Wh-wh-wh-wh-what does regret mean?

Start as you mean to go on

Absurd Intelligence has a foundational document called (erm) STAY ABSURD and it begins like this.

The Absurd Rule Book:

1. It’s better to regret something you have done, than to regret something you haven’t done
2. If you can’t imagine something it doesn’t exist
3. Analysis is done — now creativity begins

In a week where Mark Carney’s analysis stated quite clearly that the post-war ‘reality’ never actually existed (aka he ‘did a Ratner’), the UK Government finally admitted climate is an existential threat to national security, and Minneapolis showed how things may very soon play out in the USA and beyond, it feels difficult to be writing about absurdity.

Even more so the acid-fried lunacy of one of the most transgressive bands in history, the Butthole Surfers.

So I won’t dwell too long on Austin, Texas’s finest and most terrifying, save: keep an eye out for the forthcoming documentary, The Hole Truth and Nothing Butt.

But I will dwell only long enough to say that Absurd Rule No.1 is taken from the Butthole Surfers’ song Sweat Loaf.

For anyone not familiar with the tune (a situation you should address at the earliest opportunity) the song begins with an eerily-soundtracked exchange:

“Daddy?”
“Yes, son?”
“Wh-wh-wh-wh-what does regret mean?”
“Well, son, a funny thing about regret is
That it’s better to regret something you have done
Than to regret something you haven’t done.”

shortly before an ARM-A-GEDDON-heralding riff kicks-off the most awful/brilliant song you will ever hear. That the riff is a rip-off of Black Sabbath’s Sweet Leaf (see what they did there?) only improves matters.

Given the state of The Shitshow, the song feels (to these battered ears anyway) the perfect soundtrack. That it was made 39 years ago 😳 simply emphasises Carney’s Havel-referencing assertion that we have been living “within a lie”. For Quite. Some. Time.

But monster-riffs and distorted screaming aside, this is a post about action versus inaction. And when that song HOWLS – I reckon that whether the listener experiences a cry of despair or release ultimately depends on whether the listener has or hasn’t done.

We Can. We Will. We Are.

Everything we are attempting to help make happen at Absurd Intelligence is about doing, not thinking. And about how doing is imagination.

Summarised in the six word slogan in the subtitle above.

1. We Can build a better world (Absurd Rule Two: If you can’t imagine something it doesn’t exist)
2. More to the point We Will do it (Absurd Rule Three: Analysis is done — now creativity begins)

And most importantly:

3. We Are already doing it. In neighbourhoods throughout our nations; in organisations small and large

And, to be clear: this is a wide all-of-us-‘we’. A ‘we’ that in German now often deploys the gendersternchen (gender asterisk) – wir* – to denote an inclusive group.

And that’s why the have done is so much more important than the haven’t done.

The have done means we’re trying, experimenting, iterating. Learning from our mistakes as much as our successes. The have done means we’re meeting people, collaborating, acting on shared analysis. The have done means we are embodying our thinking, not simply inhabiting it.

The have done creates the conditions for serendipity, the building of the kinds of autonomous, self‑directed relationships and networks described so brilliantly in James C. Scott’s Two Cheers For Anarchism.

The have done recognises that the atomised isolation of capitalism, and the tech-and-press-driven right-wing narratives of division are as unreal as Václav Havel’s greengrocer’s workers of the world unite sign.

But only if you have done something.
Because if you haven't done, none of the above can happen.

Have done/haven’t done.
Can do/Can’t do.
Will do/Won’t do.
Are doing/Aren’t doing.

As The Shitshow shows no sign of abating (however much we might want to will that into happening), our three Absurd Rules are an upgrade on If Not Now, Then When? Not a question or plea for action, not even a statement of intent, but recognition that we are already taking fate into our own hands. We Can. We Will. We Are is a rallying cry to everyone involved in making their world a better place. Everyone.

It’s an invitation too to get involved in The Fête of Britain – the ongoing festival of belonging that is visiting as many neighbourhoods and nations as it can. And if anyone is up for mischief in Swansea, Barking, Wigan and Manchester especially, get in touch.

Of course, not everyone will get on board. There’ll be the inevitable what-do-you-mean-by-‘we’? wars. The people who can’t resist the comfort of soft moral alignment.

But

can enough of us,
will enough of us,
are enough of us

prepared to regret something we have done, rather than regret something we haven’t done?

In a week where The Shitshow Emperors’ new clothes are more starkly and widely revealed, staying absurd is actually the most appropriate response.

Elsewhere in Absurdity...

As we’re sharing our Absurd Rule Book, it seems then a good time to tell you about a new film from one of the wonderful people who first dreamt up the idea of Absurd Intelligence.

On Thursday, many of the crew will be going to see Molly Vs The Machines, a film by Marc Silver. From a teenager’s suburban bedroom to the boardrooms of Silicon Valley, Molly Vs the Machines is the story of a heartbroken father’s quest to uncover the truth behind his daughter (Molly Russell)’s death and his fightback against how the most powerful corporations of the modern age operate.

Find out more from the film website, including tickets for the cinema release on March 1st, and watch the trailer below.

And on Thursday Charlie and Stella are heading to the second meeting of a tech-focused super-gang who are going to galvanise an international movement of resistance to tech bro overreach (you read it here first!!).