My obsessions always seem to come back to consciousness and creativity — I guess human potential?

I have a longstanding nemesis-ship with Elon Musk (not that he knows it). In fact, he is the reason I live in Michigan. If my previous boss did not hire me because of the video I sent Neuralink, I would have never moved here for the job. (Yes, I sent a video to Neuralink of me basically begging them to stop in 2021.)

At the time, I was doing my thesis animation on the potential of this medium to tell neurodivergent stories and depict the fluidity of reality. Animation with its unique ability to reveal and project inner worlds, reminds us that there are as many brains as there are fingerprints. A diversity of consciousness is meant to be on our planet.

So, of course, Neuralink terrified me for so many reasons, but mostly because in attempting to create a best brain, a normal brain, we threaten the harmony and diversity of our entire planet. Vandana Shiva says that “a monoculture of the mind only sees extraction; diversity is useless because it isn’t serving the market.”

If we know diversity cultivates life and promotes harmony, how did we ever get to a point where extraction is so confused for progress, for living? Why, in our culture, is difference threatening and limiting? HOW DID WE COME SO FAR FROM REALITY? The reality that is reflected back at us by every other living thing?

We are the least free creation wandering this planet — and I believe the answer to this question lies in the brain.

Our brains, mirrors of the cosmos — closer and more accessible than the depths of the ocean or space — are still most mysterious to us.

Some say the brain is the key, the final frontier — one thing’s for certain — it is where Elon Musk and I keep meeting. We come here to look for answers…

To define what Freedom is or isn't.

After Elon Musk bought Twitter, now X, for its cybernetic super intelligence potential, of course, I was curious what this mother fucker was up to now. Why did he buy Twitter? And what potential did he see in the Hive Mind, collective conscious - whatever you want to call it?

A late late stage capitalist iteration of automation and efficiency, Elon Musk is interested in collective consciousness and action at a macro scale because the larger the monoculture is, the richer he is. If sameness (aka efficiency) can spread to every corner of the planet, profit will be exponential, power infinite, control final, uncertainty eliminated…

or so he thinks…

until the next asteroid hits and financial wealth is an invention lost in data clouds — not even fossilized in rock.

But it’s not only Elon, obviously, who is attempting to systemize reality into singularity. It’s not only Elon planning a world that operates as one complete homogenous machine. At the Detroit Psychedelic Conference last weekend, a presenter brought my attention to what the guys heading the World Economic Forum are championing:

They are calling the “Great Reset” the end of natural selection through intelligent design. They say free will is dead, thanks to the ability to hack humans via surveillance under the skin.

For these men, Freedom is the elimination of uncertainty through ultimate control over material reality. And control over the collective intelligence, or “intelligent design” (as they’re calling it), is the means by which we achieve it.

Plans for total control and promises of the convenience of singularity are shiny prisons to enslave the masses. We are in an era of global techno-capitalist power far beyond the purview of any government. These guys, the ones with money and control of resource distribution, scare me so much more than Trump.

The Brain is a Pluriverse

It’s an ancient question really - how large our goals can be is connected to how groups of people act cohesively. This is what democracy is barely imaginative enough to scratch at…that we could be infinitely different and still act in each other’s best interests - that we could be differently infinite and still act effectively as a collective.

This is what the Zapatista’s call “a world where many worlds fit,” or a pluriverse. And the brain is just one of nature’s — very close to home — blueprints of it.

I learned about the Zapatistas when I was in Mexico City studying with Materia Abierta in 2022. We talked about technology as something that cultivates life. Following this idea, Freedom IS a technology.

The image to the left is a mural of Emiliano Zapata, leader of the Liberation Army of the Southduring the Mexican Revolution, who the Zapatistas, or Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (EZLN), took their name from. “Un mundo donde quepan muchos mundos” depicts a world of indigenous autonomy without the homogenization of globalization.

Many worlds are walked in the world. Many worlds are made. Many worlds make us. There are words and worlds that are lies and injustices. There are words and worlds that are truthful and true. In the world of the powerful there is room only for the big and their helpers. In the world we want, everybody fits. The world we want is a world in which many worlds fit.
— Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional, “Fourth Declaration of the Lacandón Jungle”

In the pluriverse, there is no need for overarching logic or institutions to mediate between different realities and ways of being. Here’s why the brain models the pluriverse perfectly:

No two neurons are genetically identical, and it’s estimated that there’s around 86 billion neurons in one brain alone. (Holy fucking shit). The synapses between those neurons must be in the trillions, at least, because each individual neuron forms thousands of connections with other neurons.But more important than the number of neurons is “how those neurons interact. As a collection of cells bound to live or die together, neurons share a common goal.”

I like to say there’s as many brains as there are fingerprints because the brain has no single central processing unit, which is why we are able to experience changes in consciousness within seconds.

“If we had only a single center in our brains, capable of responding only when a correct decision was to be made, instead of the jumble of different, credulous, easily conned clusters of neurons that provide for being flung off into blind alleys, up trees, down dead ends, out into blue sky, along wrong turnings, around bends, we could only stay the way we are today, stuck fast.” - Lewis Thomas

Thank god, instead, our conscious experience is formed by which parts of the brain are currently most actively interacting, ensuring we are never static. For example, a brain on psychedelics has enhanced connectivity between the limbic system and the prefrontal cortex, which can intensify emotions and facilitate access to memories.

Just within one brain there are worlds within worlds within worlds within worlds. Each is an intensely complex concoction of environmental input, chemical signals, and circuits. The brain’s various networks — like the default mode, salience, or ventral — show how diverse systems can co-exist despite their own varied interpretations of reality. “Neurons that fire together, wire together,” meaning when a circuit fires repeatedly it becomes a default pathway, but our brains’ neuroplasticity ensures we are fluid beings constantly rewiring and adapting. Our resilience is owed to this ability. Resilience will never be found in homogeneity.

The most miraculous thing of all is that the vast complexity of neural networks is comprised of only 0s and 1s, somethingness or nothingness:

“The complex patterns and chains of neurons which constitute these senses are composed of neuron units which are capable of changing between just two states: on or off. To the central brain the individual neuron signals either yes or no — that’s all. — Alan Watts

To be or not to be?

To fire or not to fire?

Basically, a neuron either fires, or it does not. How could such complexity be boiled down to such simplicity? What an elaborate dance with only two steps! Neurons teach us that the true explanation for the brains’ intelligence and evolutionary power is the certainty of HOW. If neurons were fighting to fire (or competing to take a day off) I think we’d combust.

The brain models how Freedom is found not in the elimination of difference and uncertainty but through the shared embodiment of a goal big enough for all.

So can humans be as equally empowered and cooperative as our brain’s neurons?

I really do believe the brain is a blueprint…proof that with a goal large enough there’s no need for control or hierarchies of any kind whether it’s big tech, governments, or the World Economic Forum.

Aurora Levins Morales wrote in her essay '“Bigger is Better” that:

“Anytime what we’re fighting for brings us into conflict with the legitimate needs of another group of people, it’s a sure sign the picture is too small.
A big goal is like a star map, unchanged by wind or rain, each time the clouds clear, we check our positions against that reliable point of light.”

The material world, by its very nature, will never be certain or controllable. It’s entirely the thinking of human ego to believe any intelligence we design could have permanent capacities to control and manipulate Life and Creation itself.

We can’t even be certain how many neurons are in our heads let alone how much a crop will yield or if the rain will come. But we can be certain that a common goal — LIFE — keeps neurons firing with the certainty of change.

Freedom — the Creation of life — is the reliable point of light neurons fire towards, and we should dare to be so empowered to recognize we have always been bound to live or die together. We must HOW according to this.

“But doesn’t our brain resist change and see it as a threat?” you say. Sure, yeah the brain will drags its feet in attempts to conserve energy. But ultimately, the brain relies on its ability to change to help you survive in an ever changing world.

Creation, consciousness materializing and shapeshifting, is basically a continuously flowing figure eight of complex Change.

“We design our world, and our world designs us back”
— Arturo Escobar, an anthropologist writing about the pluriverse

Or maybe our brain designs us and we design it back. Chicken or the egg? Back and forth we go. Changing. Changing. Never the same again. Constantly.

Octavia Butler, writes about God, the only lasting truth, as change.

All that you touch
You Change.

All that you Change
Changes you.

The only lasting truth
is Change.

God
is Change.”
― Octavia E. Butler

Spiritual Warfare

Okay, I want to situate all this brain talk in the current cultural moment via a poem.

new (old) solidarities

(alternate title: ancient (new) neural pathways)

thicker winds and

sobbing rains and

tonic fires and

miserable mud

dance with our delusions until

we’re defenseless

animals


the men with heads

detached from their bodies

tell us safety is in

singularity

networked cages programmed

screened in walls

with abundant options for

dissociation

what will you consume

while governments orchestrate elaborate

tragic comedies

while the climate choases?

not changes


we’re fucked

they think we won’t

notice their imaginations

are small and trembling

they think we won’t hear

our bodies singing

remembering

they think we’re predictable

hackable

controllable

matter

yes we’re matter

of Mother

of Mother

each of us

of land we love

dignified matter, madness

deserving and shapeshifting

yes, we’ve been failed

we’ve oppressed ourselves

yes, we’ve been divided

and denied, despaired

and dead


but we accept

yes we accept

that’s the difference

no denial

we accept our deceptions,

misguided objectifications,

and befriend our terrible

realities in all their

horrific multiplicity

we accept the limits of locality

our passionate hatreds and

putrid griefs

we accept our fragility

the constant agonizing

uncertainty

and in doing so we sew

new (old) solidarities with every

living thing


we wander weaving

accepting

witnessing, now

when we can’t possibly know what

to say to each other

we find brief homes in

every eyes we can and

tell the people whose

pain terrifies us

“we deserve life

you deserve love

i’m sorry our fears

clouded your sun

i feel your strength

and together we are

equipped for everything

before us”


no exceptions

accept we’ve been Here before

and this is no new fight

again and again Faith returns us

Here

Mother delivers us

Here to

the web of justice

where we’ve been every fiber

every spider

every killer and

every survivor

dancing together

mind sinking into body

we accept 

(zero)

so we recieve

we accept

(one)

so we believe

we accept

neurons firing

we accept

we accept

even if it takes Eternity

In his last interview in 1998, Terrence McKenna talks about where he saw the world going through novelty theory: the complete breakdown of any norms and traditions, madness, and increasing contradiction. Governments publicly acknowledging aliens. New moon just dropped! Bots running for President. Think: Everything Everywhere at Once.

Consciousness a bagel

constantly

spitting itself out

spitting

out itself

Basically, as complexity increases diversity — the chicken egging and the egg chickening, over and over, until you don’t know what’s chicken or egg — attempts to preserve homogeneity will also increase.

Bezos’ space company, Blue Origin’s Mission Statement

The men, attempting singularity, are desperate. They’re racing to AI and space in attempts to eternally preserve themselves and tradition — fear, slavery and extraction — because they know these norms will not survive the coming climate chaos and global changes… consciousness reorganizing itself.

Does WALLE still feel like a distant fiction? As our world becomes increasingly chaotic and Earth environmentally wounded due to industrial exploitation, these billionaire men will try to convince us that our Freedom is in in leaving our bodies — the data clouds and screens — in fucking space.

They will use our biology and chemistry against us and say humans are entirely predictable. New technology forced upon us — much like our smart phones — will further take matters out of our hands… to prevent us from seeing clearly. From feeling deeply. From connecting. From changing and being changed.

We have to remember that their vision of the future is not inevitable. That their clouds of data are fragile. That time is not linear. That energy is not infinite. That our dreams are worth tending to. That we are matter with the same power as our Sun to shape reality and create the intangible.

Leaving our planet, will not save us.

The men with chasms between body and head cannot comprehend the wisdom stored deep within every cell of us. They cannot comprehend that Freedom is HOW: the journey inward, not outward.

There is no algorithm that can take this away from us.

But they will try. They are trying. It’s spiritual warfare out here — our humanity being stripped from us. If difference itself is at stake, everything is at stake. HOW BORING THIS WORLD WOULD BE!!!!

In the face of singularity and time speeding — despite our simple nature, always seeking order — we befriend the increasing complexity of the cosmos and remember our interdimensional nature. Idk? We do nothing. Or we make art that catches a fractal of transcendence. We live near the people whose smells and sounds comfort us. We marry the person who recognizes us even when we’re unrecognizable to ourselves. We fuck! And eat. Sleep. Purge. We dance to move energy and tolerate absurdity. We love the people who make us laugh. We burp. Feel!? Cry. Fart! Have panic attacks. Try even harder to be understood. Develop unshakable Faith. And addictions. Walk around. Chase catharsis. And wonder what to do with ourselves.

I keep coming back to the future is with the people who feel because our bodies’ ability to sense and experience is at stake. Staring straight at the Truth, and feeling our grief and terror is a radical act because on the other side of these feelings is clarity. VISION. A deep rooted empowerment and courage that will make us creators of worlds - PLURAL - YES!

This poem (which has become a part of the musical Maya and I are working on) is a morsel of the endless worlds yet to exist… that every neuron in us already knows how to build.

I wrote it right after getting off the rail in San Fransisco. I felt devastated by the boringness of the experience. Everyone was on their fucking phones. We are geniuses! We invented trains and this is how we use them? A random combination of people who will never be together again - together for at least a few minutes - and this is how we use it? Where’s our enthusiasm for the miraculousness of each other? Are our specificities already so programmed out of us that there’s no curiosity for one another?

Crying on the Bus

cuz everyone's looking down
not up

wanna ask a stranger
what makes you strange?
what makes us same?

but now im crying on the bus
cuz everyone's looking down
not up

wanna ask a stranger
what drives you sane?
what holds your pain?

crying on the bus
crying on the bus
wanna ask a stranger
what's merging from you?
what's descending through you?

Now, imagine getting on a bus and feeling genuinely excited to take in some new faces, new energy. Imagine seeing a stranger’s excitement to see you. Imagine you trust them to be kind and good. You’re having a great day. You’re in a chatty mood. You’re a neuron ready to fire, you say, “I’d love to tell you about my day.” Like a neuron not firing at all, they say, “sorry dude, I’m in a quiet mood, but I appreciate you and hope you have a good one too.” You don’t take it personally, you reply, “I get it! I was feeling like that yesterday, take it easy!” The person on the other side of you turns to you, firing enthusiastically, “I’d love to hear about it!” You smile, “great! tell me something, too?” You don’t even catch their name before you get off at your stop, but your connection - the stories shared in just 7 minutes —nourished you!

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh

It’s all so ironic! I know how I string my words carries no individual power, yet I have to write to make sense.

I love you.

Thank you for making sense to me!

Enthusiastically,

Veronica