I've published a new essay on my website.
“Into the Dark Wood: The Right to Be Unknown.”
Oblivion, autonomy, surveillance, and resisting a world that refuses to let us disappear.
Discussion
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@occult Excellent piece, one thing I was hoping you'd mention is that you make different choices when you're willingly walking into oblivion. Like you said, you tell someone you're off, but also you prepare for the worse, bring some food, a compass, a map, and so on. I think this mindset of you might not get help at a moment's notice in Oblivion, changes how you act in and out of Oblivion.
@neauoire thank you for the feedback.
There’s a lot I wish I could have covered but it would have gone on too many tangents.
I believe what you're describing is temporary, people adjust to this and let go of those anxieties, I know I did eventually.
Everyone will be different on how they acclimate, suddenly you go out on a 2-hour walk without the phone and you didn’t even notice you left it behind.
This change in behavior is just our lizard brains trying to deprogram from our baseline.
@occult I don't know about the phone, I don't have one. But I think these Olivion-crafted habits can be useful, even after spending years in and out of it.
When we row to shore and hike out in the woods all day, knowing that we can't call for help changed how we act in and out of the woods.
When we sailed across the pacific and accidentally sailed right into a cluster of chinese poachers, the way we acted was advised by us having been in Oblivion long enough where the social contracts are somewhat different.
@neauoire You know, I've never thought about it like that. My sense of oblivion has been walking around the city of Boston; yours is much different than mine, with higher stakes. My concerns of leaving the phone behind are downright comical compared to your adventures in and out of oblivion.
I think you're more qualified to write about that kind of mindset than I!
@neauoire for me, once I had reached my new baseline of no phone, suddenly I noticed the buzzing became downright annoying. I knew it wasn't anything important. I was turning on Do Not Disturb mode more often to shut it up.
I went from worrying about what I was missing to being annoyed that I was being pinged so much. Sure enough, I'd take a glance at my screen, and there was nothing I needed to care about.
My behavioral changes are much less dramatic walking around a city, of course.
@occult Yeah for sure, it's a gradient 😊 There's still some valuable oblivion habits that apply in the city and country side.
We've developed this strange quirk where if we are driven somewhere, we have the impulse to ask how well the car is stocked up, does it have blankets? bottles of water?! Yo, chill out, we're just going for a car ride.
I hadnt heard of phantom ringing until today TIL