The Cuff

^^^ Today is April 31. A noteworthy article of clothing gives you the freedom to project that you know yourself. In life knowing ourselves might be one of our greatest urgencies, so this is quite a feat to be achieved by an inanimate object adorning our bodies. When I look around, despite our dominant culture’s, arguably, excessive consumerism, it doesn’t look like many of us think too highly of ourselves. The unsupportive shoes with our arches on the floor. The faded stretch pants. You’d think for all our purchasing, we would look runway ready.

But, maybe, that’s just it, the haphazard items that adorn our bodies reflect our searching. It is evidence of how far away we are from knowing ourselves. Maybe this next pair of shoes will be it? Or this next pair of pants? Probably not. Because in between the urgency and the acquisition, is the difficult part. The place that is hard to be. The place that we want to rush through. The place that asks us to reflect on what we value and what type of people we are. Society spends a lot of time telling us who we are—an object, a freak, a person damned. Many of us spend lifetimes listening to society and wondering why the dress doesn’t feel quite right, maybe, because all along we’re supposed to be wearing pants.

Finding that noteworthy piece of clothing, worn with the knowledge that you know yourself is an act of resistance. In dark times may we spend time in that difficult space of reflection and choose to project our true selves, especially what society doesn’t welcome because we must resist to the full reaches of our power. It is how we will preserve the courage to overcome.

Sam read this portion of their mother’s journal often. It was filled with her passion about holding on to a society worth living in—one that valued connection and the freedom to exist as more than a controlled mind. Sam wondered what she would write now. It was 40 years since she wrote that and 27 years since she was alive. If you wanted to look at it optimistically, you could say the resistance was still happening. If you wanted to look at it pessimistically, you could say that the resistance was only a fraction of what it had been because the few with money still held so much power. A third realistic view is also possible. In that view the hope is to get to the future when the chapter in the history book describes a couple of hundred hard years as though it happened with hindsight at the start.

Sam wasn’t sure which version resonated. Being part of the resistance was a certainty though. At first it was an expectation, part of carrying on a legacy, but then it became a part of Sam’s own identity. Identity was still at the forefront of the resistance like it always is really, if you look back through history. This time the focus wasn’t so much about religion, labor, or any one group of people. It was more fundamental—our ability to notice, to attend to ourselves and others, to preserve our identity and connect. The takeover was subtle but deftly executed. Many still don’t even know there is something to resist, which is Sam’s focus.

Sam goes out each day (wearing pants and a dress) planting seeds of attention to get more people to notice and, hopefully, to resist. Sam rides a bike, which is also sort of an act of resistance and an indicator of being poor, which Sam also is, like most. Neighborhoods and cities still look mostly like they did when Sam’s mother was young, except everything is covered in ads, bids for attention. When Sam’s mother was a kid stadiums had their own names, but then the names were bought and changed. When Sam’s mother was an adult a few people even started putting advertisements on the roofs of their homes, now everyone did, if they owned their home, which few did. The takeover was subtle.

The part that was different were the ‘detached’. It was more recently determined that it was better for people to stay home, as long as they were attached to their screens. Their bodies, however, were still needed in the world for various jobs. You could always tell the detached from whole people. The AI that drove the body was always a little stilted. Descartes would be pleased at how clean the separation was though.

It made it hard for people like Sam to get through to people though. Companies enjoyed the control, and with the world online, getting people to see that they were being consumed was a challenge. That day though, when Sam turned and saw one of the detached was looking at the potted plant Sam left behind, everything changed.

Sam stopped the bike and gaped. It was definitely a detached because you could just make out the implant scar, and, of course, the uniform was for the power plant. The detached was now caressing the leaves.

People in the resistance put out various items to get people to notice and to try and build a connection. Some people used bugs or rocks. Really, it was any part of nature that wasn’t common anymore. The people who noticed had potential.

Whole people were hard to access though, and the detached never noticed. Sam was sill taken aback but felt the moment slipping. Sam whisper-yelled that it was a lavender plant. The detached smoothly met Sam’s eyes. As though the encounter was expected, the detached said to Sam, “I like your dress. I have to wear the uniform when I go out, but I changed the color of the thread on the cuff of this pant leg to light blue. It gives me a jolt each time I look at it.”

Sam gaped again.

“You are whole, aren’t you? Part of the resistance?” the detached said knowingly.

Looking at the mountain range-like blue stitch on the cuff, Sam replied, “I made the dress. I’ve made my clothes for as long as I can remember.”

Sam leaned in, “Do you have to stay on a programmed course or can you come with me?”

They went quietly. It didn’t seem fitting to talk. The day’s shadows had already begun to lengthen. It was that part of the world and that time of year. The glow of the screens was already drowning out the natural light. No one was outside except the detached. As they walked, it reminded Sam of another entry in their mother’s journal.

^^^ Today is May 4. That day, that week, with the mom poolside on her phone, while her child played alone in the cold pool. And the other mom in her Easter dress slumped on the front porch with her phone, while her toddler pushed a truck along the floor boards. Were the days good? Did they connect? In that moment it looks sad, but how many times a day do we have the same moments. What does it amount to?

As Sam pictured the journal entry, the whole journal came into view with its smooth cover and heavy pages that had lasted over time. The sharp script. The mountain range-like doodle that led to each date. Sam stopped.

“The stitch on your cuff. It isn’t a typical straight stitch. What is it from?”

“It’s just a detail that I like to feel like myself.”

Sam returned to that unsettled moment of noticing the detached observing the lavender. It felt off kilter again. The takeover was subtle. Sam made a mistake.

“What’s the meaning of life?” Sam interjected into the space.

“There are many ideas. Some say love, happiness, or creating. Macaroni and cheese was significant in the early 21st century,” the detached recited.

“You are very good. We aren’t going any further though because I have something else to do. Go home to your port now.”

By now the light from the screens in the homes and outside was so bright it was night’s daytime. There was so much competition amongst the two remaining tech companies they went to extreme lengths to gain an edge and tracked their data down to the smallest degree. They still made mistakes too though like “macaroni and cheese,” which was an early resistance campaign to flood the data with text noting macaroni and cheese was the meaning of life. It still hadn’t been purged. Sam biked without color in their face.

At home Sam began writing. They had read their mom’s journal outside. Some would say the words were stolen, others would say their being caught by a surveillance camera made the data available for capture. Regardless, Sam knew getting them back would take years, if ever. There still existed processes to delete data, but the tediousness to do so had only grown over the years, so it was largely futile. The data had already been used by the algorithm anyway. All Sam could do was send a warning that the targeting was even more precisely tuned to individual identity and now using the detached. The line between manufactured connection and human connection was now even more blurred.