What Does It Mean to Want Kids?

plus thoughts on religion, manifestation, fandom and falling in love with AI chatbots, thought digest, 10.24.2024

Hello Deeheads.

Here are some thoughts I’ve been kicking around:

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First Time Caller: An Art Bell Tribute

When we log on and choose a username, are we announcing ourselves or creating ourselves? Much has been written about digital egregores and meme magic.

Today, I started reading Gary Lachman’s Dark Star Rising, which so far is very good. It reminded me of a question that I’ve posed here before: is the choice of our digital names itself a type of spell? Sometimes I feel like “default_friend” was.

One of the key tensions of modern life is that the Internet concretizes our internal monologue and we get inured to being judged by our digital presences. Because we’re so used to living as this externalization of our inner voice, it can be surprising or even offensive to hit up against the limitations of what we physically are. In the future, everyone will see you exactly as you want to be seen for 15 minutes.

I've never liked the idea that fandom is our new religion. I also don't think we worship at the altar of the self or whatever the line is either. I think most Americans, whether they recognize it or not, are...well, New Agers. I've written at length that fandom is the organizing structure of the Internet—both implicitly and explicitly. Many have argued that fandom has replaced religion, but I think while we organize in fandoms, they aren't spiritual, at least, not most of the time. Fandoms are oriented towards production, imagination, curation, interpretation, learning, archiving, creative transformation, etc. but not any sort of ultimate, eternal truth. Not transcendence.

For example, being a Swiftie neither precludes being a Christian nor conflicts with other fan identities. When fans create art or fiction, they're engaging in cultural production, not spiritual devotion. The ecstasy of fandom is creative, not religious. While I'm no expert on either religion, or fandom for that matter, the fact that people easily belong to multiple fandoms simultaneously really is an important data point.

If there’s a “new religion,” it’s New Thought. It’s The Secret. It’s manifestation. It’s a bunch of very similar ideas It’s a bunch of things I'm conflating right now that I’m sure have subtle but significant differences.

But whatever it is, it's not the self and it's not fandom.

I’ve recommended it here many times before, but I have to recommend it again: Tara Isabella Burton’s Self-Made offers a convincing argument that this is the case. It’s a book I think everyone should read.

Despite the title of the book I just recommended—and despite our culture of self-improvement and optimization—I still don’t think we’re worshipping ourselves. It’s energy.

“Believe in yourself” illustrates this. Belief is a powerful tool, but the divine piece in that equation is not you, the person, but rather the act of belief itself. Belief is what gives you access to “the source,” “the power,” “the universe,” “the energy,” God.

When someone uses manifestation techniques, they're using a tool, rather than declaring themselves divine. They aren’t magic, they’re using magic to shape the world as they want it to be. This is a principle you get hammered with over and over when you pursue most neo-pagan paths, too. YOU aren't magical; the TAROT cards aren't magical; they are tools to access magic.

This spiritual framework lends itself naturally to technology. It’s why Perplexity tells people it can use its AI program for manifestation. It’s part of what makes TikTok magical, as I’ve written about twice in Tablet.

The Internet is proof we can make our own reality from the perceptual distortion of echo-chambers to meme magick to the synchronicity of the algorithm.

A while back, a friend of mine was reviewing What Are Children For? and asked me why I decided to have a child. I said that for me, it was instinct. When I say I “wanted” kids what I really meant was that I needed them. It felt as natural as being hungry. Like a phantom limb, I longed to hold my baby. And now that he's here, I recognize that feeling of absence in the few moments when we’re apart. It’s what I feel when he leaves for walks with his father while I stay at home and write. It’s what I feel after I place him in his crib for the night.

I miss him. I missed my son before he was even born.

This is what I always thought baby fever was. It’s not rational. It’s something you don’t need a reason for. You delay it or forgo it depending on your life circumstances, but the desire runs as deep as a desire can run. To even call it a “desire” feels like a category error—this isn’t desire, it’s instinct.

I need food. I need water. I need to sleep. I needed a child.

I don’t think every woman feels this way or ought to feel this way. But it’s not a sensation I hear described in the conversation about having children. I’m not doing it “for” anything. I had a child because of course I had a child. To be my son’s mother is to be who I am.

[…]

Below the cut:

• The rest of this piece ⬆️

• The unabridged version of my latest for UnHerd

• The application link to Internet Real Life, featuring JREG, Honor Levy, Reggie James, and Ruby Thelot

• Location details for tomorrow’s conversation about Zero Day and Ginger Snaps and a sign-up link for the remote meeting

Kathy around the web:

• On the fandomization and hobbyfication of politics for The Dispatch

• On our mass migration into imagination for UnHerd