Must-watch TV ...

This is about the most disturbing and addictive thing I've watched for some time:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Americans_(2013_TV_series)

I wanted to be a spy before I saw this, but now I think it's probably incompatible with credible parenthood.

More seriously, it reminded me of how we are all running cover stories and living double lives all the time, mostly beyond our recognition. Other things than ourselves drive us, and we don't usually operate with our own voices, whatever they are, assuming they exist... Perhaps there is a way to discover them, but generally we are already given over to some monstrous, overriding agenda before we even become aware of ourselves and start gasping about it. It's not really me speaking, and it's not really you responding; the entities engaged in what Bakhtin calls a 'dialogue' here are others, positioned further back, instilled through pain and urgency. They are survival functions and responses to the imposed scripts of others, often to others whose scripts we would least wish to internalise.

Watch this weird series with some self-reflection to feel the deep dislocation of yourself, and perhaps to recognise that really, however clichéd, the best shot we may ever have at decoding our own hermeneutics might just be to accept some versions of our ancient, most primitive narratives of love. Already that concept backs itself up into philosophical emetics, of course, but keep following the wheel, and just perhaps us humans really don't have much else with which to calibrate our compasses. Or we just keep recycling the same self-deceptions forever. It feels like the drive to address Global Warming: even if the entire theory was wrong, it would still be the right thing to do...