Metamorphosis

being is becoming

Huanhua Butterfly - Yu Zhi - 18th-century China

                “He not busy being born is busy dying.” 
                        - Bob Dylan

I’m not quite sure whether The R-Word, as we now know it, is a caterpillar or a chrysalis, or somewhere in between. But I do have the sense that it wants to become a butterfly. And I want to help it to do that.

I didn’t really have a solid plan for The R-Word at the beginning. I suppose I basically saw it as a kind of blog for my own writing (though I despise the word ‘blog’ for its pure sonic ugliness).

“Chuang Tzu was a philosopher in ancient China, who, one night went to sleep and dreamed that he was a butterfly. He dreamt that he was flying around from flower to flower and while he was dreaming he felt free, blown about by the breeze hither and thither. He was quite sure that he was a butterfly. But when he awoke he realised that he had just been dreaming, and that he was really Chuang Tzu dreaming he was a butterfly. But then Chuang Tzu asked himself the following question: ‘was I Chuang Tzu dreaming I was a butterfly or am I now really a butterfly dreaming that I am Chuang Tzu?’" - The Philosophy Foundation - The Butterfly Dream (philosophy-foundation.org)

What I mainly wanted to do was to catalyze a conversation among people who identify as environmentalists, eco-cultural activists, climate activists and suchlike. And the conversation I hoped to catalyze centered on the word revolution, a word about metamorphosis if ever there was one. My basic idea was that contemporary people ought to seriously consider radically re-imagining what social and political revolution could be — because our eco-cultural crisis wasn’t anything we could address in the relevant timeframe without a revolutionary metamorphosis of our culture in all aspects—including politics. Our times call for revolution, I thought, not reform. But most people associate the word, revolution, with violence, bloodshed, weapons and insurrections. And that—to me—was clearly not what we require. In fact (I thought) we need just the opposite of all of that. We need a rapid and radical transformation of our culture which actually puts an end to the violence (often obscured) which is at the core of the dominator culture which now oppresses our political and social world.

I remain deeply committed to helping this conversation to take place, and using The R-Word as a platform and vehicle for this conversation. But already The R-Word has begun to mutate significantly, and the changes have only just begun! This is no longer my blog. And the others who have been publishing their writings here are not contributing “guest posts,” despite the fact that the mechanical automaticity of Substack thinks otherwise. Rather, we’re evolving into a sort of journal or magazine, or something of that sort. I’m a contributing editor. And, beyond that, I can’t be quite sure what’s to happen over time. I strongly suspect The R-Word will eventually — perhaps sooner than later — fully enter its chrysalis stage. And I rather doubt it will emerge from that chrysalis named The R-Word. I think it will want another name then, and that it will want to be something like a web-based magazine. But this is not for me to decide alone. The R-Word presently wants to be shaped by a community of readers and writers — but also makers of videos, songs, dances…. It wants to become fully collaborative in its death and rebirth. It wants to be a conversation. And then it wants to open its wings and fly.

We cannot yet know what is being born here. But we can be certain of one thing. It isn’t my blog.

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Bob Dylan song - quote source - Bob Dylan - It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding) - With Lyrics - YouTube

Images:

Yu Zhi - Huanhua Butterfly - 18th-century - public domain

Ariadne merione chrysalis - School of Ecology and Conservation, University of Agricultural Sciences Bangalore - cc-by-2.5 - File:Ariadnemerione pupa sec.jpg - Wikimedia Commons