is its tendency of existing within a complex knot of new developments and easily anticipated repetition which constitutes a “specific historical temporality”, or specific experience of the now, as different from the past (and indeed, different from an anticipated future). This is, in effect, why the 1970s might feel like an era in itself, distinct from both the 60s and the 80s, and themselves distinct from another such era, on a phenomenological level. Koselleck places much emphasis on the “surprise” (Überraschung) as the process through which one era comes to experientially feel like another. Once these surprises have been lived through in their original uniqueness, they become part of a framework of repeatability, and is therefore added to a kind of “horizon of expectation”. What makes different eras feel different is, according to Koselleck, the result of a process of accumulation.

Fisher himself wrote that to break out of his diagnosed impasse, he emphasised the need to first recognise the impasse itself, though he prescribed no clear roadmap, highlighting instead the importance of local contexts. Koselleck’s focus on the surprise, I think, serves as a good framing. It is not far off Alain Badiou’s capital-E Event, what he identified as the driver behind cultural change. Badiou defined the Event straightforwardly as the moment after which the world can never be the same again. The parallel between an Event and Koselleck’s Überraschung is clear, and serves as a useful framing for how such a cultural hauntology can be circumvented: to discover the ability to once again be surprised.

  Future

I met with Patrick, an older gentleman, in Stockholm. He worked out of a shared workspace focusing very much on start-ups, aiming to connect ambitious entrepreneurs and to foster innovation. The offices themselves felt like they had been modelled on something from a cyberpunk novel: stepping in from the grey and rainy Stockholm streets (one might even be reminded of the opening lines to Neuromancer: that the sky above the city “was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel”) through a corridor leading to a lift, that took me to the heart of the building. Irregularly shaped, with a platform suspended in its centre, the ceiling a skylight, people milling around, a lot of buzz. I eventually met Patrick, perhaps in his mid-60s, a stark contrast to the hive of otherwise young entrepreneurs buzzing around us. We moved through the building, past meeting rooms encased in glass, until we finally found a quiet corner in which we could speak – and within an amicable distance of a coffee machine (this was Sweden, after all). “Everything in the building is linked to our key cards; from meeting rooms, to the locks, lifts, and even the vending and coffee machines”, Patrick told me, excited to be working in a space that seemed to really lean into integrating technology even more in our daily lives. “Coffee?” he asked, waving his hand by a machine; it powered up.

Patrick looked delighted, as I was there to speak to him specifically about his apparent Jedi-coffee powers. See, beneath the skin of his left hand, nestled in the soft flesh between his thumb and forefinger, was a small NFC chip – and this is what I had ostensibly come to speak to him about. I suppose the question on my mind then is the one I often encounter when I reveal my own implant: “why?”. Patrick: “It’s an inevitable development, isn’t it? Technology just keeps getting better and bigger and faster”, and that “with modern medicine, and later computers, it was only a matter of time before this [gesturing at his phone] would be integrated in the body!” This ‘argumentum ad inevitability’ is one that many of the people I have worked with bring up, in one form or another. The logic goes, in a nutshell, that technological innovation, by definition, solves problems. Therefore, as technology grows and improves it will solve more problems: the implication being that technology will eventually be all-encompassing. I will not dwell much on this here, as I have discussed this elsewhere. Instead, as Patrick very much believed, I want to unpack the notion of this technologically driven future. What will it be?

Here we reach a degree of vagueness which permeated many of my conversations with these Swedish techno-utopists. From the logic outlined above, this imagined future was largely understood to be a good future, or perhaps more accurately as having the potential to be good. Indeed, much of their present efforts are directed towards ensuring the ‘correct’ use of future digital technologies (again, something I have discussed at length previously). Nonetheless, the perceived or imagined goodness of this potential future is worth dwelling on, specifically because of its vagueness. Another informant I spoke to, Jacob, made sure to highlight the importance of working on these kinds of projects because he wanted to “make sure my little ones grow up in a better world than this, and sure as hell not a worse one”. Yet another informant put it very succinctly with: “there is no inherent end goal; it’s all fluid. It’s fluid because we don’t yet know what it is we can do”. These approaches are all teeming with an inherent positivity towards technology and its potential.

Yet, beyond this positive feeling towards technology, this view of its seemingly limitless positive potential, as long as all get invested and channel some of Gilles Deleuze’s wisdom that, “there is no need to fear or hope, but only to look for new weapons”, there is a stark lack of clarity as to what exactly this future might look like. This in stark contrast to the potentially horrific outcomes of technology gone awry, on which ample articles, books, lectures, and presentations have been written. Thought experiments with names such as The Paperclip Problem, or other such clearly defined (yet to a casual listener) seemingly absurd in scope and specificity exist. During my three months conducting fieldwork, the clearest vision of the future presented to me was at a Transhumanist conference here in London: TransVision 2019, at which the organiser merely described future as having the potential to bring about a world of plenty.

Yet, no-one offers much clarity as to what any of that means.

 The futures that never came to be.

If the future, such as my informants seem to imagine it, cannot be described with much clarity, some answers may be found in the past, where (presumably) the inspiration for these projects lie. Fred Turner reminds us that the metaphor for digital technologies as having inherently liberating qualities is a relatively recent one, and did not fully take root until the 1980s or 1990s. It was thus simultaneously surprising and not that Ethan, a university student at Lund and probably my youngest informant cited the video game franchise Deus Ex as a key inspiration. Deus Ex, solidly a piece of cyberpunk media, often frames the conflicts and risks associated with human augmentation: the division of humans into different groups, the ‘pure’ versus the ‘augmented’ and so on – deep-rooted risks, and issues which, in one shape or another, we tackle in contemporary society, though with different categories and labels. When pressed, Ethan, surrounded by lab equipment in his student dorm, highlighted the potential that he saw in the technology: that despite the bleak world presented by Deus Ex, he focused more on what could be instead. Deus Ex, and cyberpunk as a genre, a cautionary tale, should one read it as such.

Not surprisingly, many informants cited science fiction as a source of inspiration – the famous drive from science fiction to science fact. References, beyond the one mentioned above, was Star Trek, or Star Wars, as well as many comic books. This, again unsurprisingly, was deeply dependent on their age group. While Ethan referred to a contemporary video game franchise, Jacob referred to the Iron Man comics he read as a kid. However, despite such gaps, the takeaway was always very similar if not the same: not to focus on what technology was used for in these various settings, but rather what it could be used for instead. The clearest, and perhaps on the nose, an example of this came from a speaker at the transhumanist conference, quoting Arthur C. Clarke’s three laws:

When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

This opens for a discussion around inspiration taken from the past – from many different pasts! –  but it is also made very clear that the futures in the past are not compatible with the future my informants are seeking to build as a contemporary one.

This drive to want a new type of future, or one future that feels like a new era in some sense or another, is articulated especially strongly in sentiments around the importance of involvement, and put very bluntly, doing things within the various communities. This is a longstanding pillar among several techno-utopian groups, especially those focusing more heavily on grassroots involvement. My informants all showed how they valued the importance of direct involvement, from decrying a general lack of investment in maintaining broader community relations and events, to phrases such as “theory is nothing if you don’t put it into practice”. Returning to Ethan, who is exemplary of this stance:

“Some people come on the forums, or in a YouTube-comment section or whatever, and just talk about how amazing this or that would be. Well, have you done anything? No? Your ideas aren’t that original, so at least try to make something with them. Try to make a difference, so that these things can actually become reality.”

I have mentioned before that my informants hold themselves to an ideal initially put forward by architect, futurists, and many more things, R. Buckminster Fuller. Bucky Fuller put forward the idea of the comprehensive designer, as someone who can put bluntly ‘step outside’ of the current system and structures to therefore view it from a novel position. These comprehensive designers are by definition hard to classify because the very idea is to not be classifiable; flexibility from societal illegibility. These are, in theory, the type of people who hold the potential to be true innovators. Though this is a problematic ideal for many reasons, the notion of attempting to live up to a broader ideal to change and build something new for the future does highlight a certain, at least implicit, understanding of the current cultural predicament à la Fisher.

 Old habits die hard

There is the fundamental problem of imagining yourself as being able to ‘step outside’ of a system to view it form some neutral point in nowhere. If there is anything my favourite raccoon-cum-philosopher has taught me, it is that we can never step out of our ideology because it is, by definition, inside of us. As he says, we are “already eating from the trashcan all the time”. This predicament becomes painfully clear among my informants. One of the most prevailing ways of speaking about innovation, and building, testing, or disseminating new technologies is squarely through the lens of the contemporary entrepreneur, both in practice but also in aesthetics. It is telling, indeed, that my earlier vignette was centred squarely at one of these entrepreneur centres in Stockholm, and it is far from the only time where this became relevant, or even central, to my experience with the people I worked with.

Three of my main informants, Harrison, Jacob, and Samuel own their own companies focusing on selling and implanting the microchips in Sweden. Harrison, in addition, is a quite prolific speaker on the subject of transhumanism both in Sweden and in Europe, while Jacob is heavily involved in other forms of body modifications. Much of it is, very clearly, centred around an entrepreneurial sphere. The same can also be said about many of the people I met. Out of the two chipping events I attended in Stockholm – both organised by Samuel – many of the attendees spoke about the commercial applications, potential, and excitement of their implants, while others yet again referred to the implants as really useful PR stunts either for their own personal brands, or within their wider professional life (I remember that one of the only two women I managed to speak to used it as a way to leverage her image within an otherwise deeply male-dominated field).

This also became abundantly clear when attending TransVision 2019 in London, where all speakers either had their own book coming out, owned their own companies, and some attendees even attended to find start-ups worth investing in. Going back to my conversation with Patrick, he went as far as to compare the modern entrepreneurial spirit with the spirit of discovery among scientists in the 20th century. The new discoverers were, as it was told to me, the likes of Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, and indeed anyone who has the grit and drive to commit to new technologies and finds ways to push these out into society. In addition, other informants, Ethan among them, spoke of future developments in very clear market-logic and metaphors. Specifically, when discussing the risks of creating an ‘underclass’ of non-augmented humans, the response was very much “sure, as the technology develops, only the rich will have the resources to make use of it, but as things go on, the technology will become cheaper, and more accessible. That is nothing but a temporary step, and the future past that will be better than today”.

The entrepreneurial metaphors really just highlight how deep the neoliberal/capitalist logics run, what other writers have called the “Silicon Valley ideology”. This, again, is closely tied to Bucky Fuller’s ideal, but it also inherently serves to undermine it. Though some individuals may have the appearance of stepping beyond the bounds of what is believed to be possible (refer back to Arthur C. Clarke’s rules), the inherent ideological framing remains, and such an operation still takes place very much within an established socio-political hegemony. The fundamental framing is still capitalist – and this without going into a discussion about, say, Elon Musk the symbol, and Musk the person.

Spoiler alert: he’s not Tony Stark.

  Purposeful unclarity

It is worth returning to Fisher here. Our fundamental predicament as he saw it is not difficulty of imagining a future, but imagining new futures. In an oft-quoted line attributed either to Žižek or Frederic Jameson, it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism. The future, of course, remains, but it remains painfully constant. Herein lies the issue for my informants in Sweden, and likely many others within the same groups and communities: how to create the space in which a sense of newness can emerge. I argue that it is not surprising that their ideal futures are so ill-defined, for lack of a better phrase. The lack of clarity is indeed the point.

Given what he been outlined above, there emerges a clear tension between the will to create a new future, one better than today, a future of plenty, so to speak, and how this future is articulated. Either an image is painted with disappointingly few pixels, or the means through which the future might be created come through already well established and at times problematic logics. The entrepreneurial ideal, the comprehensive designer, and what is at its very base a neoliberal logic, is still extremely clear across all these movements, not only in words but also in action. Not only are the new discoverers and inventors compared to successful entrepreneurs, but most people operate within what can broadly be called a start-up space.

However, turning this perception on its head, it would not be unreasonable to think that these groups themselves have a feeling that they do indeed struggle to imagine a new future, at which point vagueness becomes a necessity. They do not stop believing in a better future being possible, but they recognise the difficulties they’re faced with describing what one might look like. The rejection of a clear view of the future is, to some extent proof for the accuracy of Fisher’s diagnosis, but it is also extremely telling of how such a cultural impasse may finally be broken.

Fisher himself told us that perhaps the only way to break the current loop is to recognise that time itself is out of whack, and once recognised deploy appropriate measures to “mend” time. Based on my own fieldwork, however, it appears this step isn’t entirely necessary. My informants have not explicitly recognised there being a hauntological component to either their day-to-day life, nor their ideology. Nonetheless, they move past this as a matter of course and instead begin to focus on creating this (admittedly) undefined future.

The problem with this approach is how it simply pushes the envelope. If we don’t know what to build, what do we build? A shift in focus becomes key here: it is not about creating a new future, but rather to create the context in which a new future can develop. What Koselleck called a surprise – Überraschung – is what is sought after, as what surprises us is also what delineates the phenomenology of time itself; what separates the feeling of one time from another time. The technology they strive for: human augmentation, human-computer interfacing, AI, and so on, are technologies whose outcomes we cannot quite predict and much less truly imagine. Replacing the human eye with a cybernetic eye capable of seeing more than just the visible spectrum of light create a fundamentally different way in which we interact with the world at large, and imagining the impact it will have it near-impossible: it would literally require us to imagine a new colour.

While the true aim is a new future, the practical aim is more about creating a context in which a surprise can take place, to create the context in which society can broadly move forward into a new phenomenological era of time; to not only move into a future, but to move into a new future.

  Conclusion

Mark Fisher declared that the future has been cancelled; that as a result of neoliberal logics, the cultural capability to imagine anything new from what already exists, socioculturally speaking, has been lost. Time is a funny thing in that respect, as it is often thought of as linear, one era leading to another. When Fisher says that time is out of joint it is not that time does not keep flowing, of course, it does. Today still turns into tomorrow. The phenomenology of time, on the other hand, has stalled: time might keep flowing, but not much changes. In fact, the past is capitalised on and repackaged and resold as a product of nostalgia and pastiche. Time keeps flowing, but culture almost feels regressive. German historian Reinhart Koselleck argued that how we perceive history is contingent on a horizon of expected experiences, and what breaks such an experience is the introduction of that which has not been expected, a surprise – the Überraschung. This mirrors the work of Alain Badiou and the capital E-Event. What produces change, or at least the feeling of difference from yesterday to today is how we might be surprised by something. This is what I argue my informants work to bring about. While they use the language of “the future” to position their aims, what such a future is remains painfully unclear. Even with such a lofty goal in mind, the language, the articulation of their work, and many of the spaces they inhabit remain (perhaps painfully) mundane. They are entrepreneurs, they are public speakers, they have their own start-ups or book deals. In a word, they attempt to capitalise on this vision. Despite these shortcomings what cannot be denied is the drive to continue forward, and to keep developing their ideas, and how internally these communities and groups place a high premium on those practically involved in developing new ideas or technologies. The lack of clarity for the future is somewhat purposeful; there is an acceptance that they cannot imagine what lies ahead, perhaps because they recognise their own inability to look past contemporary ideologies. What they recognise, most likely implicitly, is that they require surprise. Something that cannot be imagined, that throws the world on its head and forces new perspectives to emerge.

How do you build what you can’t imagine? You don’t; you build that which allows you to imagine something new.

 Key references

BADIOU, A. 2003. Saint Paul: The Foundation of Universalism (Translated by: R. Brassiered ). Palo Alto: Stanford University Press.

DELEUZE, G. 1992. Postscript on the Societies of Control. October 59, 3–7.

FISHER, M. 2009. Capitalism Realism: Is there no alternative? London: Zero Books.

FISHER, M. 2012. “What is Hauntology?” in Film Quarterly 2012 Vol. 66:1, pp. 16-24.

FISHER, M. 2014. Ghosts of My Life: Writings on Depression, Hauntology and Lost Futures. London: Zero Books.

SCUCCIMARRA, L. 2008. Semantics of Time and Historical Experience: Remarks on Koselleck’s “Historik” in Contributions to the History of Concepts 4(2), pp. 160-175.

[barryswamsleyaz]

12 Reasons Your Dachshund May Refuse to Walk on a Leash

I hear everything the time: “What do I do when my Dachshund rejects to walk?”

It’s not unusual for me to hear tales of individuals that tried to take their Dachshund out for a stroll as well as their pet dug in– pulling in the opposite instructions on the leash– declining to take even that primary step.

I likewise listen to a lot of tales from people that were happily walking along with their Dachshund and their dog instantly stopped, froze, and refused to rise.

One thing prevails– every person who shares their story with me is requesting for aid– so I assumed I ‘d share what I recognize based upon experience. Why Would a Dachshund Refuse to Walk? There are many factors that a Dachshund may refuse to walk on a chain but the very first thing I tell individuals

is that they require

to attempt to identify why. In almost all cases, the factor is just one of these 12 things. Injury or Pain While numerous Dachshunds simply refuse to stroll since they do not like it for some reason

, there is also an opportunity that they might be harmed or otherwise feeling well. A little pull on the chain to motivate a pet dog to proceed is alright however continuing to pull on the leash while they

dig their feet in or put down, or urging they walk when they have to be drug, can exacerbate any wellness problem. 1)Foot problems Feet or paws might have a cut, be chafed on or between the pads, or be bruised by strolling on a very harsh surface area like sharp rocks.

Seek clinical interest if needed or take a break from strolling till it heals if you notice something wrong with your dog’s paw. If my Dachshund is refusing to walk is their feet, the first point I constantly examine. The paw pads might be scratched or they can have a rock or pointy burr stuck in between them.

2)Tender, raw skin Legs or arm pits might be chafed as a result of current or previous rubbing of a harness or jacket. A dog might have allergies that can result in red, raw skin that obtains further intensified when strolling. If you see mild chafing or red areas on your pet dog’s skin, don’t panic.

The problem will usually recover on its own with some rest or by utilizing a different harness or jacket that does not rub in the exact same place.

If it is a lot more severe, or does not disappear, it’s an excellent idea to visit your veterinarian to get it looked into.

3) Undiagnosed pain

There may be something you can’t see on the outside, or something inner, that is causing your pet discomfort.

If you think this holds true, take your canine to see the veterinarian. They will recognize the most usual test to go to dismiss an injury.

There may not constantly be something ostensibly wrong with your Dachshund. However, they might be experiencing an inner pain.

4) Illness

Your Dachshund might be momentarily not feeling good or there may be some underlying health problem that is making them not feel well.

If you presume this is a pontional cause, as well as it doesn’t appear to solve itself in a day or 2, I suggest making a visit with your vet to rule this out.

Terror or Being Uncomfortable

5) Wearing something new

A brand-new harness, coat, or wearing one of these things when your Dachshund hasn’t in the past, can feel uncomfortable to them.

It may feel limiting or truly unusual as well as make them hesitant to move.

If you assume this is the cause, read my post on mentor your Dachshund to stroll in a harness or coat.

6) A new course

Dachshunds– and any pet truly– can obtain used to a routine and also get upset when points alter.

If you ask your pet to stroll on a various course or road than you typically do, they might object.

The new road looks different, most likely scents different, as well as might sound different.

Your Dachshund’s refusal to walk may be their way of claiming, “This is not the right way” or “I’m uncertain about this”.

This brand-new, strange course might look terrifying, odor various, or your Dachshund just may not recognize that walking this direction is also okay. Try taking the acquainted course as well as try the new route once more at a later time. 7)Afraid of the world Many pet dogs that are revealed to new sights, seems, and also scents are usually cynical in the beginning. They might be reluctant to check out or might intend to prevent the scenario entirely. This is particularly typical with puppies, rescue pet dogs, dogs who have not been appropriately interacted socially, and those that have actually been terrified by a similar experience before. These

socialization workouts can be done at, or around home, and also

might aid your pet dog handle brand-new experiences much better. Too far or also much 8)They’re tired I Just like people,

canines have negative days as well as excellent days. Some days they are just tired. Perhaps your canine just does not seem like strolling as much today.

It’s alright to change walking intend on celebration if your pet dog seems to just be having a bad day. Simply view to make sure your Dachshund does not assume that you will give up every time they object or they may start doing it regularly.

It could additionally be that your Dachshund’s refusal to walk is not simply persisting– it’s their means of interacting to you that they have actually had adequate workout today.

Ensure you understand the indicators your pet may be getting tired. 9)Old age might

be slowing them down In my experience, it’s not common to anticipate elderly canines to go further than they can.

When your 10 year old Dachshund utilized to happily go for 5-mile strolls, it can be tough to adjust our expectations. Bear in mind, a dog’s capability and wish for exercise declines with age.

Your older Dachshund might start getting weary or aching after only 3 miles and also their refusal to stroll might be their way of saying, “I’m done currently please.”

You may need to bring your elderly pet dog back house and make a psychological note not to go as far or as fast next time you opt for a walk.

10) They might not be ready

Exercising a pup can be tricky. They have a lot power yet they are simply learning to walk on the intensity as well as a leash and also period should be restricted up until they are created enough.

A common problem I see with puppies is expecting too much from them too soon.

People often tend to think that young pet dogs have limitless energy when, actually, a young puppy’s activity degree is limited by bone as well as joint maturation.

If your Dachshund puppy suddenly puts the breaks on, or lays down, it’s most likely their way of telling you that they’ve had sufficient for the day.

Puppies are brand-new to the world so they don’t have a health and fitness base to start with.

It’s essential for any canine to start with small periods of exercise and also build up but slowly constructing health and fitness is especially essential for a pup.

Other Reasons

11) They do not desire the enjoyable to finish

Your Dachshund might be having a great time as well as they do not desire the enjoyable to finish. They might protest if you inquire to relocate or leave on before they feel they prepare.

Fun can include sniffing something really fascinating, playing with a hairy close friend, or leaving a pet dog park. You have two

selections right here: give up and allow them take pleasure in a little more of what they want or take cost and urge that they leave with you, even if that means lugging your dog back to your house or cars and truck. 12 )Your Dachshund needs to potty Also assumed this is last on the listing, the # 1 factor my Dachshunds refuse to walk is due to the fact that they are searching for a place to potty and also I do not realize it.

Some pets require longer to sniff out the best spot to relieve themselves than others. It can be tough to tell the difference between the “I’m looking for an area to pee” or “there is something odiferous below I truly wish to have a look at” sniffing.

Most often, when my Dachshund declines to walk, it’s one of two things: Either she needs to potty or she is so thinking about exploring a smell that she does not care what I want.

If your Dachshund starts to lean against the chain when you provide it a little “allow’s carry on” tug, give them a couple of seconds a lot more as well as see if they wind up going potty.

If it’s apparent that your pet doesn’t need to go, after that insist that the stroll proceed.

Once you can figure out why your Dachshund is refusing to stroll on a chain, you can start to resolve the concern.

Several of the causes may require you to customize your future strategies (like elderly canines decreasing or a lasting injury or health problem), may be short-term issues with a fix (like not really feeling well or worry), and also some can be resolved with added training.

I see many people claim they have quit due to the fact that their Dachshund rejects to walk however, however, that can result in habits issues, and also weight problems, due to absence of exercise.

My suggestions is don’t give up. Whatever the factor your Dachshund is immune to walking, it likely isn’t as tough to repair as you think. It might even come down to merely out-smarting them.

from Lucky Dog Solutions http://www.luckydogsolutions.com/12-reasons-your-dachshund-may-refuse-to-walk-on-a-leash/ from Lucky Dog Solutions https://luckydogsolutions.tumblr.com/post/622921307198193664

[kathydsalters31]

12 Reasons Your Dachshund May Refuse to Walk on a Leash

I hear everything the time: “What do I do when my Dachshund rejects to walk?”

It’s not unusual for me to hear tales of individuals that tried to take their Dachshund out for a stroll as well as their pet dug in– pulling in the opposite instructions on the leash– declining to take even that primary step.

I likewise listen to a lot of tales from people that were happily walking along with their Dachshund and their dog instantly stopped, froze, and refused to rise.

One thing prevails– every person who shares their story with me is requesting for aid– so I assumed I ‘d share what I recognize based upon experience. Why Would a Dachshund Refuse to Walk? There are many factors that a Dachshund may refuse to walk on a chain but the very first thing I tell individuals

is that they require

to attempt to identify why. In almost all cases, the factor is just one of these 12 things. Injury or Pain While numerous Dachshunds simply refuse to stroll since they do not like it for some reason

, there is also an opportunity that they might be harmed or otherwise feeling well. A little pull on the chain to motivate a pet dog to proceed is alright however continuing to pull on the leash while they

dig their feet in or put down, or urging they walk when they have to be drug, can exacerbate any wellness problem. 1)Foot problems Feet or paws might have a cut, be chafed on or between the pads, or be bruised by strolling on a very harsh surface area like sharp rocks.

Seek clinical interest if needed or take a break from strolling till it heals if you notice something wrong with your dog’s paw. If my Dachshund is refusing to walk is their feet, the first point I constantly examine. The paw pads might be scratched or they can have a rock or pointy burr stuck in between them.

2)Tender, raw skin Legs or arm pits might be chafed as a result of current or previous rubbing of a harness or jacket. A dog might have allergies that can result in red, raw skin that obtains further intensified when strolling. If you see mild chafing or red areas on your pet dog’s skin, don’t panic.

The problem will usually recover on its own with some rest or by utilizing a different harness or jacket that does not rub in the exact same place.

If it is a lot more severe, or does not disappear, it’s an excellent idea to visit your veterinarian to get it looked into.

3) Undiagnosed pain

There may be something you can’t see on the outside, or something inner, that is causing your pet discomfort.

If you think this holds true, take your canine to see the veterinarian. They will recognize the most usual test to go to dismiss an injury.

There may not constantly be something ostensibly wrong with your Dachshund. However, they might be experiencing an inner pain.

4) Illness

Your Dachshund might be momentarily not feeling good or there may be some underlying health problem that is making them not feel well.

If you presume this is a pontional cause, as well as it doesn’t appear to solve itself in a day or 2, I suggest making a visit with your vet to rule this out.

Terror or Being Uncomfortable

5) Wearing something new

A brand-new harness, coat, or wearing one of these things when your Dachshund hasn’t in the past, can feel uncomfortable to them.

It may feel limiting or truly unusual as well as make them hesitant to move.

If you assume this is the cause, read my post on mentor your Dachshund to stroll in a harness or coat.

6) A new course

Dachshunds– and any pet truly– can obtain used to a routine and also get upset when points alter.

If you ask your pet to stroll on a various course or road than you typically do, they might object.

The new road looks different, most likely scents different, as well as might sound different.

Your Dachshund’s refusal to walk may be their way of claiming, “This is not the right way” or “I’m uncertain about this”.

This brand-new, strange course might look terrifying, odor various, or your Dachshund just may not recognize that walking this direction is also okay. Try taking the acquainted course as well as try the new route once more at a later time. 7)Afraid of the world Many pet dogs that are revealed to new sights, seems, and also scents are usually cynical in the beginning. They might be reluctant to check out or might intend to prevent the scenario entirely. This is particularly typical with puppies, rescue pet dogs, dogs who have not been appropriately interacted socially, and those that have actually been terrified by a similar experience before. These

socialization workouts can be done at, or around home, and also

might aid your pet dog handle brand-new experiences much better. Too far or also much 8)They’re tired I Just like people,

canines have negative days as well as excellent days. Some days they are just tired. Perhaps your canine just does not seem like strolling as much today.

It’s alright to change walking intend on celebration if your pet dog seems to just be having a bad day. Simply view to make sure your Dachshund does not assume that you will give up every time they object or they may start doing it regularly.

It could additionally be that your Dachshund’s refusal to walk is not simply persisting– it’s their means of interacting to you that they have actually had adequate workout today.

Ensure you understand the

indicators your pet may be getting tired. 9)Old age might

be slowing them down In my experience, it’s not common to anticipate elderly canines to go further than they can.

When your 10 year old Dachshund utilized to happily go for 5-mile strolls, it can be tough to adjust our expectations. Bear in mind, a dog’s capability and wish for exercise declines with age.

Your older Dachshund might start getting weary or aching after only 3 miles and also their refusal to stroll might be their way of saying, “I’m done currently please.”

You may need to bring your elderly pet dog back house and make a psychological note not to go as far or as fast next time you opt for a walk.

10) They might not be ready

Exercising a pup can be tricky. They have a lot power yet they are simply learning to walk on the intensity as well as a leash and also period should be restricted up until they are created enough.

A common problem I see with puppies is expecting too much from them too soon.

People often tend to think that young pet dogs have limitless energy when, actually,

a young puppy’s activity degree is limited by bone as well as joint maturation.

If your Dachshund puppy suddenly puts the breaks on, or lays down, it’s most likely their way of telling you that they’ve had sufficient for the day.

Puppies are brand-new to the world so they don’t have a health and fitness base to start with.

It’s essential for any canine to start with small periods of exercise and also build up but slowly constructing health and fitness is especially essential for a pup.

Other Reasons

11) They do not desire the enjoyable to finish

Your Dachshund might be having a great time as well as they do not desire the enjoyable to finish. They might protest if you inquire to relocate or leave on before they feel they prepare.

Fun can include sniffing something really fascinating, playing with a hairy close friend, or leaving a pet dog park. You have two

selections right here: give up and allow them take pleasure in a little more of what they want or take cost and urge that they leave with you, even if that means lugging your dog back to your house or cars and truck. 12 )Your Dachshund needs to potty Also assumed this is last on the listing, the # 1 factor my Dachshunds refuse to walk is due to the fact that they are searching for a place to potty and also I do not realize it.

Some pets require longer to sniff out the best spot to relieve themselves than others. It can be tough to tell the difference between the “I’m looking for an area to pee” or “there is something odiferous below I truly wish to have a look at” sniffing.

Most often, when my Dachshund declines to walk, it’s one of two things: Either she needs to potty or she is so thinking about exploring a smell that she does not care what I want.

If your Dachshund starts to lean against the chain when you provide it a little “allow’s carry on” tug, give them a couple of seconds a lot more as well as see if they wind up going potty.

If it’s apparent that your pet doesn’t need to go, after that insist that the stroll proceed.

Once you can figure out why your Dachshund is refusing to stroll on a chain, you can start to resolve the concern.

Several of the causes may require you to customize your future strategies (like elderly canines decreasing or a lasting injury or health problem), may be short-term issues with a fix (like not really feeling well or worry), and also some can be resolved with added training.

I see many people claim they have quit due to the fact that their Dachshund rejects to walk however, however, that can result in habits issues, and also weight problems, due to absence of exercise.

My suggestions is don’t give up. Whatever the factor your Dachshund is immune to walking, it likely isn’t as tough to repair as you think. It might even come down to merely out-smarting them.

source http://www.luckydogsolutions.com/12-reasons-your-dachshund-may-refuse-to-walk-on-a-leash/

from Lucky Dog Solutions https://luckydogsolutions.blogspot.com/2020/07/12-reasons-your-dachshund-may-refuse-to.html