Hi Jasmine, thank you, as always, for your insights into our cultural signals and what they tell us about ourselves. They are always thought-provoking and often challenging!
The idea that everything is ‘porn’ these days particularly resonated and has ties, I think, to another article of yours that has stayed with me, about temporal dissonance.
If we live in a world where we are increasingly disconnected from the stories and beliefs that have always anchored us, then searching for, and leaning into, real intimacy is not only difficult, it feels almost reckless.
What we are left with is performance, because what else is there in a world where truth is malleable, and nothing stands still? With little else to fall back on, we pretend intimacy, so that we can shine a light on ourselves and maybe give our lives (at least in our own eyes) some kind of meaning, even if it is without the deep connection and reassurance that intimacy offers in its truest form.
Worse, for some of us, porn is addictive, leading to escalation, desensitisation, and - ultimately - dysfunction. In other words, the act becomes the prevailing narrative, at the cost of feeling, and to the detriment of our relationships and any prospect of intimacy.
So, is it okay to want the show sometimes? Of course it is. As you point out, it’s human. But when we stop identifying the act as the show? When we start thinking that the show is all there is? That’s when we have a problem.
And I’m concerned that that is where we’ve landed. Maybe, through language, we can pull things back a little. After all, if we find the words to describe something (and ‘porn’ is a wonderfully effective word for separating act from feeling), then we are better placed to identify it, and, hopefully, to treat with it.
But, deep down, I think more is needed. If we are to reacquaint ourselves with intimacy, then we need to explore it and understand how feeling differs from act.
For me, the only possible starting place for this is education. But for that to work, we need to flip the system, giving a back seat (at least until upper-secondary and tertiary level) to the acquiring of subject-specific knowledge, which, in the age of AI, is no longer the commodity it once was.
Instead we should be teaching our kids how to talk to each other, how to visit all sides of a conversation, and how to examine their thoughts and beliefs (their biases) critically, so that they can understand why their stories have become so fragmented and how (for want of a better word) they can 'unjumble' act from feeling, performance from truth, porn from intimacy.
It’s something I’ve started to write on, and I do want to thank you again for the insights you constantly provide about our culture and society. The articles you and your co-creators at the Concept Bureau provide always help to remind me of the lasting importance of ideas, and - even more - the absolute need to share them, and to talk about them.
Thank you for the deep thought, I really appreciate the discussion and found myself nodding to a lot of the things you say here. I do think there is some hope, though. Beneath all of the dire headlines, I see people seeking deep and raw interconnection again. Might not be the strongest signals, but they are coming through and I think the human impulse toward real intimacy is not so easily squashed. More in my piece next week :) Thank you again for building the conversation!
I literally blocked time in my calendar today to make sure I went back and read this - always love your writing, makes me think in new ways. Thank you for putting out this work!
First of all, I love your quote about how writing contributes to thinking. It got me to write this comment!
Secondly, I appreciate your insight into how women are born into, and regularly inundated with, pain while men have to go “find” it. As I think about my personal development as a man and about raising boys, I see how critical it is to find this “positive, generative” pain that you reference. And tangentially, how important it is to be aware of how our society is built to reduce all friction. Efficiency used to be my mantra when I was young, and it’s taken a lot of undoing to believe otherwise…
Finally, I’d love to hear your thoughts delving deeper into your insight #2 (we’re all free agents). I feel like all the other points seem to have practical next step thoughts
i.e. “what pain in my life can be positive/generative that im avoiding”, or even “what areas of my life fit into this definition of ‘porn’”
But I personally would love help expanding on insight #2, maybe because I haven’t thought about it much myself.
Hi Jasmine, thank you, as always, for your insights into our cultural signals and what they tell us about ourselves. They are always thought-provoking and often challenging!
The idea that everything is ‘porn’ these days particularly resonated and has ties, I think, to another article of yours that has stayed with me, about temporal dissonance.
If we live in a world where we are increasingly disconnected from the stories and beliefs that have always anchored us, then searching for, and leaning into, real intimacy is not only difficult, it feels almost reckless.
What we are left with is performance, because what else is there in a world where truth is malleable, and nothing stands still? With little else to fall back on, we pretend intimacy, so that we can shine a light on ourselves and maybe give our lives (at least in our own eyes) some kind of meaning, even if it is without the deep connection and reassurance that intimacy offers in its truest form.
Worse, for some of us, porn is addictive, leading to escalation, desensitisation, and - ultimately - dysfunction. In other words, the act becomes the prevailing narrative, at the cost of feeling, and to the detriment of our relationships and any prospect of intimacy.
So, is it okay to want the show sometimes? Of course it is. As you point out, it’s human. But when we stop identifying the act as the show? When we start thinking that the show is all there is? That’s when we have a problem.
And I’m concerned that that is where we’ve landed. Maybe, through language, we can pull things back a little. After all, if we find the words to describe something (and ‘porn’ is a wonderfully effective word for separating act from feeling), then we are better placed to identify it, and, hopefully, to treat with it.
But, deep down, I think more is needed. If we are to reacquaint ourselves with intimacy, then we need to explore it and understand how feeling differs from act.
For me, the only possible starting place for this is education. But for that to work, we need to flip the system, giving a back seat (at least until upper-secondary and tertiary level) to the acquiring of subject-specific knowledge, which, in the age of AI, is no longer the commodity it once was.
Instead we should be teaching our kids how to talk to each other, how to visit all sides of a conversation, and how to examine their thoughts and beliefs (their biases) critically, so that they can understand why their stories have become so fragmented and how (for want of a better word) they can 'unjumble' act from feeling, performance from truth, porn from intimacy.
It’s something I’ve started to write on, and I do want to thank you again for the insights you constantly provide about our culture and society. The articles you and your co-creators at the Concept Bureau provide always help to remind me of the lasting importance of ideas, and - even more - the absolute need to share them, and to talk about them.
Thank you for the deep thought, I really appreciate the discussion and found myself nodding to a lot of the things you say here. I do think there is some hope, though. Beneath all of the dire headlines, I see people seeking deep and raw interconnection again. Might not be the strongest signals, but they are coming through and I think the human impulse toward real intimacy is not so easily squashed. More in my piece next week :) Thank you again for building the conversation!
I literally blocked time in my calendar today to make sure I went back and read this - always love your writing, makes me think in new ways. Thank you for putting out this work!
Thanks, Jasmine. And, yes, you are inherently more optimistic than me! I need to give my pessimism a good talking to and tell it to get over itself...
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I appreciate it :)
First of all, I love your quote about how writing contributes to thinking. It got me to write this comment!
Secondly, I appreciate your insight into how women are born into, and regularly inundated with, pain while men have to go “find” it. As I think about my personal development as a man and about raising boys, I see how critical it is to find this “positive, generative” pain that you reference. And tangentially, how important it is to be aware of how our society is built to reduce all friction. Efficiency used to be my mantra when I was young, and it’s taken a lot of undoing to believe otherwise…
Finally, I’d love to hear your thoughts delving deeper into your insight #2 (we’re all free agents). I feel like all the other points seem to have practical next step thoughts
i.e. “what pain in my life can be positive/generative that im avoiding”, or even “what areas of my life fit into this definition of ‘porn’”
But I personally would love help expanding on insight #2, maybe because I haven’t thought about it much myself.
Thank you!
Your newsletters are the best thing in my inbox by a country mile! Thank you for sharing.