flâneur

The Rigged Ouroboros of Discourse - by P.E. Moskowitz

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I’ve been thinking a lot about personal agency recently. I think that’s largely because the world feels particularly bad right now, and so it gives me a bit of hope to look around and figure out “what can I actually change in my life?” Like the serenity prayer. Quitting DoorDash, severely limiting my time on social media—these are obviously individual acts. They do not really help anyone else but myself. But in practicing discipline in two areas of my life I wish I had more of it (doom scrolling and eating expensive, bad food while alone), I think I’ve come to the conclusion that we’ve convinced ourselves, or been convinced, that we don’t have personal agency, and, thus, that we can do little to make our lives better on an individual or collective level. In believing the issues we face are systemic (true), and that there are no individual solutions to systemic issues (mostly true), we’ve jumped the gun to the point that it feels like any display of personal agency is viewed as pointles

I’ve been thinking a lot about personal agency recently. I think that’s largely because the world feels particularly bad right now, and so it gives me a bit of hope to look around and figure out “what can I actually change in my life?” Like the serenity prayer. Quitting DoorDash, severely limiting my time on social media—these are obviously individual acts. They do not really help anyone else but myself. But in practicing discipline in two areas of my life I wish I had more of it (doom scrolling and eating expensive, bad food while alone), I think I’ve come to the conclusion that we’ve…

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