X-Ray Vision : Subtext vs Surface Information
Using the carnal to connect to spirit when the message is coming from under my skin
Situations that get under our skin are annoying. They tick us off, disturb and at times activate anger. They’re also complicated messaging attempts that our selves need for subconscious information to come to light. In my 33 years of living, I feel like the ‘world’ censors us to detach from taking things personal, from making things “that deep”. And yes, I agree that every time you’re set off, it doesn’t need to be a drag out drama. I believe also that one shouldn’t desensitize themselves from feelings to avoid grappling with reality. Sensations that are set off in the flesh—even obscene, visceral or shocking—are subtext attempts to reckon with ourselves and with others.
For example, a post promoting a pole event was brought to my attention recently. The visual treatment of the graphic strongly mimicked how I treat my own visuals. I could feel the signs of anger in my body. I typically know if it’s annoyance or anger if my body temperature elevates, and it had. Now, what is my evidence that the graphic is a copy? To that end, I don't have much proof. My disposition remained vehement for awhile, contemplating wether I should confront this person. I went through the entire body scan as I sounded off with my friend. After I considered what was available to me to take action with I realized that not having a connection to this person I needed to handle this one differently. After processing the thought that “this person is cramping my style" what I needed to say manifested itself in a charged, semi-rhyming post that offers some food for thought for anyone that wants to have me fucked up, not just that individual. That feeling coming from under my skin, made me confront myself and confront anyone else that would move with the motivation to cross a line; but first I needed to draw it.
In the fire beneath my skin “I met [what felt like] disrespect or disregard with tenderness”(Zenju Manuel). I “softened into my no”(Carmine Black). This did not mean that whoever had/has me fucked up is going to be met with any sort of bypassing. No. Hell no. It means that I would handle the rage with a situational awareness that allows me to mutate it into response. I would move past the fleshly feeling into the spirit to find the truth of the situation. What was communicated in the subtext of my carnal anger is that I needed to create and express what my presence on instagram is and what it is not. I needed to make myself known, even more—this time finding devices to express what I’m there for and what i’m not there for.
How we use our Instagram tools—cover graphics, reel posts, slide posts, single photograph posts, videos, stories, saves, direct messages—is different from one another. And to me, the subtext that makes our realities a shared and understood or establishes consent between us has vanished with Instagram’s prioritization toward being an engagement marketplace. Your attention is on sale, regardless of how genuine the media is.
I think society (not to its benefit) is moving away from the types of information that require subtext. Subtext is like a feel and meditative processing that uses messaging devices that move us along the path from carnal to spirit. Much of the information that is released on Instagram is literalism, mishandled or reductive. Even when the information is dense or related to a critical area of life, it is misread, misinformed or shifty. Meditative information makes me confront my carnality and exposes the motivation of my spirit. I’ve found that it is designed with contrast and paradoxes. It sharply calls on patient attention, revisits/reread/rewatches, underlines and highlights, curiosity to turn the page, acceptance of sudden notification, reading or watching until not only understood, but grilled. It is a mutable claim beneath the surface made real when you exchange with it. Subtext, to me, is a critique that attempts to contend with the censorship that often comes with the obscenity of truth that makes folks reject it. It scares the hoes, not for inflammatory relating but for interrogation of depth.
I don’t believe most of Instagam’s functionality was ever intended for long-form paradoxes—reading information and practicing subtext. It is though, a dope screen-door to see what our consciousness is full of. There’s a tweet that said “If you ever want a visual debriefing of the past week of things in your networked imagination… look at your explore page, look at whose stories first pop up, look at the suggested posts in your feed”. Start using different words in your stories, sharing different kind of posts, liking different things and watch your “visual consciousness” shift.
I remember while my romantic life was at the forefront of my focus, seeing my IG explore page shift to a grid of “relationship goals” and “relational therapy” posts. One day it was pissing me off so bad to realize how that sea of posts was influencing and affecting how I was processing information. You see, some of those posts were inserting solutions to my fears and desires and getting the attention of my curiosity when I had not yet done the processing for myself. I realized how it was starting to affect my moods and one day I pulled out the “not interested” and “manage suggested content” options to exclude certain hashtags and keywords from my feed. And of course, in a matter of hours, my explore page changed and my focus shifted too. I do this actively with dancers as well. If there’s a certain dance stylization or even a certain dancer that I don’t want influencing mine I hide them, block them or mute them (regardless my eye for their movement). Sometimes that block is personal and sometimes it’s really as deep as I don’t want them motivating me (even subconsciously). It works both ways, because sometimes I want to be set off in a new direction— I want to be activated. It’s the cost of choosing what relationships and what to trust with my engagement.
So when I observe other people borrowing, copying, stealing, whatever term you want to use— it’s hard to give people the benefit of the doubt. Because there is a magnetism, that is partially myself, that pulls or pushes me even into saying the things I say or doing the things I do. And if I do not make an active effort to confront myself about what I really believe, what my motives really are— I can start projecting a self that is more the ideas of others, than my own soul. More their intuition, than a revelation of my own. So I’ll continue to work on my devices of communication, really honing in on how to use carnality to really connect to spirit and decipher when to move beyond “it is what it is” because sometimes information isn’t that on-the-nose genuine; sometimes I’ve got to accept that reading between the lines is a form of messaging too.
Credits
‘Visuals on having me fucked up’, Instagram Post, Ashley S
“The Way of Tenderness: Awakening through Race, Sexuality, and Gender”, book, Zenju Earthlyn Manuel (Thanks Tirara for putting me on)
‘This is how I scare the hoes’, Tweet, Taylor Crumpton (Thanks Liz for putting me on)