mental tracing

i just needed to document this thought flow because it feels like a breakthrough, like maybe something important will change after this.

i wrote a chapter for an upcoming handbook. my first chapter ever, and my last official academic piece ever.

since being pushed out of academia, i figured this was my chance to finally introduce and center the radical and destabilizing critiques from black studies I was deeply/quietly engaging with as my final goodbye, a big 🖕🏽 to the field - without the professional consequences that i would face if I was still trying to climb the academic ladder, psychology's boundary work can try to suppress or domesticate this kind of scholarship .

the ideas i cover in this chapter are far beyond mainstream psychology's orbit. i wanted them to look beyond the provincial (misoriented) preoccupations of psych literature and come face-to-face with the global/dire stakes we're actually dealing with, and our implication in it as scientists engaged (knowingly and unknowingly) in colonial reproduction. i wanted this to be a wake up call, and an activation to change (or secretly, to self-destruct).

at the end of the chapter, i joined sylvia wynter's optimism in a scientific autopoetic re-narration of The Human (a colonial figure that haunts society and thus psychology's research practices). i speculated on what i called "computational sociogeny", the potentials and limitations of computational research partaking in that re-narration. can't give too much away till i can share the chapter, but i mirrored wynter's optimism that breaking colonial reproduction by shifting scientific practices against Man could be a viable project. that was until i got deeper in my knowledge of denise ferreira da silva's scholarship about the limits of ontological interventions and now my stance on attempting computational re-narration as a worthwhile project has been shaken.

i've been feeling guilt or regret that my last official academic piece will cement an idea that i might have already moved past. i worry that it is a domesticated chapter (despite my intentions) for not pushing radically enough (similar to my previous critiques where i compromised for others' comfort), or for incorporating an optimstic solutionism that's expected in scientific outlets. it's already submitted, so too late to change, and it would require a major rewrite which i don't want to do. so i reflected on this emotion, why am i feeling like this, if it is what it is?

maybe part of it is that i'm judging my past journey by current eyes, expecting me even 7 months ago to understand everything i do right now. and that's not fair to myself. was i expecting my thinking to freeze up once i left academia?

maybe part of it is academic residue, i'm still unlearning all the professionalization and socialization i had perfected, and institutional validation/recognition might still be haunting me. am i seeking for my thinking to be memorialized and legitimated in an academic outlet?

part of why i'm writing these microblogs is to remind myself that my thought is alive, open to revision and change. the kind of thinking i can do here would never happen in an academic outlet, it's free-er, even if fewer people will encounter it. and maybe that's why i enjoy it. i didn't care about having top papers (a demand of the job), i just wanted people to encounter and engage with the ideas/critiques that i learned and that changed me/my research, to see what changes for them, to hear about it, to discuss how we move forward. this desire for transformation at different scopes (the self, the field) is what makes me think that maybe this guilt/emotion isn't about institutional validation, but something else.

i think what i'm seeking the most is intellectual companionship, to push thinking as far as we can take it, with an eye towards being able to do something helpful with it - change a mind, change a field's direction, change life's conditions. i'm constantly reading as much as i can, but it's been a solo project for a while. diving deeply into decolonial/black/queer/critical studies had me speaking a very different language from my research peers (" right then a forest sprung up between them "). leaving academia and distancing myself from that network (while simultaneously losing my broader online network by leaving twitter) meant i really didn't have many people to discuss these ideas with. i struggled to unlearn my training while simultaneously trying to learn this new way of seeing. it's a lonely way to study such a relational knowledge.

i'm a slow thinker, i prefer to share/elevate moments/texts that spark a shift in my understanding, then layer those ideas/moments on top of each other as they come, allowing patterns to coagulate and reform with time, sedimentation. thats how my better papers happened, they took years of careful thinking and rethinking to form. i publicly share my mental tracing in case it might resonate with someone, spark a shift. my reach was greater in academia, i'm now left to restart, to (re)find resonant community.

this chapter is/was an attempt at reorienting who my community could be, to find the people who are already thinking elsewhere, who see the stakes, and don't feel the need to slow down or apologize for moving beyond. and maybe that's why i felt regret, i wanted it be a signal, to hold my best/latest/most polished/most forward thinking, my best chance at connection. that's hella sad, tho honest.

this is where the flow ends.

but i love when i surprise myself. after these thoughts, i re-found a note where i collect kind messages, show of support, or appreciation to remind me of all i've accomplished/connected when i'm feeling limited.

this was the first one that caught my eye as i scrolled:

serendipity.