Wherewithal
I have a feeling that I’m not sure how to describe. I’ll try.
But first, music. The ever lovely spacious, orchestra ambience of Lomea - Permanence.
Over the past few days I’ve had a word in my head: wherewithal. As in, I don’t have the wherewithal to do something, or the wherewithal for holding my head together for more than a few minutes at a time if I’m not avidly consumed by media. Whether you want to ascribe this to an undiagnosed case of ADHD, the EMP-like ability of the pandemic to cause rampant executive dysfunction, or just the natural result of being blissfully unemployed for a lengthy period of time, my point is this: wherewithal is a lovely word.
If you look up “wherewithal” you mostly end up with results for lacking the wheres withal-which–that’s an etymological blaspheme fyi–to pay for something, but I think it also applies extremely well to the idea of lacking the resources, context, or general withal with which to do any thing in particular.
I feel like I’ve made mistakes, mishandled situations, rushed projects, forgot responsibilities, hurt feelings, overextended, underutilized, and generally been a short-sighted conflagration of feelings during the pandemic and before then due to a lack of… wherewithal. Some sort of sense of context, awareness, continuity, a throughline of how things fit together in the big picture. Whatever that is.
Allow me to distinguish this from other words you might hear: mindfulness, awareness, thoughtfulness, etc. It’s not quite the same thing. In fact, it’s possible to be perfectly mindful, aware, and thoughtful of yourself while your life burns around you. Those things can help you attain wherewithal, but they’re not a larger, holistic, insightful view of the myriad components that make a life. The words “poise” and “repose” also come to mind, conjuring images of a master gardener or tactician, unbothered and making the right moves to accomplish their goals.
However, perhaps what I’m trying to coopt “wherewithal” into describing–some sort of higher metaview, a keen awareness of the significance of the pieces of your life, the choices that you make, and a measured tempo that allows you to accomplish what you want to accomplish without completely losing your shit–doesn’t exist. I have a feeling that while the tactician plays chess the dishes are piling up; while the gardener pulls weeds the business is limping.
At the end of the day, a conceptualization of a life and its goals are just whispers in your mind; the way in which you organize it is an arbitrary function of your psychology, and it’s likely that some people like me resonate deeply with what I’m talking about, while others very unlike me have already stopped reading. I wonder if I have simply pointed at a series of things and declared them puzzle pieces that must fit together, even though they’re just… there.
I could go on, but I’ll spare you. If you’d like to read a highly associative Twitter ramble I wrote about the struggles of the circuitous circles of trying to understand the metaphysics of the universe, you can do so here.
Just a brief personal note–I may be a little inconsistent in timing with Glitchet over the next couple weeks as I have a lot of varied but not remotely miscellaneous things to handle in the next few weeks. Much love.
Some links for you. ❤️
There’s Now a Guillotine Set Up Outside Jeff Bezos’s Mansion | Vanity Fair
Protestors are preparing for the revolution outside the Amazon CEO’s $23 million Washington D.C. home.
