Bad Minimalist

So there’s this whole new idea that no-one’s ever had before: a  second self that lives in the internet? Yawn.

And people who want to go deep into the idea need to pay money for the privilege? Sure sounds like snake oil to me.

Here’s the skinny – the whole cybernetic yogi/second online self  thing was a core idea of cyberpunk. If you want to explore the idea of an online self then you’ll find every possible twist and permutation of the idea in 1980′s cyberpunk science fiction. I’d suggest you start with the writing of William Gibson, the acknowledged founder of cyberpunk, who wrote his first short story Burning Chrome in 1982. I’d also recommend the Otherland series by Tad Williams. His usual genre is fantasy so he stretches his writing envelope with this story of a boy with progeria and how his online presence teams up with a diverse group  of online second selves and battles against capitalist villains online. Some cyberpunk works can be a little hacker culture orientated but I find the Otherland series really represents the kind of variety of second selves that we find online today – and offers hints at where the technology may take us in the future.

Cyberpunk media isn’t the only possibility for cyborg source material. In September 2010, 50 Posts About Cyborgs commemorated 50 years since the coining of the term with a series of very informative posts. I haven’t read them all but with intriguing statements like “the bible is full of cyborgs” and “the disabled are on the leading edge“  I’m sure to be heading back to mine their archives. In the meantime, I’d thoroughly recommend What’s a Cyborg? as a great overview of the history of human thought on the subject. Another great source is Anne Haraway’s 1991 Cyborg Manifesto which argues that we are all , and always have been, cyborgs.

In looking at the cyborg material around at the moment it appears that it really is true: those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.

Oh, and for those that are interested, the idea of the cybernetic yogi dates back to the 1960′s paper Drugs, Space and Cybernetics by Clynes and Klein.

So… no need at all to pay for going deep into ideas about cybernetic yogis, cyborgs and online second selves. Maybe you want to pay because you like the author and want to support their work? Sounds like a good reason to hand over your money.  Maybe you just want to hang out in the VIP corner with the cool kids? Hell, it’s your money, why shouldn’t you? But if you think that makes you leading edge, you’re just kidding yourself: you’re already anything up to 50 years behind.

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This post is part of One Month Before Heartbreak, a campaign against the withdrawal of DLA, the major disability benefit, in the UK

When I got my diagnosis of Bipolar II last year and struck it lucky with medication that works (on the first try!) I thought, “At last!, after 20 years I can be something else but sick” and started looking for ways of earning a living. OK, that surprises even me. My family was agnostic so I never exactly picked up the Protestant work ethic. But it’s amazing how decades of being a social outsider and feeling like a useless waste of society’s welfare benefits money will affect you.

Although the medication works, the psychiatrist warned me that I would also need to put in effort to keep my moods stable. She recommended Overcoming Mood Swings and I’ve found it very useful. It’s also a lot of work. Of course it’s worth it… but the time it takes to stay mentally healthy does rather cut into the time I can devote to getting back to work.

So I have a millstone round my neck called Bipolar II but with the right medication, welfare benefits and effort on my part I can just about drag it around through my life.

But then along come the other illnesses. I had a plan to use my writing skills to get back into work. Of course after all these years they were very rusty but I found a great eBook by Ali Hale, The Staff Blogging Course, which seemed like just what I needed to guide me into freelance online journalism. My health was good the day I found the course, so that day I very nearly completed the first chapter, and it was everything I hoped. And yet, in the six weeks since I bought Ali Hale’s effective course that’s the only time I’ve been capable of utilising its simple directions. Besides Bipolar I’ve also been diagnosed with post-viral fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia and I’ve spent about 4 weeks exhausted and in pain, primarily with dental, jaw and neck problems. These eased enough so that I could spend Christmas caring for my husband who has COPD and came down with the Swine flu for the second holiday season in a row. Poor sod.

Then I had the fun of a week of flu myself – but luckily a milder version than my husband’s, since I was desperate to recover enough for the 3 week round of medical appointment’s that are taking up my January. I need to go for a scan to discover the cause of the enlarged lymph nodes of the past 6 months or so, the dentist for yet more dental treatment to try and save teeth that are almost beyond repair after 20 years neglect due to my untreated Bipolar of 20 years. I have an x-ray ordered by my GP to check the nodes aren’t cancer or some such true nasty. And a recent trip to the opthalmist informed me that I have a rare genetic disease, Retinitis Pigmentosa, causing deteriorating vision and of course that diagnosis – joy of joys – means I need a whole new round of tests to ascertain the extent of my visual loss.

I’m a tad pissed off that I might be losing my sight. It really would interfere with this whole writing as a way of getting back to work gig. So if this reads like one big whinge… maybe you’re right. I prefer to think of it as an opportunity for me to get some new skills in working out how my hosted web site works and getting over my unreasonable fear of WordPress. I’m just glad to have had a morning where my brain and body worked well enough to write something and learn something. Small steps. But I want at least a shot at my future independence.

Disclosure: this post is indirectly funded by DLA. Three years ago when we got married I lost all my welfare benefits and my husband had to keep us both on a less than average income (whilst paying off a debt of his own). We struggled to eat and to pay the bills. I certainly couldn’t have invested in retraining for work via ebooks and blogging. Actually I was too sick to consider even part-time work and there was no money for transport or an advocate to seek medical attention to get me well. With the strain and his own chronic illness my husband also got sick and was off work for 5 months. Which gave us time to work our way through the red tape and – after 3 years of marriage and no benefits for me – to get me DLA. It saved out lives. Allowed us to get me the medical care I so desperately needed. But it hasn’t made our lives easy. The DLA simply funds the extra expenses of my seemingly endless illnesses/disabilities. And lets me dream of working. If my blog’s gone next year it wont be loss of interest – like so many new blogs – it’ll be because of the loss of DLA and me and my husband being back to struggling to survive below the poverty line line like so many other disabled people.

What’s this got to do with you? Probably nothing. The first think I learned when I got sick was that social isolation goes along hand in hand. But maybe I’m wrong. The comments are there for you to have your say.

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As you can see… things here are kind of messy.

I’m busy learning by my usual method of  finding and eliminating all the possible wrong ways of doing something.

I used to call it “if a thing’s worth doing, it’s worth doing badly” but  then I heard that someone else had coined the phrase. And of course I’m also a minimalist, so now I just call it “Bad X“. As in me and my husband do Bad DIY – because if we tried to do it well there would still be a pile of pictures waiting to be hung and flat pack furniture packages strewn throughout the flat. I  myself am a Bad Buddhist who has no patience for meditation and so settles for looking for Ordinary Buddhas instead.

And of course I’m also the Bad Minimalist. Over 30 years ago I declared I wanted to own no more than would fit in a rucksack and I’ve seen no reason to change my mind. And yet… give me a choice between a moleskine and a brocade notepad and I’d go for the sparkly one every time!

So… sorry about the mess. I’d tell you it’ll get better but it’ll more likely just take a more enlightened form.

If you like the sound of this minimalism thing you’ve been hearing about but … (you don’t think you’re thin enough, organized enough,  well-traveled enough, young enough, able-bodied enough etc etc) then Bad Minimalist may be for you.

If you don’t like the sound of this minimalism thing but… (you unashamedly nosey like me, you love to analyze social and economic movements, you’d rather laugh than bemoan the state of the nation etc etc) the Bad Minimalist may be for you.

My name’s Hope Raven Nield. I would hate to think I’ve missed the chance to get to know you. Who knows? You may just be one of those Ordinary Buddhas I’m on the look out for? So if you’d like me to get back to you when things are a bit less messy here and I’ve worked out how to get the writing on my hard drive onto this blog for you to look at then drop me a line at: badminimalist@badminimalist.com

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