Last New Year’s Eve, the card for the “final outcome” in my Tarot reading was Temperance, which represents vibration.*Â Â And what a coincidence: guess what tonight’s psytrance party is called?
It’s been a long decade. Ten years ago, things were spiralling down: the dot-com crash, a stolen presidential election, with Enron and 9/11 fast approaching.  The ten years since then have been pretty depressing, watching our economy and civil liberties go down the drain as the rich white guys in charge struggle to keep everybody else down and the plutocracy gets greedier and greedier. I’m sooooo ready to put the Awful Aughts to rest and start moving forward.
First though, let’s take a few moments to remember that there was plenty of good stuff over the last decade too.
At the societal level, the last couple of years have included the emergence of social networks, choosing hope over fear (at least partially), reenergized womanist, mujerist, feminist, and anti-racist activists, Wikileaks, and an emerging coalition that’s neocons’ worst nightmare and the future of civil liberties.   So the trend is positive — and momentum is building.
And at the personal level, all I can say is … wow.
For most of the decade, D and I were in a two-city relationship. Don’t get me wrong, it was a great two-city relationship: we saw each other a lot, did plenty of fun things, and it gave us the space to develope some very deep friendships that might not have happened otherwise. But still. Eight years was more than enough. Suffice it to say that I like it even better when we’re hanging out together more regularly.   Thinking back on the all the great times we’ve had on New Year’s Eves in the past, things are even better between us now. She’s the anomaly for me.
Professsionally, it’s astonishing how much I’ve evolved since 2001. Back then I was a software engineer, architect, and CTO — a technologist.  Since then my interests have broadened to activism, security, privacy, voting rights, blogging, asset-based thinking, narratology, diversity, intersectionality, standpoint theories and situated knowledges, oppression theory, action research, and hot pink beanbag chairs. And it’s worked out pretty well for me. I’ve identified a scientific revolution in progress, given keynotes, been on a National Academies/CSTB pane, organized workshops and conferences, been quoted in the Times and WashPo and CNN and Wired, and had front-page stories on top-10 blogs in the progressive, black, and feminist blogospheres.  Like I said, wow.
For a while, 2010 was shaping up to be an anti-climactic end to the decade. Despite the high hopes of a year ago, Qwork fizzled in a very disappointing way and has been on hiatus since the summer.  And the Computers, Freedom, and Privacy conference wasn’t what I had hoped for either — despite heroic efforts by my co-chairs. In retrospect, all my fears that I had overcommitted proved to be accurate. Sigh. I hate it when that happens.
Fortunately things turned a lot more positive in the second half of the year, with the help of some sweet Kona sunsets, plenty of psytrance and networking, a healthy dose of grassroots activism, and of course National Novel Writing Month. Our thinking on Tales from the Net continues to evolve, and D (who wrote a novel of her own as well as a couple of short stories) had a real conceptual breakthough last week. So once again there’s momentum going into the next year. Yay!
There’s a lot more to reflect on about the year and the decade, and a whole bunch of posts I want to write: the Web 2.0 bubble, feminist/womanist/mujerist alternatives to Facebook and YCombinator, Wikileaks, #mooreandme, resistance to the TSA, and suggestions for white guys. Oh well, there’ll be time for all that next year. For now, it’s time to think about having a good time this weekend — and how I’m going to make 2011 even better.
Resolutions — and Vibration
Last year, I put a lot of thought into resolutions for the new year and the new decade, and came up with a list I was pretty happy with:
- choosing desire over fear
- trusting my intuition
- trying not to analyze things too much
- falling through the limitations of intelligence into pure and simple creativity
- bringing inner ecstasy back into my consciousness
- having more art, beauty, and fun in our lives
- spending more time with women — and in particular the women I love and the goddesses I know
On the whole I think I did a pretty good job on these in 2010 (although of course there’s plenty of room for improvement), and they certainly made my life a lot better. So I’m going to roll those over, and once again resolve to do all those things in the upcoming year and decade.
And here are my new resolutions for 2011 — at least tentatively**
- get more sleep. ever since our Hawaii vacation, it’s been clear what I need to do to sleep better; I just need to do it 🙂
- spend more time on Dreamwidth, If We Ran the World, in chat, and other diversity-social media — and less on Facebook and Hacker News
- finish and publish g0ddesses.net and Tales from the Net
- bring a better balance of femininity, flounciness, and flirtation into my life
- (maybe one or two more, still getting feedback)
If I can do as good a job on these as I did on my resolutions in 2010, it should be a heck of a good year 🙂
Vibration, spanning the decades
Tonight, it’s Dissolve , Leohawk, Psynthetic, Megadrop, and PENTA … w00t! I remember seeing PENTA as the sun came up in the Mojave Desert several years ago, and of course we’ve seen Liam Shy of Dissolve on Pink Saturdays and NYEs. It’s a perfect opportunity to continue to make progress on a lot of my 2010/11 resolutions, although don’t think it’ll help all that much with “get more sleep” :-)   It’ll be a time for seduction, fantasy, and reality, hanging out with friends (and thinking good thoughts about the ones who aren’t there), and a chance to reflect the texture of the kee g0ddesses.net’ scene that’s set at a psytrance party on New Year’s Eve.
And when midnight strikes, I’ll once again be dancing with D, thinking of all the past midnights we’ve been together. Oooh!
Happy 2011 everybody. Vibrate well!
jon
* as well as “radiant energy, tempering of experience, balance, and learning to transfer the life force from the imagination (moon) to the conscious (sun) — another stage on the fool’s journey to mastery”
** my personal rule for New Year’s Resolutions is not to finalize them until the end of January, so they’re subject to change
jon | 01-Jan-11 at 1:55 pm | Permalink
Wow.
We took Muni, which was free — yay! Powell Street Station was was covered in posters saying “Do you flip?” We were vibrating by 11:30 and the DJ didn’t even stop at midnight. It had very much the feel of a <<<Thump>>> at the DNA lounge, scene people mixed with partiers … lots of familiar faces, glad to see each other at least once a year. Everybody was remarkably happy and PENTA played a classic set. Great great visuals. Up there with our best New Year’s Eve’s ever, I would have to say. I heart psytrance.
When they closed the place down at 5 were lucky enough to find a cab in the rain. Several friends joined us … D made cinnamon rolls (mmmmm) … D was done for the night, but I showered and then went out again.
It was cold and rainy and took a while to get a cab. When we got to Breakfast of Champions the line was around the corner — and that was for the people with presales. Ouch! So we grabbed another cab to Breakfast in Bed at the Supperclub. It was a ten or fifteen minute wait, not bad all things considered, and when we got in David Harness was playing. The lighting was great as always, and the music was solid. After a while I snuck upstairs to the VIP area and danced by myself overlooking the dance floor … once it cleared out some I went back downstairs. For the last hour or so it was like a private party where almost everybody knew each other a dozen of us on the dance floor. An amazing set by Rooz … I heart house, too.
It was tempting to continue on to Breakfast of Champions and dance for a while longer, but it takes me a while to wind down, and I need to get some sleep. So instead I headed home, chatted with my brother and a friend online for a while, and enjoyed the feeling. I heart San Francisco.
jon | 16-Jan-11 at 2:17 pm | Permalink
Revised resolutions (still in progress, complementary goals to follow):
– get more sleep
– spend more time on diversity-friendly social networks, and less in sexist, racist, and elitist environments
– find a better balance of femininity, flounciness, and flirtation
– work out, meditate regularly, and do the other things i know i should be doing to reduce stress
– listen to new music
– have friends over for dinner, games, and hanging out more often — and make more new recipes
– take a more ABT approach to life
jon | 06-Jan-11 at 9:47 am | Permalink
Another suggestion on resolutions, from a friend on Facebook:
jon | 15-Jan-11 at 10:44 pm | Permalink
After sleeping for a few hours, we had a low-key dinner and hung out for a while on January 1. We were in a low-key mood, and it was raining, so instead of going out to Geomagnetic.tv’s New Year Rave-o-lution at Mission Rock I had a glass of wine, read some Elmore Leonard, and went to bed. We took it easy on Sunday, and Monday night was Death Guild — in a new wig!
On Monday, the planning started in earnest for EPIC’s Stripping of Freedom conference — I had volunteered to lead with the social media aspects. Amy from EPIC led the planning call, and I stayed on the line afterwards for the planning call for the “grassroots” panel with Kate Hanni, Michael Rogers, and Jim Babb … the conversation got pretty emotional at times, and at one point I tried to sum it up by saying “you’re all heroes in different ways.” It’s a privilege to work with them. he conference on Thursday was great, amazing content, and a solid social network presence. Gotta like that.
In the middle of this on Tuesday we started the drive up to Seattle. We got out of San Francisco a bit after 11, and after a stop at The Lumberjack in Redding (where we watched the 2007 Lumberjack Competition Year in Review on TV as we ate) made it to Grants’ Pass by dinner … by which time I had developed a nasty head cold. Bleah. Thera-flu and cough syrup kept me going, and I stayed fairly on top of things through the conference, but after that the cold got heavier — never really sick, but enough that I felt lousy for the next ten days and still don’t feel fully in sync. Especially since it’s rained 10 days in a row or something like that. I hate it when that happens.
Still. We managed to fit in a couple of new recipes, a really celebration dinner at Il Bistro (one of our romantic places), a lot of editing, an exciting new direction for Tales from the Net, and champagne and popcorn just because. So as out-of-sync, rainy weeks go, it was actually pretty darn good.
Last night D did a Tarot reading for me. Once again I asked “tell me what I need to know to help me keep my new year’s resolutions”, and when five major arcana showed up D said “there’s something else going on here.” It was an interesting reading, a lot to reflect on. As I was sous-cheffing for D making spaghetti this afternoon I realized there was at least one a “top-level takeaway” (as we like to say in corporate-speak): as well as my resolutions, I should think about my goals for the year.
Yeah really.
Fortunately, as I said in the original post, in my view resolutions and goals shouldn’t be finalized until the end of January. So I still have a couple of weeks to work it out. Whew. Maybe that’s what I’ll think about tonight as we have some popcorn and pomeritas, just because, and listen to some psytrance. Or maybe I’ll just dance 🙂
jon | 16-Jan-11 at 1:14 pm | Permalink
3 a.m. in the darkness.
Relaxing after cocooning.
Vibrations. Radiant energy
Chamomile tea. The mist outside.
Paths not taken. Kundalini awoken.
The Queen of Swords, the Lovers.
Candlelightand thoughts of Goddesses.
The sun transformed, a watchful moon observes.
jon | 28-Jan-11 at 7:55 pm | Permalink
Wow, what a month …
Great progress on getting more sleep, listening to new music, making new recipes, and being more ABT. And from my original list, (now reclassified as a goal) substantial progress already on publishing g0ddesses.net and getting started on developing a diversity-friendly social network. Okay, haven’t gotten started on some of the others yet … still it’s only the end of January so I think I’m doing okay.
And tonight, Meat vs. Death Guild. Yay darkness!
jon | 29-Jan-11 at 9:45 am | Permalink
“SUBMIT! OBEY!”
“SURPRISE, SURPRISE, THE GOVERNMENT LIES!”
“The U.S. Constitution isn’t perfect, but it’s a lot better than what we have today.”
Eight years later, the TSA’s using the threat of sexual assault to try to force travelers through the naked scanners, our VP Joe Biden is saying Mubarak isn’t a dictator, and they’re once again trying to sneak through a Patriot Act extension. Hey wait a second, didn’t we vote for “change” in 2008? Sigh.
But eight years later, it’s a different world. In Tunisia and Egypt, the combination of people who are so fed up they won’t take it any more, international media like Al Jazeera that doesn’t follow the government’s spin, and social networks is increasingly powerful. As Aaron Bady says, the revolutions are getting televised and live-blogged.
So fuck the government, and fuck the naysayers. Social network activism changes the dynamics of power. At some point we’ll figure it out in the US too, and get our freedoms back. And maybe we can fix the economy while we’re at it?
But hey, it was Friday night, so instead of getting caught up in the politics, I danced, had a drink, danced, hung out with friends, danced, chatted and danced. We ran into quite a few of our pals, including several we had been hanging out with at Vibration on New Year’s Eve and a woman who had worked with my startup Qworky. Turns out I wasn’t the only one who had been hit by the cold that had been going around, but we had all recovered, so it was a happy and energetic vibe. It reminded me of so many wonderful nights in the past at clubs like Attrition in SF and Man Ray in Cambridge — and at the DNA.
I heart darkwave, and I heart the DNA Lounge.
Tweets that mention Vibration spanning the decades (New Years Weekend 2010/2011) -- Topsy.com | 29-Jan-11 at 3:44 pm | Permalink
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by @hellrazr, who said: Went to Meat/Death Guild last night. Saw lots of friends, danced to great goth/industrial music. @jdp23 posted: http://is.gd/WDJPiP 🙂 […]
Liminal states :: Notes from Underground: DJ Anomaly at the party without a name | 21-Feb-11 at 11:51 pm | Permalink
[…] January’s reading had been a cautionary one, predicting a suboptimal final outcome of “Sensation divorced from understanding, discontent, bondage to the material.”  Soon I rethought my resolutions and goals for the year and soon it all started to flow: activism and writing and NWEN, synergies all around, wonderful things happening for me and my friends, energy aligning around qw3ries. […]