Thanks for stopping by, dear Reader.

But you were always going to, thanks for doing it anyway.

We’re going to play a game. Here. Let’s call it a game of Tides.

“A game?!” Yes. Entertain me. You’re already here, stay a bit and maybe you’ll learn something.

What are the rules? Roles. That’s probably more appropriate. None of it’s imaginary, and we’re doing this in real time, already.

Me in the past, you in the future, yes—words already written to be read, yes—but for now we’re in our own spacetime, just for a lil bit.

I’ll be the ocean. You’re the coast. And then we’ll switch. The coast’s job is to be here, the ocean’s job is to push against your boundaries… and in that space, the shape changes.

Okay.
So… words.
Okay, so maybe, not JUST words, but language itself.

Isn’t it we ird!?
Did you catch that?

The

    S
      t
        u
           d                              ?
               d
                    e
                           r
                                  s

Like. This map we have of communication. What it means to mean what we mean. I have an expectation. You have yours. And in this preestablishment of boundaries, when we interact. We get each other. You understand what I’m writing, and I’m understanding how you might receive it.

m i g h t

That’s the word for this essay. If we always knew exactly what we’d get, there’s no point to reading. But stray too far, and there’s nothing to hold on to.

And so, here you are, hanging out with me. Thanks again, by the way. Clearly things are not too stable or unstable.

What if after the title I gave a deconstruction of language through syntax trees, grammar, building arguments, would you hang around? If you don’t, what’s the point?—you didn’t get my message, and so it would mean nothing to you.

Moving on.
Are you moving yet? I am.
Can you hold on? I hope so.

We’ve been flowing, but now we need something a bit more solid to work with. Ready? Okay, Hold still.

Where are you reading this? Do you know the space well, or not? Regardless, you have an image in your head of what it is, placements, expectations. You need some expectations—however loose—to function within it. That’s your map of the space. You think you know where things are, until it’s time to actually find them—then you’re applying your map into the world.

You lost your keys, and you go to the most recent representation of it, until you know that you’re wrong. What does it feel like to know you’ve opened the wrong drawer? Not the trying again, the snap where you know the map is no longer the kitchen and you now need to remodel your model of your kitchen.

S N A P

The difference between expectation and reality… and music always does this. Always playing between consonance and dissonance, that’s what keeps it interesting. Whether the variations between pitch, scale, volume… rhythm. It’s about anchors, and they’re super important. But anchors need resistance to hold, and resistance needs anchors to grind on.

And that’s the thing about coasts and oceans. Neither is ever fully static and neither only ever pushes. They do the same at the same time, using the other to launch from—just at differing speeds and intensities.

It never began, it was always happening. Forever & Always. Deterritorialization, the deconstruction of territories always implicates the reconstitution of territories, the reterritorialization.

The “hey” was just destabilizing you enough to have a playful conversation with me.

And so, thanks again, for playing.