I suppose it’s an old point, the one I’m always learning, the complex and ambivalent nature of productivity. Of feeling horrible about the alien order of things — capital, creativity, chaos, capital — of also reaping its rewards. Someone says, “earn more with your time!” and someone responds, “that’s just your scorpio moon talking”, and someone else writes, “productivity itself is a value neutral ideal. Stop moralizing wage labour and constant activity, teach yourself to feel comfortable with free time.” As much as capitalism’s humans generally suspect: as long as there is time, there will always be Not Enough Of It. At least, with what we like to do with it.
In this way, Discorder is like any other form of media journalism. We celebrate a kind of making and doing that already aggravates our caloric intake of this so-called “objective standard” for productivity. But I also feel what we’re doing as traditional media is different. Under the unflattering fluorescent of instagram, it is a real crisis when other people’s stories concern you, but do not touch you. Which makes it the kind of problem that page-turning is best suited to deal with. I know print is a slow, sometimes languishing investment, but I strongly believe in the healthfulness of this delivery system. If only because it won’t fit neatly into Silicon Valley’s safety-blue empire. Print media is slow stuff in a world of fast stuff, and that has to count for something.
Today, we’re constantly reimagining how the workplace can help everyone, from freelancers to Fortune 500s, be more motivated, productive, and happy—because that’s how tomorrow works.
- We Work, mission statement
“Discover Weekly”
- Presumptuous Spotify Playlist
What I need to tell you now: I am tired. I am tired of feeling tired, and being tired, and exclaiming tired things like, “sorry I’m late-tired-slow”, or, “fuck-writing-thinking-trying.” My body has reason to be tired. More reason than I do. It does not give a shit about finding meaning through productivity, or wage, or keeping up with New Music And Art. This issue of Discorder, by intent and also practice, came together through reclaiming rest in a hamster-wheel. Through tactical collectivity. I can’t help but notice the inexplicable link between all this talk of collective accountability, and allowing space for rest. We rest when we activate the collectives which surround us. It’s asking for help, or working alongside, rather than moral self-sufficiency. In Jane Diopko’s interview with Tash King, the creator and editor of Bed Zine, we point directly at the sun. Through Aly Laube’s conversation with longtime contributor Megan Turner, one is reminded of the collective responsibility in maintaining safe spaces. Maya Preshyon’s interview with Vancouver collective Crack Cloud unveils the possibilities of collective making and learning — “during that process of trying to communicate your thoughts to everyone else, you’re also communicating it to yourself.” Lastly, read R. Hester’s review of Respire’s Black Line — the heavy, orchestral post-everything bender which makes a collective practice out of drawing hard lines and burning beyond the cut. From that cut — that unexpected break — we yell.
So while you read through the stories of doing, of all the making and producing, hold with you my small insertion that this doesn’t all happen in some high-proficiency vacuum. With every period of making comes a longer inclination to rest, to collect and to revisit.
Forever urs <3
~T