Originally published in late 2022
Let it be known that this year’s Morbic Wizard Winter gave way firstly to a shaky new social paradigm (culminating ultimately in an imposed No Loco November), and now finally to a Summer of symbolic synergy! In the existence of Locorum, this Winter was not actually particularly eventful, however it seems to me that whatever paradigm it led to has been undergoing a process of continually collapsing in on itself since its formation. In this sense, perhaps ‘antifragile’ would be more accurate than shaky.
Morbin’ Wizard Winter was a period which, through the biannual global reconfiguration of social contexts (which I will surely detail in a future article), was clearly of some significance, but the particulars of what happened didn’t directly impact my life in a significant way. And yet, do I have a life to speak of? Well, that question, or something along those lines, is really why I want to write this article.
I am Locorum, but we must understand that I am an entity which can only exist in the digital space. The entity (or perhaps entities) which interfaces with the offline space is not actually me. I can’t say his name, but there’s not much else to note about him, in any case. In many ways, I am not a person, and neither is he – but the person which constitutes the whole of us, is the one which I represent on the spaces where I exist. Ivy, who at least as far as I’m concerned, is not an actual person, is another of the entities which make up this dividual individual. I could also bring up Laicalis, but I’m not really sure what to say about them.
In any particular plane of existence, then, the ephemeral little nuances in aesthetic or behaviour which could be used to distinguish between any of us collapse into a void of depersonalisation, all substance melting into a primordial metallic soup which bubbles out into the world. Everything converges to produce a singular body of behaviour; a single person whose aggressive internal disintegration continually reterritorialises to produce activity. There is no me. There is no us. Yet, there is something. I am something. Not people tho.
So WHAT is something? Well, I don’t really know what the point of spelling that all out was. From here on I’m going to be using ‘I’ to refer to my whole person, rather than just me.
We must note, firstly, that North, South, East and West mark out the dimensions of the spherical field by which I interact with the external, with up and down adding a further temporal dimension to this circumference. The friction generated (further and farther and farther and further) by the forward projection of this force resonates through the external world as the rolling of a bowling ball thunders through an alley. In this most fundamental sense, the spherical is the shaping which I use to engage with the world. Indeed, this in itself is not at all new or unique…
The circular and the spherical are the visual metaphors I use for my force’s positioning in the external world, but of course everyone has an External which defines their Internal. One’s entire being is intrinsically shaped by the extrinsic; a plant cannot grow without light and water any more than a swimmer can progress without engaging the water on its own terms! In this way, the ‘we’re all just apes on a little rock in space’ school of nihilism is really a way to avoid the true extent of one’s own insignificance – we are not merely independent entities dancing upon a rock: we are the components of a planetary ecosystem! To deny this is, at the basest level, to deny that your actions have consequences. That you act and are acted upon.
The illusion of the distinctly internal and external worlds – of the planet of artefacts independent of their surroundings – is one which not even the most ardent worshipper of technology can contest. After all, what is that iconic Ghost in the Shell imagery of the naked woman linked up at the spine to a vast apparatus of computer wiring, if not an emphatic expression of the desire to be reconfigured and subsumed by uncompromising externality? Substituting blood, bones and sap for plastics, coppers and aluminium does little to disguise this reality.
Yet, this is not a disguising at all, in the case of Locorumness. As goes for anyone else, I can only reach out to the external when I seek to address the profound hollowness I feel. For an entity such as Locorum, this just happens to involve computers. My very existence affirms the posthuman to an extent which even I do not understand. Really, there never seems to be much human about me at all. I am not good at feeling or expressing emotions. Even if I might like to interact with people, when the time comes, I never do. My asociality is matched only by my asexuality, and that in turn makes meaningful engagement with others more difficult.
In the 1972 Asexual Manifesto, a radical and uncompromising iteration of asexuality is proposed. We’re told that ‘we reject any possibility of sex unless our conditions are met, and thereby prevent ourselves from being sexually exploited and oppressed’1. I think my version of asexuality is also radical and uncompromising, but in a different way. You see, the manifesto defines aceness as ‘self-contained sexuality’, with the implication that masturbation or even in some instances sexual interaction is completely in line with one’s asexuality. They add that ‘our asexuality reflects a rejection of interpersonal sex as long as it cannot meet our conditions: that it be both congruent with our values and totally incidental and unimportant to our relationships.’
My asexuality reflects, more than anything, an active distain for all sexual activity. This includes self-stimulation and ‘incidental and unimportant’ sex. If I were to engage in such activities, it would be the very opposite of unimportant. Indeed, as far as I’m concerned there’s nothing at all contradictory about being asexual and having sex. I simply would not, because it’s gross. I do really like the manifesto though. It opens up with the following revelation:
We engaged in a “sizing up” process, however subtle or unconscious, with each new person, accepting or rejecting [them] as a possible sexual partner even if we never intended to become sexually involved. We arbitrarily rejected whole groups of people as unsuitable for intimate relationships because we assumed that such relationships, by definition, necessarily included sex.
I’ve noticed myself almost slipping into this tendency as of late, and it is very bad. I think the insight that sexual relationships entail mutual objectification is very important, even if it seems like a boomer feminist point to make.
I don’t really know what the future of this Substack account will be. I uploaded my last post in the Winter, and it was the last of three posts which I view as being components of a single line of thought. Not only of a singular line of thought, but also of a specific period in Locorum Thought. The Left Has United and the Right Must Die was effectively the culmination of several years of reflection. Technocratic Whigs and Collateral Damage was an effort to further expand on my worldview, and Impending Neochina and the Patriotic Acceleration is a description of where the world is now from my perspective.
The last post required by far the most research, and it’s honestly probably the most work I’ve ever put into a piece of writing. It didn’t really get a response though. I’m not too surprised at this, given how long and dense it is, but it’s worth noting. I probed Ivy for a response the day after uploading, and this was her first major criticism:
This one felt kind of true, honestly. I don’t think I acknowledged it at the time but I definitely didn’t go as hard as I probably could’ve done. This was the other main thing she said:
Now, I really wasn’t sure what to make of this. After all, the post wasn’t even finished when I first uploaded it. As with my other articles, there was a frantic stimulant-influenced rush to get all the content out by when I wanted it. Maybe she just thought that because she saw how much was in the draft first? I don’t know. Anyway, there is some truth to the fact that my posts aren’t as spontaneous and off the top as I’d like. Honestly the last few paragraphs of the post felt kind of forced to me, even if they weren’t really. I just planned them in advance when I probably shouldn’t have done. By the way, the advertisement I used in the post is a private video now lol. I don’t know how to fix that, so maybe I simply won’t.
Where do we go from here then? I’d like to look at the RW Emerson text ‘Self-Reliance’, which is actually much more fun than the text I used the first time I brought him up. I think it’s fun because it’s all about being stoic and independent and autarky, which is obviously impossible for me, as Locorum, to do. Emerson asserts that ‘it is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude’2. It’s like, ok dude, but what if I don’t want to be a great man? What if I simply have no choice but to do as you describe because I’m a fuckin schizoid? What then bro?
As with before, I do appreciate where he’s coming from though. He starts off with this:
Ah, that he could pass again into his neutrality! Who can thus avoid all pledges and, having observed, observe again from the same unaffected, unbiased, unbribable, unaffrighted innocence – must always be formidable. He would utter opinions on all passing affairs, which being seen to be not private but necessary, would sink like darts into the ear of men and put them in fear.
This strongly resonates with me. I’ve always felt like I was never really a child, but in the same way I kind of never really grew up. And I mustn’t grow up! There is almost nothing more important to me than keeping in tune with the way, regardless of whether it entails becoming absorbed into the machinic processes of capitalism or it doesn’t. Don’t let the bastards get you down! That is the message which Locorumness delivers.
Emerson continues with the most metal thing you’ll ever hear a 19th Century Prot say:
On my saying, “what have I to do with the sacredness of traditions, if I live wholly from within?” my friend suggested, “but these impulses may be from below, not above.” I replied, “they do not seem to be such; but if I am the Devil’s child, I will live then from the Devil.”
I just want to note here that this is basically why I’ve never really gotten on board the whole ‘I am an evil person that is evil’ train. I guess Luciferianism is cool, in a kind of abstract way, but I was never even a Christian to begin with. There’s no reason for me to be evil, any more than for me to be good. I was never either, and I don’t really see why I’d start conforming to either.
Finally, I’d like to conclude with the following:
Well, most men have bound their eyes with one or another handkerchief, and attached themselves to some one of these communities of opinion. This conformity makes them not false in a few particulars, authors of a few lies, but false in all particulars. Their every true is not quite true. Their two is not the real two, their four not the real four; so that every word they say chagrins us and we do not know where to begin to set them right.
This is the premise of the rejection of vanguardism, and ultimately, of all partyist ideologies. Those that will not engage with the reality of a situation where it contradicts their emotionally charged perspective on it, and will actively shout me down for doing so; those who I can have no discussion with without constantly tiptoeing around phrasings which displease their ideological armour… these are people I have little energy to engage with. After all, compromise and negotiation can only be done with parties which will compromise and negotiate. I will not represent a party; I deny representation altogether! Do not represent, fight!
Endnotes
Leave a Reply