AVOID WITHDRAWAL
The flow of deep immersion or absorption needs differentiating from the fluid currents of liquid precarity, from the conditions of involuntary mobility that keep a body moving, disallow the right to still or settle. The human right to roam, with ease to come and go, must not be confused with the uneasy ebb and flow of forced displacement, of deportation or migration. To experience the uncertainty of flow in affirmative terms is dependent on one’s conditions, perhaps the precondition of some stability, a certain sense of grounding. In ethico-ethological terms, a body can be distinguished through its slowness and speed, the relation between its activation of motion and repose. Yet the tempo of accelerated life risks the reduction of many bodies to a single rhythm. Faster. Faster. Never stop. No intervals. No breaks. Even stasis starts to feel like agitation, ever restive. Find ways to elude the pressures of these hurried times, the ubiquitous demand for greater urgency or haste, for perpetual readiness and just-in-time production. Though avoid nostalgic withdrawal into a slower pace if this means a passive flight from life’s complexities. For already this rhythm has been commodified and simplified, and then sold back to the privileged few.
From Emma Cocker, How Do You Do? (Nottingham: Beam Editions, 2023)