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here is a lot to say about the time Tool's last album -Fear inoculum - was released.
And I'm not sure if I would be writing it, except someone on my course was speaking about the perils of the internet - she had come across David Baddeil's rant against social media - and I was vexed.
Vexed because there are other stories to be told. Stories about how the internet // social media has saved people's lives - I can think of one instance where this has happened - that story isn't mine to tell. But no matter how valid the stories about positive outcomes are, they don't seem to be as true as all the warnings!
Simply not exciting enough!
Regardless, I'm going to tell one of my Fear Inoculum stories because it helps describe social media, as something more than only a locus of dissent, disagreement and misery.
As a locus of compassion actually!
Fear Inoculum has a personal meaning for me, and a wider context. It's meanings and my meaning informed by other people's experiences. Facebook enabled numerous, temporary and meaningful fragments of one giant connection to take place.
I am proud to have taken part in this.
August 2019. It wasn't just me going through Hell.
In the various Tool Facebook groups people wrote about how important Tool's music had been to them; many people wrote about what they had been through (me included) many people wrote about their present difficulties, others poured out their hearts, some were on the point of suicide needing fellowship and a metaphorical hand to hold, right now.
The song Descending, in particular provided the anchor to life. Nothing sugar coated about that track, instead it gives a direct imperative to stay conscious, to focus on the inner, primal drive to live...
The dead too, were included in posts.
There were often photos of loved ones who had passed, and their stories.
I had been too close to death to be able to ignore both the depth of pain, loss brings and my own need to make something powerful and good, to spin the elegies forward.
If you can read my Facebook post (the image) you get the idea!
I collected each photo of the dead, in my phone. And when I took my seat - Birmingham UK, block C, row D they were there with me in the audience.
I felt a bit guilty for doing this, for storing the photos, for not asking permission of the relatives. But the time to have done that was when I first thought of it! On the other hand I was incapable of thinking straight at that time, it was just a year after my son's suicide attempt and I was deep into the gaslighting experience!
It needs saying.
Anyway, I have now told people - and you of course!
So, this account is both a new modern ritual - please copy - and a bit of a broadside against the misleading idea that social media creates only bad behaviors and experiences!
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