from artist & humanist Rob Middleton, also available monthly & seasonal
I I can't I can't do I can't do anything
Maybe tomorrow
96% of this post was written February 27, 2025, and left incomplete. “Under pressure” of my made-up weekly blog deadline, I decided to add a few finishing touches. I choose to blog about politics this week because it's a bleak time. It's depressing, yet somehow a pep talk to realize that embracing humanity is an uphill battle & always has been.
It's easy to get mad at the people who vote for evil. I'm mad. I hate my fellow white people including former friends and my mom. Think about that. I hate my mom. [1]
But do we get mad at people who eat at McDonald's or only buy Crest or Colgate or shop at Home Depot or who own iPhones? Advertising works.
Fighting anti-humanism is my life's work. I talk about humanism a lot, an annoying amount, and I name half my internet entities humanissome. I do this because I believe that the problems in our world reflect a pervasive anti-humanism. Standing up for humanism is the ultimate fight, the effort to rescue each individual and simultaneously all humanity.
It's hard for me to adhere to a weekly schedule (or any schedule). When I wrote my most recent blog post at https://dotart.blog/rmiddleton I said, “Rob, maybe you should make this your weekly Rworld news post,” and replied, “but it's only been half a week! What if I ever did have subscribers who wanted to hear from me no more than once a week?” Now the weekly post is several days late and though I have ideas — I always have ideas — I do not have the energy to write those. What I am going to do is paste over a series of Mastodon toots I just wrote that I have mixed feelings about (you'll see why). That way I get to let some feelings out somewhere more under the radar than my main social media.
8 June I went to Trader Joe's, the store where I still have gift credit. I came home and ate and swam. Made a video while swimming, using my lav mic clipped to my hair.
to read with a soundtrack play embedded video at bottom of this post
| Weekly Rworld News |
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Remember when we made lists in shared notes of things to do, movies to stream, restaurants to go to — and then when we were together we never consulted the lists?!
I can be a broken record. [What a funny metaphor today!] I have discussed before in a blog that I struggle with lists. What does it mean to make a plan & not follow it? That's a big question for my life.
I went to college, didn't finish. What was my plan? My only plan was to get out of my home & my hometown. So once I did that much I ran out of momentum.
I have preferred abstract imagery over words for expressing my thoughts because writing feels finite & imagery feels infinite.
A reason that I live in the city where I grew up is that it feels less like a choice than moving. Here is here, I've thought; whereas Elsewhere is... where? Why choose one place over all the others? As I prepare to move Away I'm drawn to the practice of regular written reports as a way to share my progress with others — and to help keep me motivated.
In other words I'm plunging myself into circumstances that I dislike: committing to make a choice from an array of options in where to lay my head in 2026 & in what to write about weekly & monthly.
There's one thing that painting and writing (and even where I'll live) have in common — the pejorative question, Who cares?!
This week's newsletter is divided into 2 parts: Fun & NoFun. The Fun part is about pop culture, specifically Star Wars: Andor season 2 (mild spoilers). The NoFun half is an inward rumination that builds on last week. Read either or both or none. Yay consent!
Building a better future...
In the last 12 hours I've shared videos on insta and twitch in which I discuss longstanding self improvement goals. On the one hand if I haven't “resolved” certain issues after 30 years it might seem time to admit defeat. On the other hand, binary framing is one of the very habits I work to overturn. In one video I look left and right at my hands, then turn them horizontal to represent tier ranking. Perceiving the world in the frame of simple binary right & wrong and/or expanding to tier ranking are both unhealthy limitations on my development. The same struggles, the same questioning may not change; but growth emerges in how I respond.
I've been saying, “I'm not doing well enough to get better,” all year. I've said it to my sister & I've said it to my boyfriend. They're not doing well enough to help me.
I want to address the way I talk. Someone in the Scribes&Makers group on Mastodon said not too long ago that I had a positive energy that inspires others. And another stranger who found my twitch stream said they thought I was a great person. I am willing to accept compliments if others are willing to tolerate honesty.