Align Your Orbit: Everyone Is a Rogue Agent
Align Your Orbit is a series of philosophical and somatic experiments to guide ourselves toward intentionality and impact. Synthesized after years of conversations and now with the help of ChatGPT and MidJourney, we’re fully embracing our new cyborg natures. Find delight in these journeys of exploration. If you would like to receive these offerings as a monthly email, sign up here.
The myth of the neurotypical, hyper-productive person with a perfect personal life is crumbling to dust. What’s left is juicy chaos, potential for revolution, and secret, double-edged superpowers. Your unpredictability has always been an asset. Each choice presents an opportunity to discover new terrain, both within and around you.
There’s no controlling the overarching forces in play, but there is fractal beauty in it anyway. Our sense of morality has individualized like the rest of us. Play your part or walk off the stage—it’s all action. Spoiler alert: You won’t die if you say the words.
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Our Latest Missions
1. rage outside the machine – There’s not enough room in your body for all the rage you have. You must get it out. Rather than lash and thrash at other people, take it out in your art. Make what’s been internal external in paint or performance art. Don’t constrain yourself to what is traditionally beautiful. Feel what’s true until it is.
Challenge Mode: Celebrate the gory, gristly battle spiders fight against the rising parasitic insects. Research spider friendly plants or make a little victory garden for our first line of defense. Praise the ways arthropods succumb to their hungry natures.
2. game the system – Stuck in an uncomfortable situation? Start making tally marks for every time someone repeats themselves. Think of how you’re going to tell this story as a joke later. Laugh at all the wrong times. Set physical boundaries by dodging and moving your body out of the way.
Challenge Mode: Find the afterparty in every context. Announce your intentions to others—everyone likes to feel invited into a secret. Whatever comes after the funeral is gonna be lit.
3. there’s no content warning on life – No one can fully prepare anyone else for all possible day-to-day triggers. If you try, you will self-edit yourself into isolation. Focus on asking for time, space, and energy rather than hedging and prefacing heavy content. Identify the friends who can handle hearing just about anything.
Challenge Mode: Even if we want fewer trigger warnings from friends, that doesn’t mean we don’t want them in our media. Demand that content released to the public gives people the opportunity to opt in and opt out. Beg for accessibility options even if you don’t need them for yourself.
4. it’s a bed of nails anyway – We’ve been playing with acupressure mats and regular acupuncture. Cause limited and acute pain in ways that heal the body. Experiment in safe contexts by yourself or with people you trust.
Challenge Mode: Sink into your unmet desires and underground curiosities, and take steps to coax them closer to reality. Talk about kinks with other interested parties and explore the extremities of experience.
Andra’s Recap of the Previous Missions
The theme for last month was Tend These Thresholds and included experiments around test driving realities, going silent, prepping for next year, and calling in favors.
I’ve been embracing the duality that climate disasters are only going to continue to get worse while fervently believing it is meaningful to mitigate the damage. But those incoming realities are heavy with grief. It’s been helpful to find people who are able to discuss and hold the gravity of what may come with tender hope. I’ve recently signed up for this Grief Pen Pals program, and that has provided a positive space to talk about all the heavy stories I hold both personally and collectively.
I did a lot of what I wanted to do before this season ended, although I have yet to tackle my closet and get it back down to a manageable state. But, I was able to spend some quality time with my sister and go out to do handspinning demos in public. I’ve also spent so much time in collaborative writing practice, and I’m so in love with the stories coming out of me. All things considered, though, I’m ready for fall.
I didn’t make much progress on what it might look like for others around me if I were suddenly not around. However, in working toward planning to be a parent, I have put a lot of thought into which sperm donors would be willing to be involved in succession planning, etc. It’s been a lot of future-oriented thought.
After spending over a month planning a week to go offline, a lot of things conspired to make sure I didn’t actually get much time to myself. However, I was able to learn a lot about what it was I actually wanted out of that time and how I might do it better going forward. I really do think the physical distance from my day-to-day life is clutch, and I might just crash with friends for a few days at a time if I were to do something like that in the future.
I did put some thought labor into what I want the garden to look like next year, although I have been somewhat deterred by the fact that we found a tic in our backyard. I know this is likely the product of climate change, and it’s devastating in a lot of ways. It’s made me realize how valuable spiders are in the battles between invasive and overpopulated insects, and I’m doing what I can to make the area more hospitable to them.
It's been difficult, feeling worthy of help, support, and love from others, but I started thinking about help as a door, as a portal. All I need to do to deserve what is offered is walk through the door (thanks, Gangaji). I’m still working on being quicker to set boundaries when people do things I definitely don’t like, but like everything, it’s a work in progress.
This month, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about where my belief systems came from and what motivated my obsession with understanding and applying my own ethics. A lot of it has to do with not experiencing religious belonging while being raised in a hyper-religious culture. But I also have determined that a lot of it genuinely feels innate to me, and I want to find new ways to honor whatever that is.
Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoy this next installation of experiments!