Xenofact

A Chain of Tensions

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I do two forms of meditation – breathing and energy work. My breath meditation is refining a slow, even breath that I follow. My energy work (a form of Microcosmic Orbit) is harder to describe, but is is basically about “settling into” paths in my body and feeling and raising the “energy” within. What’s interesting is both forms of meditation lead to the same conclusion:

We are often amazingly tense.

Any form of meditation makes you more aware, and you’ll quickly become aware of how tense you are. It may not be painful or limiting tension (though it may be), but that odd tension, that bit of push-pull. It may not even by physical, but a few senses of odd division in your head and thoughts. Sometimes – many times – the mental and physical seem to be linked or the same thing.

It can be depressing or distracting depending on your experience and personality. Sitting down and meditating is like being locked in a straightjacket, and it’s a straightjacket that you always wear, but you only know about it during spiritual pursuits.

As you meditate and become aware of them – or in some forms of energy work “feel through them” – another thing comes to mind. A lot of what we think of as us is tension. Seriously, so much of what we think of as us is a pile of conflicts and walling ourselves off from the world and other parts of ourselves.

Our bodies and mind tense up as we are embarrassed. We seal off thoughts we don’t want to have, and enter into an eternal battle that defines who we are. Our fears of a situation tense our bodies up, ready to pounce, and that tension becomes a point of identity. We force ourselves to be certain people and do certain things, pitting tension against tension.

We’re a giant interlinked pile of tensions. The experience of this can be both enthralling and depressing when you get into meditation.

One one level it’s amazing and liberating to experience this. You suddenly see how much of you is just a bunch of conflicting stuff, a Rube Goldberg chain of neuroses and tense muscles. It’s no wonder some people have such insights in meditation and go wild about it – it’s liberating and overwhelming. I’ve had energy meditation sessions where the tensions drop away, and it’s like a thunderbolt shaking your body – it’s easy to take it so seriously you ruin it.

On another side, it’s kind of depressing. The “you” you’re used to is a janky collection of sensations and ideas and a lot of them are tensions. You’re you is always building giant walls to keep things out – building tensions (see my previous writing on “The Escape Capsule”). Your “you’ can seem awful lame when you see how much of it is self-limiting or avoidant. Nothing like looking at yourself and going “well that’s some stupid shit I’ve done for 30 years” and sitting with it.

It’s liberating and depressing to see the role of tension in our lives at the same time.

Me, I try to remember it’s just the way it is, and remember the Taoist references to refining our breath or refining our energies. I am what I am, my tensions are what I are. By my ever-tuned breath,I am refining myself like metal or purifying water. Discovering these tensions are milestones – signs I am doing something right, so I keep doing it.

But, honestly, sometimes I’m just amazed how much of “us” is just some form of tension or separation. I think that’s why we’re often envious of people with wild creativity or who are just chill – because so many of us are not that way.

-Xenofact

Art In Active Suspension

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In 2025 I have been vitally interested in the role of art in social evolution and opposing authoritarianism for the obvious reason that America made some bad decisions it quickly regretted.

Anyway, art is powerful. It’s a combination of words, symbols, colors, lyrics, music, or whatever that gets into your head. Good art is both its own little ecosystem but also is something your mind and feelings latch onto – the goal of good art is to be effective. Art is a tiny world that so connects with your mind it changes you..

When art changes you and others the world can change – and change for the better. Look how it can build social cohesion with shared symbols as well as undermine systems of control, gnawing away at oppressors. Art can inspire people to do even more art, creating a cascade of ideas no tyrant can stem both by sheer power and because most tyrants have the artist sense of blacktop.

Just take a look at history. The Orange Men, anti-fascist songs, pamphleteers, insulting songs, sarcastic essays, mocking plays. You even start wondering about non-political art – perhaps seemingly innocent creations were just subtle assaults on The System. How many revolutionary ideas have we just not noticed yet? How many changed us and we didn’t realize it?

How many ideas in art were not noticed by those who were their target until it was too late?

And that’s just art. Art-adjacent things like religion and spirituality and science also use art to change minds and inform. Look at meditation diagrams and deep symbolic representations. Look at gorgeous art from old science textbooks, drilling that knowledge into your head. Art is powerful.

These days, I think we need more revolutionary art. But in contemplating this I had a rather chilling thought.

What is art as I write about it in 2025? There’s so many ways to publish and print and record, yes, but we’re encouraged endlessly to turn it to profit. We’re asked to make art that fits what sells, that can be marketed, that can fit into certain formats and so on. The overall “art mindset” of our culture is one of making things that we can sell, and that helps bring money to the assorted services and vendors we have.

Now I’m all for people making money, but having seen obsessive attempts by people trying to find the right niche, sell the right story, I wonder. How much effort to make art goes into trying to make the “right” art? How much of our artistry is just understanding how to sell something we’re not quite as enthused about making?

There’s so much product that doesn’t feel like art.

How much of our art today is just contentmade to fit marketing specs and bring in money, not change the world. How many potential revolutionaries are making another tired novel, another just-the-same painting, another knock-off game? How many revolutions could happen that aren’t not because of oppression, but just our endless grind in pursuit of profit.

No, I’m not saying Capitalism is a deliberate attempt to crush art. I’m just noting it’s got some anti-art systems built in. Don’t even start me on so-called “AI.”

There are a lot of future revolutionaries out there, art-wise – as well as just plain good artists. I get the need to make a buck, but maybe that’s restraining them from what they can be. I wonder how we can help them because we need them – and always have.

-Xenofact