https://www.generationpoetry.com/home daily 0.75 2015-09-15 https://www.generationpoetry.com/the-generation-poetry-project-maifesto daily 0.75 2019-08-26 https://www.generationpoetry.com/generation-poetry-personalities daily 0.75 2022-01-21 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d405d3f3b910a0001b857c1/1565192030508-9WKFHEWFRO0RCC88ILD2/IMG_1824.jpg the generation poetry project personalities https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d405d3f3b910a0001b857c1/1565130170495-P184OJ49SW5Q53GVT68J/people.jpg the generation poetry project personalities https://www.generationpoetry.com/the-generation-poetry-project-project-newsletter daily 0.75 2019-08-26 https://www.generationpoetry.com/generation-poetry-intelligence-for-business daily 0.75 2019-08-26 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d405d3f3b910a0001b857c1/1566841419394-6V2ZN28XN91R9U2ALKQH/29%2BChakra%2B911.jpg generation poetry intelligence for business https://www.generationpoetry.com/generation-poetry-happenings daily 0.75 2019-09-23 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d405d3f3b910a0001b857c1/1565192903816-LP7KC271P1UGJN5H4YVR/Screen+Shot+2019-06-19+at+10.53.01+PM.png the generation poetry project happenings - Do brands have the right to solve the problems they create? Together with New Breed and The Arboretum, we’re bringing together six guests for a series of intimate conversations. We’ll bring together voices from brands, technology, arts and activism, from the old language and from the new to discuss and debate the right of brands to exist in the generation poetry future. TICKETS for October 8th 6:30 pm. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d405d3f3b910a0001b857c1/1566857701269-LUBVL3PFSQVDT2BNQKEZ/IMG_2997.jpg the generation poetry project happenings - Introducing Generation Poetry A 50-minute, interactive online seminar on how language shapes our reality, why this new language is poetic, and what this generation is starting to tell us when we listen in a new way. CLOSED. https://www.generationpoetry.com/the-generation-poetry-project-podcast daily 0.75 2019-11-12 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d405d3f3b910a0001b857c1/1565192600195-4VF5U4M9Y2I77MYYJMTA/IMG_1952.jpg the generation poetry project podcast https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d405d3f3b910a0001b857c1/1565190438161-I1VMO0CVFP33M2U0KA4G/18.jpg the generation poetry project podcast https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d405d3f3b910a0001b857c1/1572110589848-56Q684CC9ZEWXQT4WBA1/Rhiannon+McGavin.jpg the generation poetry project podcast https://www.generationpoetry.com/gpp daily 1.0 2019-08-27 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d405d3f3b910a0001b857c1/1566841805849-LG7Y5XA1K960ED8W5T6U/Screen+Shot+2019-08-06+at+11.13.44+AM.png The Generation Poetry Project https://www.generationpoetry.com/0101-inaction daily 0.75 2019-09-03 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d405d3f3b910a0001b857c1/1566836787616-3ABXE9E3RW4488VBR2MM/Slide8.jpeg 01.01. Inaction Every form of light casts a shadow. Every way of being in the world has consequences, most of them unintended. When we removed apex predators like wolves from the environment, we damaged the health and balance of the ecosystems underneath. What parts of the world rely on human action to survive and thrive? What shadow will new forms of passive power cast? What new moral or ethical frameworks will we need? If we can’t see the agenda of the business meeting or cast a vote in the election, how do we make choices and decisions? Is there an alternative to structure that isn’t chaos? https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d405d3f3b910a0001b857c1/1566836552663-M9QYM0CLMUDCBZZVC9M5/Slide4.jpeg 01.01. Inaction These ways of relating to the world aren’t working for Generation Poetry. (Are they working for any of us?) Politics is mistrusted, controlled by hidden interests and easily manipulated. Movements bring too much ideology, too much shouting from a platform, too little real communication. Movements brought us fascism, terrorism, war and destruction. Revolution is bound to disappoint eventually. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d405d3f3b910a0001b857c1/1566836690584-W1TVXIZ0TY4HSQ4XS7SR/Slide6.jpeg 01.01. Inaction How are they trying to enact change? We see the protests - Greta, March for our Lives, Extinction Rebellion School Strikes. Protest isn’t new, but it’s effective. Particularly when you master communication and all of its channels as fluently as Generation Poetry. They have lifted shaming to an art form and can organise in the space of a Snapchat. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d405d3f3b910a0001b857c1/1566836622459-7A6ORG0ZR3LXVVRHRRSA/Slide5.jpeg 01.01. Inaction These ways of relating to the world are still meaningful for Generation Poetry, but insufficient. Take a problem like climate change, the biggest threat they face in their lifetimes, if not our own. Action is necessary, but doesn’t provide much hope. The alternative, resistance, works well for some things (encrypt communication, withdraw your identity, delete the feed, confuse the algorithm) but can’t withstand an apocalypse (or can it?). https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d405d3f3b910a0001b857c1/1566836488522-YOQ664KI18H8KO308DI3/Slide3.jpeg 01.01. Inaction Politics and policies accept that things aren’t perfect, but have to be negotiated. Slow and sensible change. Stability. Consensus. Channels. The System. Protest doesn’t operate through authorised systems. It gains power through symbolic action and making noise. Shaming those in charge. Spontaneous, situational. Grass roots and flexible. Movements organise. They use hierarchy, strategy and violence to achieve their objectives. Retreat withdraws to a space of asceticism and even prayer. Change comes through spiritual journeys and personal awareness. Learning how to abstain, to withstand desire, frees one from external forces and allows you to decide for yourself. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d405d3f3b910a0001b857c1/1566836414747-NQ4BCA0BPEOD4B9O961S/Slide2.jpeg 01.01. Inaction Action believes the world is full of problems to be solved. If we just keep tackling each problem as it crops up, we stay on the path to better. American ingenuity. The race to space. Can-do optimism. Revolution is the ultimate action when there is no choice but to stand together and fight. Inaction accepts challenge as part of the human condition, not a problem to be solved. Things are complex, inter-related, always in flux. Ultimately, you can’t change anything except your own perspective. The Gallic shrug. Existential philosophy. Nihilism. Resistance doesn’t fight, it withstands, it survives. The stoic tradition. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d405d3f3b910a0001b857c1/1566836743362-HF3BJKLJVTM81SFBWEG4/Slide7.jpeg 01.01. Inaction Less visible, more meta, we find the tools of cashmere anarchy. An obscure language of irony, quotes, memes that create ripple effects in people’s consciousness. Looking innocent, lost, disinterested, but working below the radar and biding one’s time. Whispers create hurricanes. These new ways of making change will be organic, self-regulated, and non-hierarchical, which makes them hard to see and even more difficult to grasp. Are they random or is there a point? There is both action and inaction. It operates within and outside of the structures. Recognises the need for self care self sacrifice. Everywhere and nowhere. There is a beauty and gentleness in the apparent chaos (the cashmere). There is neither victory nor retreat, life is no longer a battle to be won or lost. Celebrate surviving, being together, taking pleasure in what’s at hand, right now. A fluidity of thought and response that many only achieve with the wisdom of later life. What is possible when a generation starts here instead of ends here? https://www.generationpoetry.com/contact daily 0.75 2019-08-26 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d405d3f3b910a0001b857c1/1566392480817-U033BC4J92EAXETRIY2F/image001.jpg Contact https://www.generationpoetry.com/privacy-policy daily 0.75 2019-08-26 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d405d3f3b910a0001b857c1/1566391477110-B2IA6JUA2VEHZ4YQUNPB/IMG_1903.jpg Privacy Policy https://www.generationpoetry.com/0101-inaction-1 daily 0.75 2019-09-08 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d405d3f3b910a0001b857c1/1567961435946-2MLJLXR08CI2Y8YYL2RR/Slide6.jpeg 01.02 Kindness/Discovery Generation Poetry spans Generation Z and Generation Alpha. Both explore the tension between Kindness and a understanding of the power of the subjective (NOT the individual) and the harsh reality of a world in which their survival does not appear to be guaranteed. This comfort with balancing highly contrasting realities may explain much of the affinity we see in the project with Generation X. Gen X doesn’t live in the same reality, but they nudge alongside it and can glimpse the edges from the corner of the eye. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d405d3f3b910a0001b857c1/1567961340307-1K0A1JWS1ZBLKJ0FRDJ0/Slide4.jpeg 01.02 Kindness/Discovery The Silent Generation and Baby Boomers learned through survival. The Silent Generation had relatively unstructured educations, largely deterministic by context of birth and punctuated and interrupted by war and depression. The Boomers entered a more structured education machine as little soldiers, designed to move them through the system and into the roles required to rebuild a world devastated by war. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d405d3f3b910a0001b857c1/1567961305454-DAEN88W69I4VJP5GWNK8/Slide3.jpeg 01.02 Kindness/Discovery Only You recognises that no two people are alike, and no individual has more rights than another. Participation counts as success, being first doesn’t. You can be anything you want to be and make your own world. Little Soldiers need to be responsible. Good boys and girls who are prepared for life and what they world needs them to be. Acquiring essential skills that serve and construct order, control and harmony. Homework, activities, exams and mechanistic progression. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d405d3f3b910a0001b857c1/1567961059541-IKVWA1F74XJRIBQXKOKA/Slide1.jpeg 01.02 Kindness/Discovery Kindness is one of the most common words Generation Poetry uses to describe what they need. But they don’t mean charity or platitude. They mean a keen attention to the subjective experience of each person. They are post-post-modernist (or meta-modern). The fact that reality appears differently to each person isn’t up for debate, it’s intuitively understood. Things aren’t black and white, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be useful. Speaking, exchanging perspectives, emotions and feelings, allow change to start from the individual, not from external forces. Poetry, allusive language, seeking feedback, allowing others to build upon the work of the other allows for discovery, learning and growth. This contrasts to learning and building Resilience through challenge. Pushing the boundaries and feeling discomfort is a way to grow. Resilience is a muscle built from use and friction, that is useful and valuable and forges characters. Relative objectivity, where certain things are un-negotiable and need to be done. Entelechia is a concept from Aristotle, the idea that people are like a seed with an innate potential to learn and grow into themselves. All is contained within the individual. There is no objectivity, but a shared universality – no one has the same life, yet we are all human. Creativity is more important than rationality, to find your unique way to be in the world. Like a seed, people require nurturing and care to reduce trauma that hinders growth. Teachers can only create the conditions for growth, not the content. At the extreme, learning is matter for survival, Sink or Swim, do or die. What does not kill you makes you stronger. This is the hero’s story. You make it, or you don’t, and forgiveness is weakness. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d405d3f3b910a0001b857c1/1567961214214-W978EKW8NT0WQS8Y4J09/Slide2.jpeg 01.02 Kindness/Discovery Tailored Choice approaches learning with give and take, constant questioning and decisions about when to challenge and when to encourage. Certain things are unnegotiable, but within those boundaries, people should find their own way. Grouping of people into learning styles (auditory, kinaesthetic, visual, etc). Recognition that learning disabilities exist and should be taken into account. Determinism lets kids be kids until they reach certain milestones. Then they stop being kids and enter adult life. Rites of passage. Belonging to a group. A golden childhood followed by harsh reality, epitomised by the Spartans. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d405d3f3b910a0001b857c1/1567961390218-W1TTJCQDQPASOC9T8C8M/Slide5.jpeg 01.02 Kindness/Discovery Generation X was raised in a series of contrasting concerns of considering each child’s innate potential (think Sesame Street and Mr Rogers) alongside a hefty dose of real-world challenge, running a bit feral in the world of rising divorce rates and rising crime rates. The Millennials were encouraged to embrace their only you-ness to a much larger extent. The snowflake label can be unfair, but often sticks. https://www.generationpoetry.com/0102-authenticitytruth daily 0.75 2019-09-17 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d405d3f3b910a0001b857c1/1568694852818-67ZNQNLL3XG9MA2RH992/Slide5.jpeg 01.03 Authenticity/Truth Mimesis with Reality is language that attempts to define what is true and what is false though an objective, external reality. The language of “real people” that attempts to claim and manipulate the will of those people. Generation Poetry is fully aware that reality does not exist, but is constructed, and sees how this language limits conversation, debate and personal freedom. Ipse Dixit uses stories to create compelling arguments of great logical impact. Language is a persuasive tool, and linguistic competence is evidence of truthfulness. Generation Poetry sees through the stories, doesn’t confuse them with reality, doesn’t find their pre-packaged, shiny, completeness useful or persuasive. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d405d3f3b910a0001b857c1/1568694798685-IBPG6OBGPGYENAN1B1P7/Slide2.jpeg 01.03 Authenticity/Truth Raw truth is completely unmediated, unpolluted, wild, unstructured. The beauty of the pre-verbal and non-intellectualised. The danger of chaos, confrontation and violence. Generation Poetry struggles with the wild in themselves. Instincts, desires, even fun appear dangerous and unsustainable. Yet, they hear the call of their imagination in these sounds. Being raw is tricky for this generation, one that has been put as risk by older generations in ways that are new and unprecedented and that knows they are constantly monitored and judged. Curated truth fully recognises that there is no truth in things, language defines reality. The beauty of crafting. The freedom from creating, as there is nothing original. Every human experience can be endlessly translated into other meanings, to the point of becoming meaningless. This is the truth with which Generation Poetry styles themselves collectively. Creator of themselves, commentator of themselves. Able to move through meaning with the abilities of a master semiotician. But with repetition, boredom creeps in, even depression. The search for a new type of authenticity, different from the conventional meaning, becomes critical, and the gaze turns to the raw. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d405d3f3b910a0001b857c1/1568694835797-9UQBHPLA935GLXM0RRP2/Slide4.jpeg 01.03 Authenticity/Truth Naturalised thinking hides ideological and moralistic points of view behind the claim that “it’s just how things are” and how they have always been, in order to dominate and colonise. Standards of gender, beauty, family can’t be questioned. The other becomes taboo. Generation Poetry can unpick this argument in their sleep. They know the game and where it leads. Through the linguistic use of “I identify as” they have destroyed any attempt to naturalise themselves and their behaviour. Explorative thinking is the default position of artists and revolutionaries. Breaking down structure to create new structure. Chaos as an antidote to domination. Making, not commenting, as the only way to make sense. It can be easily dismissed as frightening, pathological, crazy or useless. This is shadow space for Generation Poetry. It troubles them. They may be less fluent in explorative thinking than older generations, despite the widespread self-identification as creative. The level of personal and collective exposure required in explorative thinking is difficult. Unestablished codes can’t be curated and crafted at the meta level this generation has mastered so well. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d405d3f3b910a0001b857c1/1568694948040-45Y3Z5VK2FS7Q1UVLN9S/Slide7.jpeg 01.03 Authenticity/Truth Metalevel conversation has its point of reference not in the external, objective world, but in other cultural references, virtually endlessly. It’s a relative, not absolute, language based on sharing similar encyclopaedias, and as such favours cohesive groups by age, habits, education. Semiosis language wants to make you feel, not think. Affective effect. It can be minimal or baroque, simple or complex, but never linear. Poetic in the most revolutionary sense. It creates equality between sender and receiver, each contributes to form reality. It’s measured not by fact, nor against existing cultural references, but in the ability for people to “tune in” on similar meanings. This is a language of pure potential. Nothing is codified yet. Anything can be anything. Generation Poetry is fascinated by this language, yet preoccupied with failing and falling into the uncool rhetoric of authenticity or being not understood and excluded from the group. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d405d3f3b910a0001b857c1/1568694749783-PFTKTYCJXSS8AB7UFN35/Slide1.jpg 01.03 Authenticity/Truth Authentic truth exists in the world. There are facts. Things are what they say they are and you can observe them in the real world. Unquestionably reliable, the authority of being original and real. The perceived value of authenticity is one of the key differences between millennials (believers) and Generation Poetry (non believers). Millennials search for authenticity in everything from brands, to food, to people, to products (think hipster). For Generation Poetry, authenticity doesn’t exist, so anyone claiming it is clearly fake. Filtered truth processes the the natural chaos of the world to make it useful, understandable and helpful. Societies shape meanings to make sense to the community and enable its continued existence. Things that exist in the real word have been filtered through moral values to be either good or bad. This form of truth is still important for Generation Poetry. They know that certain games need to be played in order to change them. They consider and discuss to what extent they want to or need to participate before they become complicit. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d405d3f3b910a0001b857c1/1568694867410-CUKGPOMT80ZL0SUV7CPS/Slide6.jpeg 01.03 Authenticity/Truth Registered Redesigned morphs conversations quickly and seamlessly into new genres. Styles mix into an understandable cacophony of works, rhetorical figures, tonalities. Accusation can lead to kindness. Engagement can lead to exclusion. There is tension between the individual and society which requires an ability to blend, shift and change depending on the situation and scope of the conversation. Masonic conversations mix codes to encode and use context to decode. Cryptography to avoid being surveilled or pinned down and assumed to be one thing. Sophisticated use of irony, metonymy, metaphor and sarcasm. Generation Poetry hides and reveals itself as necessary. It needs the old stories of authenticity to exist and keep going, so there is an object to be manipulated and discredited in this interplay. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d405d3f3b910a0001b857c1/1568694818784-53MBL05RY9L44PHGLBJE/Slide3.jpeg 01.03 Authenticity/Truth Concrete thinking is the default of business and practical sciences. Evidence based. Things need to be seen to be understood and actioned. It claims its rights through the market and capitalism and rejects ideology. Only the bottom line matters. Generation Poetry knows it needs to operate in certain structures to thrive and they are more willing to do so than millennials. They respect the open rhetoric of concrete thinking and knowing their opponent. Abstract thinking is the default of philosophy, mathematics and the “intellectual elite.” Reality is constructed and anything can be critically assessed in abstract theorems and principles. Reserved for the few. Respected, but isolated. Little interaction with everyday life. Generation Poetry doesn’t find this very useful or suited to their fast-paced learning style. They know that there are real problems that need to be resolved in the world right now. However, these are problems that present complexity beyond the bounds of concrete thinking, that require systemic thinking. How will Generation Poetry learn to harness the abstract? https://www.generationpoetry.com/0104-pleasurepain daily 0.75 2019-09-25 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d405d3f3b910a0001b857c1/1569372570365-1VGTC2Q30PM1W1LH5CE1/Slide5.jpeg 01.04 Pleasure/Pain The Apocalyptic Fantasy is a complex place where reality, impression and fantasy coalesce. Generation Poetry legitimately questions their future, at the same time taking pleasure in the thought of everything being destroyed and becoming powerful protagonists in the face of hardship. The moment when the generations that have robbed them of their future are dead. The drama and tragedy they see genuinely unfurling in front of them causes tangible changes in behaviours (what they consume, what they protest), but is often communicated with a smile, or more accurately a smirk. This betrays a more complex emotional reality where pleasure emerges by flirting with pain. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d405d3f3b910a0001b857c1/1569372588134-3QNYHQAJGUROES6RRLD4/Slide6.jpeg 01.04 Pleasure/Pain Anonymous Cruelty is a clear move toward asceticism, the pleasure of doing good, being responsible, and becoming the light of the world. Detachment helps one choose more wisely, rather than from pure instinct. But there is a risk in the shadow, of not experiencing the emotional consequences of our actions and taking pleasure in shaming others. In Generation Poetry, we see this through the online bullying and cruelty that would be unthinkable in “real life.” But this generation also shows more vulnerability online, opening themselves up for abuse, in what looks like a perverted game of victim and perpetrator. The instinctive pleasures and passions of the body are denied, but served through a distorted cruelty. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d405d3f3b910a0001b857c1/1569372551654-KBWUBGFNDMTK91ZQG9KR/Slide4.jpeg 01.04 Pleasure/Pain Drama rides the oscillating waves between pain and pleasure, getting stuck in a cycle of intense emotions and provocative behaviours, often manipulative. It becomes difficult to build trust, consistency in relationships, progress in life. Dissociation is being emotionally absent when physically present. Unplugged, apathetic, detached. Functioning, but not feeling. Life becomes black and white, and one can feel like a spectator rather than a participant. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d405d3f3b910a0001b857c1/1569372465944-06D46D8VWMOLUK2IL5U3/Slide1.jpeg 01.04 Pleasure/Pain Pleasure has its own principle, that humans are driven towards sensory gratification, things that feel good. This is the engine of capitalism — collecting pleasurable experiences and avoiding pain and boredom in the search for happiness. Pain is one of our biggest existential fears, alongside loneliness and death. A dose of pain heightens the contrasting pleasure, but we have low tolerance for enduring it. We rush to diagnose and medicate both our physical and emotional pain. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d405d3f3b910a0001b857c1/1569372515848-3Y6Q6981K6SQJITBFG01/Slide3.jpeg 01.04 Pleasure/Pain Addiction is when the self-medication of our pain becomes compulsive and against our own best interests. We try and try to fill the emotional gaps by consuming. Denying the behaviour increases the harmful consumption, and awareness of the cycle only intensifies the pain. Perversion twists the bad into good, reframing pain as pleasure. Often a response to trauma and feelings of powerlessness. Fetishising the self and others, playing roles to escape the real self, inviting negative moral judgment. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d405d3f3b910a0001b857c1/1569372663902-0XVL2ALBRSZ431UD9ZX4/Slide8.jpeg 01.04 Pleasure/Pain To the untrained eye, Generation Poetry can look like Bedroom Vegetables. Mindlessly scrolling, apathetic (besides the few climate change warriors on the news), not interested in their future, disengaged from democracy, a worry for watchful parents. The reality we have discovered through the project, in fact the very idea of a new language, decodes these behaviours to see apathy as an action, a way to be left alone to start the revolution while nobody is watching. The bedroom is the centre of collective concentration around serious shared problems such as climate change. The lack of interest in the future belies a true sense that there is no future, the future is a useless construct in the new language that is non-linear. In this new reality, things can look silly, just a bit of fun, but create powerful waves that turn into a tsunami. The very worry of their parents is the mark of their independent thinking. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d405d3f3b910a0001b857c1/1569372681246-TAZMJNVPNCJP848LWU6R/Slide9.jpeg 01.04 Pleasure/Pain Ambivalent Intimacy is the place where the Generation Poetry Project finds its very reason to exist, where non-judgmental conversations between people of all generations are needed. Young people, all people, have always had issues around intimacy, but Generation Poetry has been especially framed as being unable to create real connections in a virtual world. People blame the technology, but it is the human hesitation to expose oneself at the root of the issue. To have real intimacy one has to be vulnerable. Being vulnerable is risky and difficult and painful. So we resist. In this sense, technology has simply pushed the problem to the foreground. If I can hide and feel connected without being truly exposed, what am I missing out on by not achieving intimacy? This generation just happens to be the generation that will have to face this question head on. To embrace the pain of vulnerability when such an easy analgesic is at hand is extremely difficult. A way out may prevent a way in. But poetry is an act of presence. So we are here. Together. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d405d3f3b910a0001b857c1/1569372498182-19OE8XNLU4NEE9FEUJ9W/Slide2.jpeg 01.04 Pleasure/Pain Analgesia serves our desire to not feel pain, at any cost. Whether the relief is delivered through morphine or a good movie, we escape reality and celebrate hedonism. But not without cos. We can create a viscous cycle of not acknowledging pain, therefore creating deep psychological pain, or being so out of it to lose life entirely. Asceticism denies the pleasures of the body to achieve enlightenment of the mind and spirit. A defining feature of many Eastern philosophies, but also the monastic life. The meaning of life isn’t found in life, but in the transcendence of life itself. A strict diet or “Marie Kondo-ing” our homes can be a more accessible way to purge, but can quickly become judgmental, harsh and unforgiving. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5d405d3f3b910a0001b857c1/1569372606339-K9HI425ITUYY8UQWWW3I/Slide7.jpeg 01.04 Pleasure/Pain Generation Poetry is known for its move away from the lure of Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll. Needing to be “in it” rather than “out of it”, they meet Mr Reality before they can meet Mr Pleasure (using Freud’s words). Lust, wildness, chaos may feature in their lives (they are still teenagers, after all) but does not feature in their value set, what they want show interest in. For example, this generation tends to talk about sex more as a way to express and affirm gender identity, consent rather than loss of control. Being meta is incompatible with pure instinct. To look at things from above with the necessary detachment for cleverness and irony requires a divorce from the sometimes childish, but also genuinely creative, impulses of our unconscious mind. https://www.generationpoetry.com/home-1 daily 0.75 2020-04-11 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/573a04372fe131630fd25157/1469729752911-UFETSG39XPIFRSHOM0XH/hero_pattern.png THe generation poetry project