Threadings.

Hold tight. The way to go mad without losing your mind is sometimes unruly.

Author: La Marr Jurelle Bruce

Hyperlinked above is their academia.edu page, which has a lovely biography and two more brilliant articles available to read. Remember that orienting oneself with the author (who wrote it? for what reason?) aids in understanding their arguments. There is no one viewpoint of objectivity.

Presented in audio is a reading of pages 1-11 of How to Go Mad Without Losing Your Mind. The full chapter has been made available by Duke University Press right here, so you can listen and read along! I highly recommend this method of learning for maximum absorption.

Dr. Bruce also gave this illuminating talk with Farah Jasmine Griffin at the Barnard Center of Research on Women. Author talks are also phenomenal resources for digesting academic prose (or in this case, prose poetry).

Remember the questions we ask when we consider a set of claims critically:

(1) who wrote it?

(2) for what reason?

(3) for what audience?

(4) what’s missing?

Additionally, while not provided here, this book has one of the most We’ve been chatting in the discord, which I am apparently bad at hyperlinking but I will ask someone to share the right link in the comments :)

happy reading <3

ig

This reading is only available for a limited time, as per the wishes of Dr. Bruce!! Don’t hesitate don’t procrastinate!

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ismatu.substack.com/subscribe

captioned live! we took one hour to read four paragraphs together. excerpt from: Conversations with Toni Cade Bambara, edited by Thabiti Lewis. I don’t usually save my lives because (1) that requires editing and I am already drowning in administrative work and (2) I enjoy existing in temporal space for only a moment in time, rather than being replayable and rewatchable and forwardable all the time. it’s a weird thing to watch happen to your personhood. but this one i found to be really lovely and helpful, so here it is. i hope you enjoyyy.

correct video transcript available at ismatu.substack.com.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ismatu.substack.com/subscribe

In which we engage the following theses:

(1) the ruling class benefits from illiteracy.

(2) short-form video entertains more than it sticks.

(3) reading is a discipline distinct from listening, watching, or other forms of literacy. It’s a skill that needs to be honed separately.

(4) Absolutely no one comes to save us but us.

Full and accurate transcript available at ismatu.substack.com. Thank you for listening <3

Jazz of the Episode:

The Jordan River Song x Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru

Lena’s Song x The Sweet Enoughs

Sunset and the Mocking Bird x Duke Ellington

Abusey Junction x Kokoroko

Udo x The Cavemen.

Muziqa heywete x Getatchew Mekurya

Mogoya x Oumou Sangaré

Drume Negrita x Andy Bey

Tony x Larry Morezo, Dennis Tini

Melancholia x Wynton Marsalis

Spring Yaounde x Wynton Marsalis

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ismatu.substack.com/subscribe

internet friends, I am still burning alive.

Today is February 10, 2024, which marks two years since my entrance into the social internet. This has been a terrifying, incredible, world-changing transition— maybe not (yet) for the world, but most certainly for my world. I did not have any social media previous to virality on my first TikTok video. Honestly? I viewed these spaces as nothing more than cannon fodder for the degradation of the mind and of any true, real, lasting community. I wanted no part. I made a video because I wanted to tell a silly story on this silly new app, and because I had 17 followers (all of which I knew in real life), and because I was still busy swallowing the griefs of this world. I wanted to do something that felt… silly. And inconsequential.

I am chuckling to myself, in hindsight.

To be clear: I was right to be fearful of these spaces. Do you know how long it’s taken me to fully realize that every view, every point on a metric, is a living, moving someone interacting with my personhood? My face and voice are public record. I am watching myself become infused with authority I did not ask for and did little to earn. The visibility alone… not everyone that sees me feels kindly.

I was right to be wary and skeptical and terrified. And these apps do allow us to cosplay learning and mimic connectivity when we are deeply lonely in real life. These apps are actively drugging our minds.

And.

You all have fundamentally restructured what I conceive of as reality. Online is most definitely real life! And we— this community, what I call my Constituency— have accomplished amazing things and truly, if you knew what I am working to prepare us for off-screen. We are just starting. We are just starting.

Recently, I made public my feelings of burnout and exhaustion with the amount of people that are contented with short-form video. I have come to detest the medium; video— especially video that is under fifteen minutes— is very good at convincing the viewer they are doing something active. The amount of people that watch me and feel like they have learned something, when in reality they are watching me learn— it astounds me. I wonder if I am taking part in placating us as a community rather than galvanizing us towards action that’s truly necessary.

There were so many comments under that video— too many to read, but one I caught over and over again: never stop writing.

Listen: that was never on the table. I said I might stop making videos— I was always going to write. I have absolutely been battling hopelessness, despair, dissolution and defeatism about how difficult it is to accomplish basic shit— to get folks to make the transition from passive watcher to active learner. I spent two weeks taking time with my teachers: my loved ones, here and gone. They reminded me how powerful it is to be able to hide in plain sight. I am using my fertile mind to bloom this community— you who read, who write, who change their real lives. This was always the plan. I refuse to waste our time. I want this community to live long past my last video, to have ripple effects that I will never know about and never see. I got like, four more years in this iteration of online space, give or take a year. We have a very finite amount of time to mobilize around ideas that are for our good, the good of the masses, the good of the people, the world-keepers of tomorrow. The world-makers of today. Nothing about this is idealistic. I am not being poetic or metaphorical. The work is urgent and calls every one of us.

Excerpt from a poem: The Lesson by Afeni Shakur

Thesis: Revolutionary is not some lofty, miraculous, singular idea nor title. Revolution is not a singular event. It is a beginning. It’s a marriage. And We (the People) have a world to retake and rebuild! There is no sweeter call. We owe it to one another to commit ourselves to the rest of our shared lives. The freedom song drives me wild— I do not earn the song, I only respond to the call— I AM A REVOLUTIONARY! I AM A REVOLUTIONARY!

So I ask you, those of us that know me in these spaces, that give me the space and kind consideration to be a teacher and a healer and a mobilizing agent: our task is to be mobilized enough to outlive me easily. How can we ensure that? What are our communal values? How do we wish to continue? What do we need and want from me, the person at the front of the room? How do we practice reciprocity? How do we ensure that the Constituency outlives me? What have I not thought of yet?

I’ll tell you what I want: to be forgotten. I want to be deeply insignifcant and unremarkable. I have accepted this momentary role as catalyst, as a teacher, as a launching point. A space of radical contagion— that is fine. It feels above me. I AM A REVOLUTIONARY. And: I want you, each of us, all of us to become so wrapped up in the condition of our children(’s children’s children’s children) that we forget about I and me, such that we dissolve into a love that erodes boundaries. Like Sonnet XVII— so close that your hand on my chest is my hand. So close that your freedom dreams bloom in my sleep.

Among my greatest wish is to be unremarkable; a face among many; one stone in the mountain, that we do not see as a collection of little pebbles but as a mountain full in herself, whole on her own and majestic in range, a return to sovereign earth. The beautiful exchange: we climb and catch the song of liberation and fall and rise again. Dissolve into the soil! I AM A REVOLUTIONARY! I AM A REVOLUTIONARY!

DISCORD LINK: https://discord.gg/9d4SVjXY

four more years, friends. my mind expands all the time.

thank you for the motivation to consider freedom. what a life.

i hope the work of your day passes through your hands with ease. i hope that work brings us closer to the sweet plum of freedom on the other side. and i’ll see you all there— or simpler said: peace.

ig

Post script: I provided the discord link so that we could discuss the above questions. How do we want to exist? Where do we want to exist? I want these spaces to be Black and Indigenous led specifically. I want these spaces to be one of prolonged learning, of trying and failing, of asking questions of frsutration of joy of hope, of space foro the full iteration of human emotion and of spaces that allow us to be vulnerable enogh to change. at least to start.

we’re blooming something. I don’t want to shy away. You don’t have to earn the call of revolutionary, you have to answer it. I AM A REVOLUTIONARY. I AM A REVOLUTIONARY.

Jazz of the episode:

Drume Negrita (Afro-Cuban Lullaby) x Andy Bey

Lena’s Song x The Sweet Enoughs

Abusey Junction x Kokoroko

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ismatu.substack.com/subscribe

Threadings. and quite literally everything I do is free! I only can do this because people voluntarily pay! Wow! Thank you!!!!

Transcription below because someone asked for the still words.

Long time no see. Hi there. If you're new here, which if you're here, I doubt you're new. I mean, but just in case. My name is Ismatu. E-S-M-A-TU. I like E, S like S, not like Z. Not Ismatu, not Ismatu, Ease, like Easter egg. Ease-matu. One day.

I will be an Ismaltu that other people can say, oh yeah, like Ismaltu, like Ismaltu Gwendolyn. It's gonna be a great day, hi. I have pistachio tea on screen, a stack of notebooks, a increasingly worn copy of How to Go Mad without Losing Your Mind, and a need to situate myself such that I'm not making so much noise with the mic. Hold on, hold on.

Okay, starting now. I should have put my glasses. Hi there. Grab your tea, I'm having pistachio as per usual. It also has roasted almonds in it because I'm on the go right now. I didn't bring all my florals. I do so love a nutty floral. Long time no see. I generally don't like being on video because my face and voice are now public record in a way that alarms me. But we can't go backwards. Hi, it's good to see you.

I'm out here making housing and security look very cute. It looks like a cute place, right? You're sitting in the window sill right now. It's a lovely winter's day in Brooklyn. I would otherwise be really excited to be here if I were not here for the passing of a loved one. Which thank you for your condolences, by the way. I'm receiving a lot of kind messages. None of this feels particularly real. And if the past is any indication.

This is just gonna be something that I remembered. I'm gonna be going about my day going, God, I really wanna talk to Baba about, oh right. Oh my gosh, I can't wait to tell Baba, oh right. Let me text Baba and tell him I was thinking.

like that.

I'm making this video not to cry on camera. So you all know how much I love that.

but to talk to you all about some changes that I am making existing online. Which is, I really have been, I don't want to say slacking, but sincerely deep prioritizing being here with the patrons and the substachians, the substichites, the substichanders.

Stubstiganders is actually very cute and I'm keeping it. The Patreons, the Stubstiganders, mostly because I am not compelled by money. So the idea of making extra content to reward people for giving me money was always just such a low burner, especially with the other things that's on my plate. You know, familial duties, personal duties, the reading and writing for short form and long term projects, organizing on the continent and also in the United States for some, I just like-

for some care infrastructure that I've been feeling is necessary. More on that later as per usual. So that means that like making extra content for people that pay to support me was always kind of like a, when I get the extra energy, when I get the extra time, when I get the extra focus, I will give you my extra, you know, you're paying for extras. And I find that uncompelling for a couple of reasons. The first being that

because I am not compelled by money, it never really becomes a priority. You know what I'm saying? If the idea is, oh, I make extra things so that people who wish to support me continue to have incentive to support me, I actually don't care about being broke. As you can see, again, chronic housing insecurity. I'm more housed than I have been since I lived in Chicago, and it's still quite precarious. It is tough to not have a permanent address in the United States, it makes everything difficult. And I shouldn't be surprised at how long it's taking me to come back into like fully fledged housing, but it's again, really tough. Like I still don't make enough to qualify for renting. So I mean, I should be motivated. I should be motivated. And I just am not. And then secondly, it undermines what I want to do with this space.

So people that pay to support me, especially at this point in time, because I give you so little, I have to imagine that you're here because you want me to be well. Because even if I don't care about being poor and destitute, you all are like, that's not a reality that we want you waiting in. Because in honesty, you're right. I shouldn't be skating towards financial disaster and catastrophe all the time. I agree. There should be many layers of safety between me and death by preventable disease.

death by hypothermia, death by substance abuse, because truly the only way that you can survive chronic housing insecurity and or homelessness is drugs. It's drugs, it's the only thing that makes it tolerable, et cetera. So you're right. I keep coming back to this email that I got a while ago, sometime in like, I think like October or some shit. And they said,

you can't die. If you die, you don't understand there's nobody that does what you do. There's nobody to replace you in your online spaces and in your real life spaces. You actually cannot move like this. You have to consider yourself more precious. It's essentially the text of the email. I haven't stopped thinking about that. I'm trying to reconcile that with, yes, but I'm not motivated by money. So why?

Yeah, I just, I think what's happening for me is that I don't want you all to be motivated by production from me. Cause what kind of has happened less and less so, but like, especially at the beginning of things, you know, I would set up paid spaces and I would promise perks. And my ability to fulfill those perks, which I'm still behind on fulfilling, I still work on it, especially cause the perks that I have in mind and the perks that I promise.

are labor intensive and time intensive. They take like a lot of time and care, so I can't do them very fast. And so many people wrote me letters and I just, I refuse to half-ass that. So if I write three letters a week, that means, and I got 300 letters, it takes a long time to get back to people. But I still am. What happens is the emphasis is on my production. You did it to get something extra for me so that if that thing comes slowly or not at all, then subscription drops.

And then it makes it something that I can't actually depend on consistently and like I already said I'm already not motivated by money in the first place. So I just You understand what I'm trying to say I hope so what I want is to take Support from of me and my work away from the idea of production So I have decided that we're starting over with the patreon and with the sub stack. I was sharing

the things that I was sharing, A, to practice, just to get my feet wet with what it feels like to create things consistently, to create audio, to create visuals, to do all these things. And all I really had was the models of content creators and influencers that came before me. Now, I don't fuck with either of those two terms. My primary job on the internet, I do not think is content creation. My primary job on the internet is not influencer. I don't...

I'm not really here to change the minds and hearts of the populace. I'm here existing in public because it keeps me accountable to the public. And I'm here sharing what I learned, which is not feel like content. Like we don't call authors content creators. We don't call music production content creators. So I'm not a content creator because I'm an essayist or because I'm existing online content. The idea of entertainment.

is so superfluous to what I am actually doing here. I am a public teacher. This is actually what I wanted when I was graduating from grad school and thinking about the job market and looking at jobs that just like bored me. There was exactly two jobs that I was really excited about. And I got really far like in the processes for being considered before they, you know, went to people that have more experience than me because I was just graduating. Job market's tough.

One was in curriculum development for English and teaching that curriculum to like high school level students and one was in a policy think tank for public health that was localized to a specific urban region. And remarkably both of those things are things that I do now with my day today. So I'm not a content creator, I'm a public educator.

That's what I'm doing here. I have a syllabus that lives, that is directly affected by the questions that you all ask me and the ways that you engage with me. And I have projects and capstone projects that you all are and will be, continue to be involved in, that have to do with public health and safety. And obviously there comes a lot of education within that as well, because that is my field of study. I have two degrees in public health now, global health, and one degree in English.

So I'm doing what I want to be doing. None of that is about the creation of like things that are designed to entertain. None of that is about content. I just, the fact that I am existing in video and audio format is just the medium, the vehicle in which I can come to you with the things that I hope and dream for myself and for us as a collective. What I'm finding is that short form video land, so TikTok and Instagram, and even long form video land with YouTube, which...

I keep promising a return. It's gonna happen. It's just that I can't come back to YouTube without finishing up the Malcolm X series. One, the person that I wanted to talk to about that is Babaseku. So give me a second. And then two.

Yeah, give me a second. All forms of video and just existing online in a way that the public can interact with me.

suck like respectfully like uh any kind of video i think because it's so ubiquitous to society at this point in time because we view these people that are making art as content creators instead of artists opens you a lot like opens you to the wide heights and depths of the internet it opens you to being recirculated in ways that you do or do not consent to um and it makes it so

question, comment, recommendation that is helpful to my thinking and to my praxis. Every actual thing that I find helpful has a couple on this side and a couple on this side. And this side is like the angelification of me, the me becoming like a deity or a legend or someone that is above critique, where I can do no wrong and that is dehumanizing. And then the other side in which I am.

the devil incarnate, an agent of chaos, someone who is actively out to sabotage the collectives of liberation that I am a part of via identity. And that is also dehumanizing. I don't enjoy either of those things. And they, if I read too much of that, it warps my sense of personhood. That sort of consumption of what people feel about themselves projected onto me is...

not really something I wish to engage in, which means that I can't really read the comments on TikTok and Instagram anymore. I don't read YouTube comments. I don't check my notifications. I don't see, like I can't actually interact with people in the ways that I would like to. So I think what I'm going to be using these spaces for is to talk about the things that I am learning in real time. Because usually by the time that I've like made a video about something and it's circulating on these short form. Um.

places because I know that my reach is wide and far. I'm well read. I am well situated. I feel comfortable enough to say, to make a claim, to state a thesis statement. I'm still comfortable to be wrong. I can be wrong about anything, but I'm definitely not. If I'm ever talking about a text in public, I've read it at least twice, usually three times. So

I want spaces where I can learn in real time and have first draft thoughts because first draft thoughts are not safe for the general internet. And I think that's what I'm going to use those spaces for. These spaces for. The Patreon, the Substaganders, that's what I would like to be doing here. And I think these are also spaces that are niched down enough, not quite small, not quite large, but just like the people that engage with me on Patreon, the people that engage with me on Substack are here because they like...

what I have to bring to the table and they want to discuss with me. I think that you all work to see me as someone who is just like a finite person and not someone that solely exists in their video screen or someone who has much stock in the idea of being legendary. I'm just a person.

The conundrum that I've been having is, well, that's educational work. Like I'm just, I'm talking about my thoughts, I'm learning in public by proxy. People also learn as I do that. So how do I charge for that if my work is free? Like if everything educational, if my best work is the work that I think that people can learn from is free and is free on purpose, why wouldn't I just give that away for free? And that's been at loggerheads because it's like, these paid spaces are supposed to be paid and they're supposed to incentivize people to support me and da da. That's why you make extra stuff.

but the whole extra thing doesn't compel me to do it because then I'm motivated by money and I'm not motivated by money. And if the thing that I actually want to be doing in these spaces is essentially like long form book clubs, listen, this is an amazing text. Hey, remember when I said she cute and she thick? This is dense and good. It is prose, it's prose poetry, prose, prose poetry. Okay, it's so like, you can see how haggard this is becoming. Ben's terps, okay.

A Ripper 2, Doodles and the Margins. Okay, I love this book. I keep returning to it. I keep rereading it. And I don't have time to talk about the rest of the text. Most people, especially with academic books like these, they only read the first chapter because it's a prolonged thesis. And that's good. If you only read the first chapter, lovely. And also I wanna read the whole book. I don't have time to do that on my big social media. I have a syllabus to get through that I'm already, I don't wanna say behind on.

But we have work to do, you know what I'm saying? I have projects, I'm working with multiple kinds of people on the things that we're gonna be talking about. So I wanna take these spaces to talk about what I'm reading. I also have Thomas Sankara in the corner over there. I started talking about that in live on TikTok. I want a space to be able to repost my lives without fear of them getting redistributed in big ways. You know what I'm saying? And all of that's very educational work. It's work that I enjoy. It feels like an office hours situation.

and you don't pay to go to office hours.

So I'm starting over with the Patreon and with the sub stack. Everything that I think should, I've gone through it again and I've made free what I think should stay up and things that I made with a specific audience in mind. Like also one of the reasons I was posting specifically to paid tiers is because it denotes at least some sense of adulthood. If you have your own money to be able to spend to give me a couple dollars a month, you are likely in...

in have enough agency over your life to have your own bank account and your own finances. So I was kind of using that as a metric for like making sure that like kid kids aren't here because there are some kids that follow me and like to engage with my work. And I was not about to be, some things are for adults. But I just like, I don't really wanna have conversations without kiddos. I like the kids, I like the teeny boppers. I like that like 12, 13, 14 year olds are here. I think your ideas are incredible.

and I wanna hear what you have to say. And I don't wanna exclude you from the learning because you can't afford to pay for it. What is it? When I was 12, $5 was a million dollars. When I was 12, $5 was like a cupcake, a very big cupcake from the bakery that I could walk to. And that is about a million dollars as 12, as a 12 year old. So, I'm just gonna do all of this for free. I hope that you weren't here specifically because you felt like you had special East Montsue content because I'm not.

Any more special in the space I am in big spaces? I don't really want the incentive on your side to be exchange for extra. I want the incentive to be because you care about me. And I'm here. I want my incentive for being here to be because I care about you.

So it's all just gonna be free.

We're starting over. And this frees me up a lot to just exist without having to make a product or something compelling or fancy or what have you. And I can just breathe. And you'll know that when I'm here, it's because I wanna be here and not because I feel like I have to.

Yeah. All right, well.

What time is it? That's about all. In terms of loose life updates, I'll talk about those ones when I feel like talking about my.

Nothing is easy. There's a lot of ease, but it's not easy, if that makes sense. Even amidst tumultuous circumstances and difficulties.

This is the most blessed I've ever been. You know what I mean? Blessed in the original etymology of the world is someone played in blood for the amount of freedom that I get to have every day. And it's my job to continue the work of making sure that everybody that interacts with me and comes after me, however much after actually exists because colonialism really fucked up time.

I want freedom to be contagious. Just like hope.

Thank you for watching. I wanna do more of this.

And I'm excited to be back in spaces, Patreon, subscandies, where you all can talk to me and I can see you and I don't have to worry about being assaulted with the ways I am more or less than little h human. It's very nice to just exist without complexities or pride.

The internet continues to grow bigger and bigger and bigger. And I stay the same size. And everything growing means that I have me that goes outside of me. And that's difficult for my brain to reconcile. And I have never been so well suited to make my dreams reality. So I can't go backwards.

It's just gonna help for me to have as much little space as I can possibly hold onto because there's gonna come a day where I'm not on the internet anymore, where I don't do this, where I can't talk directly to you like this. So I'm gonna enjoy it while it's here.

I hope the work of your day passes through your hands with these, okay? Have a great day.

or whatever time of day you're listening to this. If it's three in the morning, have a good three in the morning. Goodbye.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ismatu.substack.com/subscribe

a letter to my daughter on the religion of revolution.

Please lend your support to A Little Juju Podcast in their return! Juju Grant is a writer, ethnographer, show host and spiritual tower actively practicing wisdom anarchy. She so brilliantly archives African and Black Diasporatic Spiritual Traditions for free, and for the good of the people.

donate here! or via Cashapp, Venmo, or PayPal. All are available in her link tree.

I do not take sponsorships so that I can shine lights on my kinfolk, who need support in the community work they do just like I do. I am so grateful for your support! You all enable me to buy groceries on a regular basis! I want to spread this love. I would love northing more than to see this fundraiser with more than what she needs.

Jazz of the Episode:

The Jordan River Song x Emahoy Tsege Marian Gebru

Whisky Story Time x Alabaster DePlume

Spring Yaounde x Wynton Marsalis

Lena’s Song x The Sweet Enoughs

You Go To My Head x Frank Sinatra

Tenkou Why Feel Sorry x Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru

Easy Living x Clifford Brown

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ismatu.substack.com/subscribe

An essay from The Vault on how miraculously pain steals language. CW: mentions of self-harm.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ismatu.substack.com/subscribe

The first essay of the Revolutionary Healers series. WHAT USE is "measured rationality" when to be Reasonable means to dying quietly, all the time? Notes from the text, “How to Go Mad Without Losing Your Mind.” Full transcript, with sources, at ismatu.substack.com.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ismatu.substack.com/subscribe

in which ismatu delivers a free-styled, spoken essay where they realize Grief as a seed blooming their bones.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ismatu.substack.com/subscribe

The primary goal of this essay is to argue for a healthy skepticism of sponsorship-saturated media amidst a new age in information sharing, with secondary goals as following:

* to commit myself to The People and my people publicly by way of refusing to sell my word online, and

* to name explicitly the ways refusing traditional sponsorship places me in a decent amount of precarity.

* I’ma spoil the ending for you: I don’t want to run from precarity. Being unsteady forces me to lean on the communities that I say I value. I continually argue that refusing sponsorships as my primary mode of income forces me to expand. Now, I must trust the people for care instead of trusting them as a willing and endless site of extraction.

* Plus… willing? How much can you consent to extraction anyways? Bah. I get ahead of myself.

I wish to belong to The People and that means my word needs to be mine. Thank you for listening <3

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ismatu.substack.com/subscribe