from artist & humanist Rob Middleton, also available monthly & seasonal
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.
As of today I will post a weekly update.
Options to follow the weekly update:
big.changes.in2025🥰icloud.com
[replace 🥰 emoji with @] & ask for weekly emailI will also offer monthly & seasonal options for keeping up with me. It is unrealistic to expect corporations to keep us connected. Whenever possible I choose nonprofit spaces with no ads, no tracking, and where I have control. I recently purchased 2 new URLs: Rartsy.com is now showing available paintings & Humanissome.org embeds my video streams & social media activity.
The embedded post below is the topic for this week's update:
Streamed again this morning after a 2-week vacation. I thought it went well; I divided the stream into one more talking & one more quiet. During the quiet I listened to music as I cleaned & stuff, only occasionally talking to the camera. I thought I understood the twitch rules about copyright. Based on past experience it seemed they allowed it live & silenced it for replays. But no. I think they did something unexpected to my videos this morning that included music. They seem to have been deleted. I'll check tomorrow morning.
Usually as soon as I wake up I stream on https://www.twitch.tv/humanissome
now streaming until 10am:
※ silent views of nature ※ kitchen organization ※ reading from This Arab Is Queer: next up, Zeyn Joukhadar's essay Catching The Light: Reclaiming Opera As A Trans Arab ※ abstract paintings ※ cough drop comparison ※ me wrestling with the concepts of Right and Wrong
https://www.twitch.tv/humanissome
“Do you believe in Right & Wrong?” In the super long mega song American Pie by Don McLean there is a portion that begins, “Do you believe in rock & roll…” It’s one of the many snips of music lodged in my permanent memory that my mind transforms into one of my humanism hymns.
“Do you believe in Right & Wrong?” is an undying conundrum for me.
If I believe in Right and Wrong then pain is wrong. Accomplishment is right. Busyness & business are right. Indolence, a word that means “not hurting” in its derivation, is wrong, because it has come to mean lazy. Why is lazy wrong? Lying down, lazing about, is deemed immoral. It's no wonder that US Americans burn out and have to be reminded to rest.
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On the next stream 7-10 a.m. on 10-17 maybe I'll explore this subject.
There's a line from the Bible that comes to me often. I suspect it has been incorporated into a Catholic blessing or the order of the mass; and that's how it got lodged in my memory. It's the name of a lovely hymn by John Tavener. I took time to see how I would feel about the meaning in context. Here I present, from the Letter of Paul to the PHILIPPIANS Chapter 4, the parts that are meaningful and the parts that are not meaningful to me:
Selections: ⇀ 3. Never let anyone tell you that you can be dehumanised. Language has many powers, but this is not one of them. Tragically, you are always human – when you oppress, and when you are oppressed. The illusion that more is possible is the root of all evil. ⇀ 5. Do not mistake cynicism for criticism, or criticism for intelligence. Rid yourself of cynicism, which is self-loathing projected outward. It's an inability or unwillingness to account for one's actions and intentions without condemning yourself, and so you damn everyone. ⇀ 7. You are capable of so much more than you imagine – especially kindness. This is a criticism. What have you imagined recently that wasn't a worst-case scenario? This is a seed. Turn it into a door to another world.
humanissome is wrestling with failure tied to alienation (spiritual loneliness)
Video streamed this morning to: https://www.twitch.tv/humanissome
Long term home: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqLErg25tE8
Media Mr. Show with Bob and David, pre taped call in show, cued to freakout: https://youtu.be/mhVbLJvYP8s?t=186
Wilson Cruz in Matt Baume's video on Cruz's groundbreaking character Ricky on My So Called Life, cued to where Cruz sees the character today: https://youtu.be/cjhxnRlleLo?t=3704
Script Rob in Recovery: Failure Unfinished projects, or Will this video be another Part 1 of 1? (Or even more commonly just not get made.) If you've seen my channel you might be shocked to think that I have any productions that don't make the cut. My quality control is lower than Boar's Head. This is where I pretend someone is speaking in my ear: My lawyers ask me to rewrite the previous joke to say: My quality control is lower than any capitalist industry that produces potentially life threatening goods. Haha but Rob you're streaming, the first joke is still in. I think jokes are free of libel risk & it's also true that Boars Head recently distributed dangerous meat. Look it up. Obviously I'm off topic here so I'll keep going and say that I think corporations that are found grossly negligent should receive the death penalty, their assets seized and allocated to a more trustworthy entity. Corps want to be people. I want to see corps pay for their crimes. I hope to do an episode on recovery from capitalism. For now I'll say that I don't want to subject anyone to psychological abuse by forcing you to watch ads. As soon as I can I will move this channel's main home to PeerTube, which is an ad free, de-centralized version of YouTube... with about 69 nice viewers. My audience might actually go UP by moving there. I'll probably keep having presences on Twitch and YouTube for discovery purposes. Or, to be more accurate, none of this is likely to happen. I want to be honest and say the reason I can't make any future promises ever is chronic disability — but this isn't the chronic disability episode it's the failure episode. At this point if I had editing capabilities I would insert David Cross hosting the pre-taped call in show and screaming. I feel like that sometimes and I miss big laughs. Oh wait. I'm going to go all in on poor production. If you're willing to watch this you're willing to watch this.
YouTube Mr. Show pretaped call in show https://youtu.be/mhVbLJvYP8s?t=186 https://dotart.blog/70scs5h7rk
So here's my no spoons media setup. While I'm here I'll cut to the next topic I want to talk about using a video clip. Before I do I will acknowledge that I'm playing a tv show clip from within someone else's video. If you hang out on YouTube you may have heard of Illumine naughty, someone who built a huge channel and allegedly stole a lot of other people's work. If you don't know this story there were about 200 videos made about it, feels like under a year ago. Just start typing Illuminati the right way then change the end to naughty. If you enjoy tedious deep dives and infighting and learning about a seemingly, allegedly horrible person. By the way I'm throwing in so many alleged lies because it seems far more likely to me that this person would find me and sue me than the meatpacking company. iN She did her alleged stealing to make money and I am not. Put an asterisk there. I am doing it for financial reasons tho. I have no income and subscribe to no steaming services. Besides money, spoons are another thing I don't have. My production choices are due to these factors. Remember I have chronic disability and I don't have money. Here's the clip. I'm only showing the portion of My So Called Life because I'm not commenting on the video this clip is embedded in. But I am stealing his research in a way — though I think this is how culture works. Like clips from documentaries inspire us. In any case I respect Matt Baumé and encourage you to go see his video that I'll link to. If you want the full experience of his video before or instead of watching mine, I totally understand. Ok are the decent people gone? I hope so because I'm going to talk about my unpleasant reaction to someone who seems super pleasant, Wilson Cruz. Wilson Cruz is a queer actor known for playing groundbreaking characters (most recently he and Alan Tudyk play a married couple with a queer found family on st discovery. Wow alan tudyk is in Star Trek and Star Wars. How many actors have done that? And also firefly? Anyway enough beating around the bush, here's seemingly wonderful Wilson Cruz saying à seemingly wonderful thing clipped in a video by seemingly wonderful Matt Baumé: Um wait a little longer so I can say I love this video and recommend everyone see it. I could just put baumes video on and we could enjoy it together. Seriously go watch it. Especially because this clip is the very last moment of an hour long video. I know! That's why I say please go watch the original first. What I'm about to say after I play this clip is only for miserable people anyway and you don't want to be that. Ok ok. I'm assuming everyone is gone. Here's what I want to talk about:
https://youtu.be/cjhxnRlleLo?t=3704
1:01:44 to 1:02:22
If anyone is watching this I have a serious question: am I the only one with mixed feelings listening to that?
That's why in this episode I'm in recovery from failure — and it's not going to be resolved today. Here are my issues: The way to imagine success for this fictional character is that he follow a path of amazing success similar to the one experienced by the actor. Cruz says his character would be hob nobbing with stars. Why is that validating? And he says that Ricky who was bullied in high school would become the most successful— no, he says famous, person from that school. Validation through fame, is what I see. I wanted that. Is that what I'm attempting here? Add that to the list of things to cover later: Money & Fame seeking.
Let's get some good things out of the way first. This clip is lovely. An actor, at a very young age, inhabits a character so much like himself and imagines that character also following a similar, successful life path. That's beautiful. Much more beautiful coming from him than in my summation. It's tear jerking. And when I first watched this video and talked about it on Mastodon I said that this show might have helped me a lot if it had come out years earlier. It helps to see someone like ourselves in media. As a kid to see someone like me who finds loving support I would have — well, I can't say what. I might have just been angry and felt it was unrealistic to find support, because I didn't know that experience. Just like I can be irritated with this imagined successful future? Maybe. Because what I'm talking about IS failure. Oh good. Always keeping on theme haha. Go on. But I had a lot of opportunities to succeed. And there are many ways that I am not like Wilson Cruz or his character Ricky. I'll come back to that shortly. — I went to Princeton university. I majored in psychology before I fell in love with abstract painting. Fear of failure and fear of success were definitely in some textbooks of mine. But I don't remember their explanations being about a desire for fairness. Now, granted, I didn't graduate and I never studied too hard. But also, I have a pretty good memory for the things I'm interested in. I could do some light research but this series is about feelings while in treatment. Ok so I think that nearly all the mental conditions I learned about were individually focused. Meaning that a Fear of success would be rooted in some disorder. But have you seen the meme: I want all of us to make it? Well that's not possible, in our current system. May not be possible ever. In general, psych teaching on disorders is grounded in the ways an individual does not fit into their society. Again this is just my memory from being a psych student and patient. I'm open to hearing all the ways my facts might be wrong. But not my feelings. Sorry for that glitch. Replay: In general, psych teaching on disorders is grounded in the ways an individual does not fit into their society. BUT WHAT ABOUT WHEN THEIR SOCIETY SUCKS? What about when dysfunction is normalized in their society. Now I know that disordered societies are studied, and most likely even by me. I could tell you the classic examples used when studying disordered societies but instead let's just say that much instruction and treatment is biased to view 20th century American society as functional. Not all. Not all of course. But speaking of courses I studied at Princeton, an environment that believed pretty strongly that the existence of Princeton was good. And to believe so requires a lot of additional beliefs and assumptions, many of which are delusional, not true. Again, this is self talk video therapy not research. But all I'm saying is that systems are rarely sufficiently self critical. And that perpetuates systemic dysfunction. Education is unfair. Elite education is unfair. The way we rank intelligence is unfair and inaccurate. It's at this point that many people shrug So What? What can you do? I gotta take care of my and those I love. And I seriously wonder if I'm the way I am because of not sufficiently loving me & mine. I mostly don't believe I have any mine! I don't have people. I hate saying that because I do have friends. But I just can't explain it. Maybe later. Fear of intimacy ¿or caring? I mean, isn't this intimacy, a type of intimacy? Am I fame seeking?!
There's a way to look at life as searching for your people. Maybe Ricky finds them in the queer community, the fashion community, the Met gala, his famous friends. And maybe he gets a kick out of knowing that he succeeded in ways his bullies never did. And is that good? In the way we tell stories, yes. That's usually good. But I tell stories like this [abstract painting]. Because sensible stories leave me dissatisfied.
Believe me I want to stop. There's so much left to say. Maybe I will stop. Maybe I'll make a series after all.
And maybe I won't. I am unstable, have no idea how I'm paying my expenses this month, and I'm unstable. If even one viewer found their way to one of my sponsorship links it would be an amazing honor. I will include a link in the description. For now there's a pinned link called mutual appreciation at https://www.humanisso.me and on my Linktree at www.RMiddleton.art If you're seeing this and the year is not 2024 check the description. I may soon change my registered domains for stupid capitalist scam reasons.
And with that I bid thee a fond farewell. Until next time.
hasta luego.
COME BACK TO: Money Fame seeking My privilege Fear of intimacy ¿or caring?