[{"id":311448,"date":"2026-09-14T08:31:33","date_gmt":"2026-09-14T12:31:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/?p=311448"},"modified":"2026-09-14T08:31:33","modified_gmt":"2026-09-14T12:31:33","slug":"how-the-brain-of-a-fly-may-help-explain-human-behaviour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/3quarksdaily\/2026\/09\/how-the-brain-of-a-fly-may-help-explain-human-behaviour.html","title":{"rendered":"How the brain of a fly may help explain human behaviour"},"content":{"rendered":"

From\u00a0BBC:<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"Scientists have managed to compare the fine detail of the brains of male and female flies for the first time, identifying differences they say explain male aggression, courtship and their singing of love songs.\u00a0The scientists in Cambridge mapped all 124 million connections of nerve cells in a male fly’s brain, having done the same for a female fly two years ago.\u00a0The team are clear that the research won’t explain differences between men and women because our behaviour is far more complex.\u00a0But the research could help scientists better understand human behaviour and conditions in which genetic differences affect brain wiring, such as autism and schizophrenia.<\/p>\n

Prof Gregory Jefferis, of the Medical Research Council’s Laboratory of Molecular Biology and University of Cambridge, who co-led the research, told BBC News that the breakthrough was “a really important new avenue in neuroscience”, likening it to the invention of a powerful new telescope in increasing our understanding of the Universe.<\/p>\n

More here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Enjoying the content on 3QD? Help keep us going by donating now<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From\u00a0BBC: Scientists have managed to compare the fine detail of the brains of male and female flies for the first time, identifying differences they say explain male aggression, courtship and their singing of love songs.\u00a0The scientists in Cambridge mapped all 124 million connections of nerve cells in a male fly’s brain, having done the same…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5918],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-311448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-recommended-reading","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=311448"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311448\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":311451,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311448\/revisions\/311451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":311388,"date":"2026-09-14T08:16:56","date_gmt":"2026-09-14T12:16:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/?p=311388"},"modified":"2026-09-14T01:20:36","modified_gmt":"2026-09-14T05:20:36","slug":"anita-brookner-art-and-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/3quarksdaily\/2026\/09\/anita-brookner-art-and-life.html","title":{"rendered":"Anita Brookner: Art and Life"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kathryn Hughes at Literary Review<\/em>:<\/p>\n

\"\"A restaurant meal with Anita Brookner went like this. She arrived on time, ordered the same thing \u2013 Dover sole with a glass of wine \u2013 and then, the moment the plates were cleared, she scarpered. The conversation was good \u2013 a mix of gossip about mutual acquaintances and, if you were up to it, French art and painting. The whole thing took an hour and a half, tops, but she preferred it shorter, because that gave her time for a cigarette before she set off back to the modest ex-council flat in Kensington where she had lived since the 1960s.<\/p>\n

Dining with Brookner was a short, fastidious performance, qualities which also describe the novels she began to publish, at the rate of one a year, in late middle age. Her breakthrough was Hotel du Lac<\/i>, which won the Booker Prize in 1984 and has sold millions around the world.<\/p>\n

more here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Enjoying the content on 3QD? Help keep us going by donating now<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kathryn Hughes at Literary Review: A restaurant meal with Anita Brookner went like this. She arrived on time, ordered the same thing \u2013 Dover sole with a glass of wine \u2013 and then, the moment the plates were cleared, she scarpered. The conversation was good \u2013 a mix of gossip about mutual acquaintances and, if…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5918],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-311388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-recommended-reading","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=311388"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311388\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":311391,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311388\/revisions\/311391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":311113,"date":"2026-09-14T06:00:28","date_gmt":"2026-09-14T10:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/?p=311113"},"modified":"2026-09-14T02:34:48","modified_gmt":"2026-09-14T06:34:48","slug":"the-need-for-roots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/3quarksdaily\/2026\/09\/the-need-for-roots.html","title":{"rendered":"The Need For Roots?"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Martin Butler<\/strong><\/p>\n

Rootedness, says Simone Weil,<\/p>\n

\u2026is perhaps the most important and least known human spiritual need. It is one of the hardest to define. A human being is rooted through their real, active and natural participation in the life of a collectivity that keeps alive treasures of the past and has aspirations for the future. This participation is natural in that it stems automatically from place, birth, occupation and those around them. Every human being needs to have multiple roots and to derive almost all their moral, intellectual and spiritual life from the environment to which they naturally belong.[1]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

There is something paradoxical about Weil\u2019s account. The idea that rootedness is a need,<\/em> rather than simply a fact about human beings, implies that the need might not<\/em> be met; and indeed, The Need for Roots, <\/em>from which this quotation is taken, is a kind of manifesto for a society which recognises the importance of this need along with other moral and spiritual needs. Her discussion of the different kinds of uprootedness <\/em>makes it clear that rootedness cannot be taken for granted, yet the quotation above suggests that rootedness is normal and natural. Being rooted comes through our \u2018real, active and natural participation in the life of a collectivity\u2019. It is \u2018natural in that it stems automatically from place, birth, occupation and those around them.\u2019 In other words it would be difficult not<\/em> to have roots. If rootedness is natural<\/em> and arises automatically<\/em> why is this an issue at all? How could we be rootless?<\/p>\n

So Weil claims on the one hand that many civilisations and many ways of living lead to rootlessness, or uprootedness. (It\u2019s important to note here that she does not just have modern societies in her sights \u2013 she very much has it in for the Romans, as being instrumental in producing uprootedness) On the other hand, her definition of rootedness appears to make it a natural part of the human condition – just a fact about us, like having lungs.<\/p>\n

To make sense of this I think we have to assume that Weil believes rootedness naturally occurs in most human beings when raised in normal circumstances, just as children naturally learn to talk. This is not, however, inevitable. Conditions can exist, or external forces can intervene, which lead to stunted development or the destruction of rootedness. Disruption of the natural participation in the collectivity will lead to an inferior way of life because this key spiritual need of rootedness will not be met. Military occupation and colonial regimes are obvious examples of such disruptions. She also identifies some of the consequences of capitalism as responsible for creating uprootedness.<\/p>\n

We think of our roots as unchosen, the background facts against which we live our lives: nationality, family background, cultural and religious upbringing and so on. In many societies (and more so in the past), these are so taken for granted they are hardly noticed, like a fish\u2019s relation to water. Whether we are consciously aware of them or not, for Weil they enable us to flourish, they give us a sense of belonging, of being at home in the world, and provide a source of meaning. The fish and water analogy doesn\u2019t quite work here. The fish dies without water. The uprooted individual does not die but merely lives a spiritually impoverished life. The sociologist Emile Durkheim perhaps captures this state with his notion of anomie<\/em>; a state of normlessness, isolation, a loss of any shared purpose.<\/p>\n

We can perhaps get more of a grip on the distinction between being rooted and uprooted through Weil\u2019s point that \u201cEvery human being needs to have multiple roots \u2026\u201d By this I take it she means that we need different kinds<\/em> of connectivity with the collective. A rooted individual has a complex web of interconnections. A society that tends to reduce all connections to one kind is heading towards uprootedness. This would explain why she says, \u201cMoney destroys roots wherever it goes because the drive to make money supplants all other incentives. This drive easily overshadows all incentives because it requires so little attention. Nothing is as clear and simple as a number.\u201d[2]<\/a> Money becomes a kind of mono-incentive, pushing out all others. Even in situations where money is not actually involved, the idea of monetary exchange can dominate a society when most interactions become modelled on purchase or sale. Relationships become transactional, the exchange of goods or services of equal worth. Everything is about individual loss and gain; self-interest is regarded as the only \u2018real\u2019 motive. This can become a normative ideal: relationships which seem superficially quite different are reduced to the transactional mode as this, it is believed, is the only solid basis for connectivity. (Examples of theories that make this assumption are the social exchange theory of inter-personal relationships, and contractual theories of morality and politics.) It is noteworthy that Weil\u2019s comment about money echos Marx\u2019s point that capitalist society \u201chas left no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous \u2018cash payment\u201d.[3]<\/a><\/p>\n

I doubt whether any actual society could operate solely on this basis, but a widespread belief in this model can become self-fulfilling and corrupting, producing rootlessness through a widespread suspicion that others are always looking to \u2018get one over you\u2019, a sense that life is a low-level war of all-against-all. In such an atomised society, one where trust is in short supply, genuine rootedness is difficult to establish.<\/p>\n

We should be clear here that the notion of a transactional relationship should not be confused with interactions which might look superficially similar. Gift-exchange, for example, might look like a kind of polite version of what is essentially a transactional relation. I think this is wrong. In its uncorrupted form at least, gift-exchange, which is common in many cultures, is about building trust and cementing bonds rather than getting a good deal or furthering self-interest.<\/p>\n

A more obvious example of a mono-incentive occurs when a society becomes so brutalised that all relationships become reduced to power through, for example, a military occupation or a totalitarian state. Relationships then become dominated by either a direct or implicit threat of physical violence and the mono-incentive is fear, which \u2018supplants all other incentives\u2019.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s worth noting here that the kinds of connectivity we find through family relationships, patriotism, cultural, political and religious practices\/beliefs, or even supporting a football team involve obligations and emotional connections that cannot (or at least should not) be reducible to self-interested transactions or fear. This is perhaps why this wide range of relationships are identified with being rooted. I am not, of course, suggesting that Weil believed that transactional relationships and even an element fear are always corrosive to rootedness; rather, they must sit within a complex web of obligations, emotional connections and responsibilities that are not reducible to any simplistic mono-incentive.<\/p>\n

An important question rises here. Are roots always good? Can there be benign forms of uprootedness? Weil does not consider this. But the contemporary idea of the liberated, autonomous self goes against the very idea of rootedness. Emotional bonds and responsibilities can be claustrophobic. Roots can constrain us or limit our possible life options. Families can oppress – remember Larkin\u2019s line about \u2018your mum and dad\u2019. Religious belief can be an opium, patriotism can be an excuse for division and hatred. Shouldn\u2019t we aspire to a world where we are emancipated individuals in thrall to nothing that we don\u2019t consciously choose? Surely, the existential hero has no time for roots!?<\/p>\n

The moral currency of modern liberal individualism is rights<\/em> based, belying the obligations and emotional bonds that form the substance of rootedness. The moral armour of the autonomous liberated individual is to be understood in terms of rights rather than roots. Rights are what individuals possess, and the demand that these rights be respected is supposed to guarantee the autonomy of the individual in the face of the of the overbearing demands of the collective. The tension between the freedom of the individual and the power of the group is resolved through the recognition of individual rights \u2013 rootedness at best being an optional extra. Weil, however, was not a fan of rights. At least she did not give them the primacy they have today. Interestingly, she thought that the enlightenment took a wrong turn as soon as the French revolutionaries put the rights of man centre stage rather than obligations. She claims that:<\/p>\n

The concept of obligations takes precedence over that of rights, which are subordinate and relative to it. A right is not effective on its own, but solely in relation to the obligations to which it corresponds. The successful fulfilment of a right comes not from the person who possesses it but from others who recognise they have an obligation towards that person.[4]<\/a><\/p>\n

This is a compelling point. The demand that my rights be recognised is empty without the network of moral obligations which could give this recognition substance. A group of atomised individuals all demanding their rights is not going to get very far unless there is a prior recognition within the group that obligations are owed to others. And obligations spring from a range of both intellectual and emotional connections, some strong and obvious others more limited and contentious. In other words, rights only make sense when they sit within the complex web of obligations, emotional connections and responsibilities. It could be argued that rights, to be effective, presuppose rootedness.<\/p>\n

Rights are also reductive. A right is simply an entitlement, but entitlements come in all shapes and sizes and can be specific to particular relationships or particular individuals. Some entitlements only hold weight under certain conditions. Others are unconditional. Rights talk tends to obliterate these complexities. It also frames the relation between the individual and the collective as one of opposition rather than participation. So, the \u2018all you need are rights\u2019 approach, taken together with a focus on self-interest and the primacy of transactional relationships discussed earlier, leads to perfect conditions for a rootless modernity.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, we can\u2019t deny that the ideals of individualism, emancipation and freedom of choice have their attractions, and clearly there is some tension between these ideals and rootedness as I have described it. After all, unchosen obligations and emotional bonds can feel like unwanted ties for those hankering after emancipation. One way to lessen this tension is to expand our notion of rootedness. It\u2019s easy to conceive of the ideal form of rootedness as that realised in what might be described as traditional societies, where structures and beliefs are quite rigid, where social roles are clearly defined, and where everyone has a place and there\u2019s a place for everyone. I\u2019ve suggested that we tend to think of roots as those unchosen features of our life \u2013 nationality, family, place of upbringing and so on. But we should not exclude the possibility of \u2018putting down roots\u2019, through voluntary connections with groups, friends and institutions in new locations. And we can of course choose religious, political or cultural associations that are quite unconnected with our upbringing. This chosen<\/em> or secondary<\/em> rootedness has become more important in modern western cosmopolitan societies, where the primary unchosen forms of rootedness have become degraded, partly at least because emotional bonds have become more fluid, relationships more transactional. Can these secondary roots ever be as strong or meet the spiritual need Weil speaks of? Is blood always thicker than water? The cynic might argue that, when push comes to shove, these kinds of relationship end up being weaker and more transactional in contrast to the genuine emotional bonds that transcend the narrow orbit of self-interest. That, I think, is overly pessimistic and falls into the trap mentioned earlier of seeing self-interest as the only real motive. So perhaps modern individualistic culture can have its cake and eat it. It can hang on to the primacy of individual choice and at the same time manufacture its own rootedness. This isn\u2019t an easy trick to pull off, partly because there is an inclusivity about the unchosen rootedness that doesn\u2019t depend on merit, personality or wealth. Having a family, nationality, or cultural heritage does not depend on your social skills or level of education, but is more of a given birthright. This is its appeal. Some are clearly better at successfully putting down roots than others, so the individualism of western societies suits those who have the wherewithal to carve out a rooted place for themselves. (We could make a further argument here that this very capacity itself requires a certain kind of primary, unchosen rootedness. We cannot create ourselves ex nihilo.<\/em>) Others however may feel that their birth right has been betrayed and yearn for the assumptions of previous generations, where just being born into a society was enough – where participation in the collective \u2018is natural in that it stems automatically from place, birth, occupation and those around them\u2019. Perhaps the division between those who are quite happy to create their rootedness and those who long for the automatic rootedness of previous generations is the source of some of the division we find in modern western societies?<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Weil, S., 2023 (originally pub. in France 1949) The Need for Roots<\/em>, Penguin Classics, London, p33<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Ibid p34<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Marx, K., Engels, F., 1992, The Communist Manifesto, <\/em>Oxford World Classics, p5<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Op cit. p3<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Martin Butler Rootedness, says Simone Weil, \u2026is perhaps the most important and least known human spiritual need. It is one of the hardest to define. A human being is rooted through their real, active and natural participation in the life of a collectivity that keeps alive treasures of the past and has aspirations for…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1277,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3260],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-311113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mondaymagazine","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1277"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=311113"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311113\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":311401,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311113\/revisions\/311401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":311317,"date":"2026-09-14T05:00:58","date_gmt":"2026-09-14T09:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/?p=311317"},"modified":"2026-09-14T02:28:01","modified_gmt":"2026-09-14T06:28:01","slug":"the-art-of-holding-things-together-by-holding-them-apart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/3quarksdaily.com\/3quarksdaily\/2026\/09\/the-art-of-holding-things-together-by-holding-them-apart.html","title":{"rendered":"The Art of Holding Things Together by Holding Them Apart"},"content":{"rendered":"

A collage essay by River Lerner<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"
John Collet. Tight Lacing, or Fashion before Ease.<\/a> Printed by Bowles & Carver, 177<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A dam and a corset share a certain poetry. The opposing forces along their walls grant function: not only to contain or boundary, but to harness difference. Pressure makes a thing what it is.<\/p>\n

The work of the world is common as mud.1<\/a><\/sup>Piercy, Marge. “To Be of Use.” Circles on the Water: Selected Poems of Marge Piercy, Alfred A. Knopf, 1982.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Since being introduced to Marge Piercy\u2019s poem \u201cTo Be of Use\u201d, I have misread that line numerous times as: \u201cThe work of the world is covered in mud.\u201d<\/p>\n

The restraint of lace and the frustration of water sieve power. Separate the wheat from the chafe.<\/p>\n

The work of a person is managing mud.<\/p>\n

\n

[I]nterventions need to be based on the waste hierarchy, 3R principles, and integrated solid waste management, including avoidance, reduction, source separation, collection, treatment, and final disposal.2<\/a><\/sup>Jayasinghe, R., Koliyabandara, P.A. and Vithanage, M. Waste in One Health. One Health, eds M. Vithanage and M.N.V. Prasad, 2023, doi:9781119867333.ch16.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"
Recology materials recovery facility in Seattle. Photo by Josh Farley for The Seattle Times,<\/em><\/a> 5 Jan 2024.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Let us sort our waste. Waste is not solely excess or squander. Waste is refuse: that which has been refused. It must be tidied, transmuted, incinerated, amputated, shaved, shed, concealed, obscured, omitted, deleted \u2013 disappeared in some sense \u2013 to purify, elevate, concentrate, crystallize the Thing Worth Keeping.<\/p>\n

As much as self-creation is growth and modulation, it is subtraction. We shape ourselves as much by what we are not as by what we are. The sculpture implies all the stone missing from it.<\/p>\n

What of the stone\u2019s shavings strewn across the floor? Do they congeal into the statue across the hall staring down our unblemished alabaster? The detritus of the work we do in sculpting ourselves does not necessarily make our so-called shadow\/antithesis. It could; but the shards on the ground are challenging in their own right.<\/p>\n

Then there are our frictions we contain to cohere in society \u2013 the mistakes in rock we patch and do not speak of \u2013 to at least be admissible, if not assimilated.<\/p>\n

\n

That which is denied the light of day still requires tending.<\/p>\n

Maintenance is a drag. It takes all the fucking time. Literally. The mind boggles and chafes at the boredom.3<\/a><\/sup>Ukeles, Mierle Laderman. Manifesto for Maintenance Art 1969! Proposal for an Exhibition \u201cCare.\u201d 1969. Ronald Feldman Gallery, feldmangallery.com\/exhibition\/manifesto-for-maintenance-art-1969.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Could we get up every morning and take showers and put on clothes and go to work?4<\/a><\/sup>Kaysen, Susanna. Girl, Interrupted. Turtle Bay Books, 1993.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"
Illustration from Jules Rengade’s La Vie Normale et la Sant\u00e9<\/em>, 1880.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The labor must remain unseen, of course. Otherwise it is embarrassing and cringe. It reveals more about the person than does whatever it protects. Your makeup must be no-makeup. Even if you\u2019re sick, don\u2019t be.<\/p>\n

You can\u2019t win. You can\u2019t win. If you show your disability, I\u2019ve had people say, \u201cNo one wants to hear about your pain. It\u2019s so boring.\u201d Oh, I\u2019ve had people say that. Like, \u201cIt\u2019s tedious and you\u2019re always going to have it, so we don\u2019t want to hear it. Just hide it. No one wants to see it.\u201d So I get told that and then I hide it and they go, \u201cWell, you\u2019re clearly not that sick, what do you want from me?\u201d5<\/a><\/sup>Cheung MMY, Lewis S, Raja R, et al. Disruption and Improvisation: Experiences of Loneliness for People With Chronic Illness. Qual Health Res. 2025;35(3):319-334. doi:10.1177\/10497323241265329<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

So often we cannot give or receive what we want from each other. Thus we temper it with a thousand compromises \u2013 white lies and silences \u2013 until we become unrecognizable but palatable. Potentially lovable.<\/p>\n

There is some responsibility we have to each other to maintain half of ourselves in shadow not only for our own comfort or social acceptance, but also for others\u2019. It is out of consideration for those around us with low tolerance for proximity to suffering.<\/p>\n

[H]e must lie low for the present and, by exercising patience and the utmost consideration, help the family to bear the inconvenience he was bound to cause them in his present condition.6<\/a><\/sup>Kafka, Franz. “The Metamorphosis.” The Complete Stories, edited by Nahum N. Glatzer, translated by Willa and Edwin Muir, Schocken Books, 1971.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Whether it\u2019s because it hurts to watch us suffer (suffering by proxy), it socially associates them with our suffering (sufferer by proxy), or it yokes their avoidant gaze back toward their own potential to suffer.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s always a touch of fascination in revulsion: Could that happen to me? [\u2026] Are you still contagious?7<\/a><\/sup>S. Kaysen, Girl, Interrupted.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\n

And I thought, I am thirty-seven and I just won the Lambda Award. I can\u2019t tell people I want to kill myself. On my Facebook status update.8<\/a><\/sup>Piepzna-Samarasinha, Leah Lakshmi. Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice. Arsenal Pulp Press, 2018.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Inpatient psychiatry, compared to outpatient, reassures through its emergency. The 2 AM walk-ins I meet in the emergency department have their knees and palms scraped by, and mouths full of, rock bottom. \u201cEat dirt,\u201d circumstance taunts. But for the vast majority, this is as bad as it gets, and we can admit to each other how bad this is. They are held in a container\u2014imperfect, institutionalized, but held nonetheless. If they\u2019re seeing me, they have institutionally sanctioned access to medications, therapy, time, and space. They can access second-order, if not first-order, hope.<\/p>\n

Conversely, psychiatric outpatients range from the doing-very-well to the barely-holding-on. \u201cFunctionality\u201d sours from a marker of wellness into a demand of unrelenting capitalism. Whether inertial or willpowered, they grab groceries on their commutes, kiss their spouses, sit in pews and on the sidelines of playgrounds and soccer games, read boxed food nutrition facts, come see me for their appointments.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Memorial<\/a> from the Hoover Dam.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

[Y]ou speak to a nice therapist in a pastel office for six sessions, and then you\u2019re fixed, you marry your husband or get a girlfriend and have a kid, and it\u2019s all pastel soft lighting fade out forever. You either do that or you\u2019re fucked<\/em> [\u2026] Most folks want to go for the Triumph of the Human Spirit one, if you get to pick.9<\/a><\/sup>L. L. Piepzna-Samarasinha, Care Work.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

It is the art of compartmentalization, of isolation of affect. The compensation is so practiced it is elegant.<\/p>\n

The longer I didn\u2019t say anything about it, the farther away it got, until the me who had been in the hospital was a tiny blur and the me who didn\u2019t talk about it was big and strong and busy.10<\/a><\/sup>S. Kaysen, Girl, Interrupted.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

I sometimes don\u2019t see them for months at a time. I wonder how they are doing. I sometimes worry how they are doing. Those…<\/p>\n

[…] who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
\n<\/em>who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
\n<\/em>who do what has to be done, again and again.11<\/a><\/sup>M. Piercy, “To Be of Use.”<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\n

\"\"
Miles Hyman. Collecting stones.<\/a> The Lottery<\/em> [graphic novel]. Suntup Editions (2019). Illustration \u00a9 Miles Hyman.<\/figcaption><\/figure>What is managed unseen protects the seen. Likewise, what is projected distracts from the secret held crushingly close.<\/p>\n

Choose what must suffer to elevate the rest. Some works render the social contract and its sacrifice explicit: the child in Omelas,<\/em> the white-clad adherents in Midsommar,<\/em> Mrs. Hutchinson in The Lottery.<\/em> Then there are works that compress the dichotomy and monstrosity into a single subject. This can be through vacillating between two forms (Beast, the Hulk, Jekyll\/Hyde), or unidirectional, irrevocable metamorphosis (Seth Brundle in The Fly,<\/em> Gregor Samsa in The Metamorphosis<\/em>), or with a dependent, coexistent split (Quirinus Quirrell\/Voldemort in The Philosopher\u2019s Stone<\/em>, Elisa\/Sue in The Substance<\/em>, Mark Scout in Severance<\/em>).<\/p>\n

Enough experienced or anticipated societal rejection becomes internalized and self-reinforcing. Self-sequestration becomes habit. Professor Quirrell wraps his head in a turban; Sue hides Elisa behind the bathroom wall; Gregor takes comfort in his bedroom. \u00c0 la Pavlov and Stockholm, the system is rewarded when repressed.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Michal Hlivka. Omelas Concept Art<\/a> [watercolor], 2009.<\/figcaption><\/figure>The child used to scream for help at night, and cry a good deal, but now it only makes a kind of whining, “eh-haa, eh-haa,” and it speaks less and less often.12<\/a><\/sup>Le Guin, Ursula K. “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas.” The Wind’s Twelve Quarters, Harper & Row, 1975.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Neither the beautiful nor the ugly may gain too much hubris.<\/p>\n

Respect the balance and there won\u2019t be any more inconveniences.13<\/a><\/sup>The Substance. Directed by Coralie Fargeat, Working Title Films\/MUBI, 2024.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

When Sue is first born from Elisa, she understands this via biological imperative. The detrital self, the mother matrix, is repulsive. At the same time, for Sue to exist, the matrix cannot die.<\/p>\n

Disposing of waste \u2013 out of sight, out of mind \u2013 is not an option anymore.14<\/a><\/sup>Jayasinghe et al., “Waste in One Health.”<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

The split requires a maintained intimate communication. Sue must stabilize herself through extracting cerebrospinal fluid from Elisa daily. The care she offers Elisa, albeit reluctantly and repulsed, is care nonetheless. Stitch by stitch, she sews closed the inverse spinal womb from whence she came, so it is healthy enough for further extraction. As they alternate unconscious periods, Sue and Elisa must trust that the other will feed them and switch on time. They do \u2013 for a while.<\/p>\n

\"\"
The Substance<\/em> (2024). HBO Max.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The story only exists so long as the split is maintained. The conjoining at the film\u2019s conclusion kills both the duo and the film itself. The Substance<\/em> is not titled \u201cElisabeth\u201d, \u201cSue\u201d, or even \u201cMonstro Elisasue\u201d. The Metamorphosis <\/em>is not titled \u201cGregor Samsa\u201d or \u201cGigantic Insect\u201d. These titles, and the stories they enclose, require separation to drive plot. Integration heralds a peaceful, transcendent death.<\/p>\n

\n

I see three potential conflations between person and waste.<\/p>\n

First, there is society\u2019s relegation of certain undesirables as waste. They become a foil, a contrast, to the in-group and its workings. They are refused entry. This is the telos across targets of discrimination and marginalization, and is inherently intersectional, but allow me to speak briefly and artificially narrowly on disability and chronic illness:<\/p>\n

Capitalism says that disabled, tired bodies that spend too much time in bed are useless <\/em>[\u2026] crips are useless to capitalism<\/em>.15<\/a><\/sup>L. L. Piepzna-Samarasinha, 2024.<\/span><\/p>\n

Capitalism is obsessed with things going \u201cperfectly\u201d: optimization, automation, accumulation, progress, and speed. Deliverables. Chronic illness is often slow, spiraling, tedious, withering. Bodily vulnerability asks too much of capitalism, which works on the clock. If you wish to continue participating in the machine, you must put enormous effort into overcoming the hostile architecture of everyday life.\u00a0Make phone calls to schedule and reschedule doctor\u2019s appointments on lunch breaks. Pick up prescriptions in the edge hours of the pharmacy. Spend sleepless nights with your heating pad watching the window sky lose its black but not gain dawn, knowing you’ve run out of sick days.<\/p>\n

Second, there are those who, in managing refuse, become associated with that refuse as its manager. They are waste by proxy, often overlooked and underpaid.<\/p>\n

After the revolution, who\u2019s going to pick up the garbage on Monday morning?16<\/a><\/sup>M. L. Ukeles, Manifesto.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

They hold and metabolize an intimate societal wisdom.<\/p>\n

What people have owned\u2014and thrown away\u2014can speak more eloquently, informatively, and truthfully about the lives they lead than they themselves ever may.17<\/a><\/sup>Rathje, William, and Cullen Murphy. Rubbish!: The Archaeology of Garbage. HarperCollins, 1992.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

And third, in anticipation of \u2013 or in response to \u2013 being labeled waste, there are those who align with and\/or reclaim its entrails. Think of the anarcho-punks, or the mad justice or crip justice movements. Writing about \u201crefuse work\u201d in Samuel R. Delaney\u2019s Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders, <\/em>Jina B. Kim observes:<\/p>\n

For the residents of the Dump and its nearby communities, waste and its management constitute key sites of pleasure and social connectivity, with much of civic life oriented around the abundant circulation of flesh and fluid. [\u2026] In <\/em>Through the Valley, disability becomes key to imagining the multiplicity of ways different bodies might enjoy sexual and social contact, as well as foregrounding the high value the novel attributes to the labor of care and support. [\u2026] Delany\u2019s novel explores waste and its management as a potent site for theorizing a crip-of-color politics and aesthetics.18<\/a><\/sup>Kim, Jina B. Refuse Work: Samuel Delany\u2019s Crip-Queer Ethics and Erotics of Waste Management. Care at the End of the World: Dreaming of Infrastructure in Crip-of-Color Writing, Duke University Press, 2025.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Maintenance isn\u2019t just a drag, it\u2019s complex. What\u2019s great about walking around with sanitation workers is that they have agency.19<\/a><\/sup>Toby Perl Freilich; Blazing Epiphany: Maintenance Art Manifesto 1969!: An Interview with Mierle Laderman Ukeles. Cultural Politics 1 March 2020; 16 (1): 14\u201323. doi:17432197-8017214.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

The artist Mierle Laderman Ukeles was my age when she penned Manifesto! Maintenance Art \u2013 Proposal for An Exhibition: Care. <\/em>She wrote it, in her words, in a cold fury.<\/p>\n

If I am the boss of my freedom, then I name maintenance <\/em>art.20<\/a><\/sup>M. L. Ukeles, Manifesto.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"
Mierle Laderman Ukeles, The Social Mirror<\/a>, 1983. \u00a9 Mierle Laderman Ukeles. Courtesy the artist and Ronald Feldman Gallery, New York.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Typically in the night, city residents roll their detritus onto the sidewalk, close their doors, and sleep. In the early morning, rolling and belching and stinking, with their squealing mechanical arms, garbage trucks and their unfaltering operators care for the population. One of Ukeles’ projects as the Artist in Residence of the New York City Department of Sanitation, \u201cThe Social Mirror\u201d (1983), plastered a garbage truck in mirror and toured it on the city streets. As the garbage truck visited each household, New Yorkers could no longer deny their reflection, and their contents, in it.<\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

Every window on Alcatraz has a view of San Francisco.21<\/a><\/sup>S. Kaysen, Girl, Interrupted.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"
Girl, Interrupted<\/em> (1999). Netflix.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There are various forms of imprisonment: our shadow, our self-carving, our inefficiency, and our untenable hope for liberation. The dream to be free of the pain and bureaucracy of being just this.<\/em> Cathedrals are built vertically not only to draw the gaze upward, but also to pull it away from what sits at ground level.<\/p>\n

We can dream of salvation from unpacked boxes in the basement, skeletons in the closet. If they can\u2019t decompose or disappear, we can at least shove them elsewhere, where they can\u2019t accost us with their existence. If we choose not to tend to them, we just must remember not to open the door.<\/p>\n

Lest the door stay locked for too long, things tend to blob, bubble, and gurgle out.<\/p>\n

\n

We leak, tear, run, bleed, excrete. Survival demands expression and release. Retained sewage is sepsis.<\/p>\n

You can\u2019t escape from yourself. <\/em>[\u2026] Remember there is no \u201cshe\u201d and \u201cyou\u201d. You are one.22<\/a><\/sup>The Substance, 2024.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>I awaken in a cold sweat, lost in who and where and when I am. You wake with me, wide-eyed. You tell me to run my hands over my chest, feel the textured crop of my hair. Absences are proof of presence: time has passed, and I am safe from the thing I was.<\/p>\n

I take a pill bis in die<\/em> to maintain this boundary.<\/p>\n

Only in the liminal space of consciousness do I feel her hum under my skin, glimpse her flicker across my face. I surmise, bleary-eyed, that she is poised and ready to reclaim the life I wrested from her. To reciprocate the drowning.<\/p>\n

\n

Liminality occurs when individuals are suspended \u201cbetwixt and between\u201d\u2014an ambiguous, often transitory state of being neither here nor there, neither one thing nor the other [\u2026] the inability to return to \u201cnormal\u201d.23<\/a><\/sup>Cheung MMY, Lewis S, Raja R, Willis K, Dubbin L, Rogers A, Moensted ML, Smith L. Disruption and Improvisation: Experiences of Loneliness for People With Chronic Illness. Qual Health Res. 2025 Mar;35(3):319-334. doi: 10.1177\/10497323241265329. In-text citations removed.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Perhaps instead of revenge, she just wants to talk.<\/p>\n

Gregor now stationed himself immediately before the living-room door, determined to persuade any hesitating visitor to come in or at least to discover who it might be; but the door was not opened again and he waited in vain.24<\/a><\/sup>F. Kafka, “The Metamorphosis.”<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\n

– All decisions are your decisions. You\u2019re simply making them from different sides of yourself.
\n<\/em>– Everything is getting all too Kafkaesque…
\n<\/em>– Would you like to stop?25<\/a><\/sup>Fargeat, Coralie. The Substance. 2024. Script Slug, www.scriptslug.com\/script\/the-substance-2024. Screenplay. All-caps removed from the first line. Was the Kafka reference too on-the-nose to survive the film cut?<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Elisabeth and Sue experience know the cost of overdrawing. Outpatients know it too, when I do end up meeting some of them at 2 AM in the emergency department.<\/p>\n

They are sixteen or sixty-six. They overdrew on their tolerance of the everyday. They are \u2013 in clinical terms \u2013 well-dressed, kempt, and cooperative. You wouldn\u2019t know unless you read the chart and kept in mind it is 2 AM on a Thursday that something is gravely wrong.<\/p>\n

They explain rehearsed, methodically, with slight shrill, that this went too far, got out of hand, but is generally under control. They list protective factors like stats. They’ll make an appointment next week. Their loved one sits beside them. Silently, with pursed lips. They hold my eyes. Knit their brow.<\/p>\n

This is not always the case, but sometimes you notice a loose thread. That\u2019s one of the saddest jobs in psychiatry: you are tasked to unravel. With great care, you note the word that makes their voice catch. A pause in your question that their eyes dart away from facing.<\/p>\n

And you tug. You tug and tug on the thread that corsets them into this inhaled, upright constriction; the thread that only allows “I’m fine” to be said. Find the hamartia and go for the jugular. We stop giving the defense grace, for what is it now protecting?<\/p>\n

\n

I write this with a white coat on, still crisp from hanging in my closet these past two years. I write as though mud is alien to me. I must keep it alien enough to wash my hands of it and treat the next patient. You can\u2019t read progress notes smeared with mud.<\/p>\n

A close friend describes how the smell of garbage is reminiscent of her hometown. It is comforting and safe.<\/p>\n

The only thing more familiar than the back of my hand is my palm.<\/p>\n

The first broadening of light in the world outside the window entered his consciousness once more.26<\/a><\/sup>F. Kafka, “The Metamorphosis.” As Gregor dies.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

And there, we all laid still, we all watched the light change, and instead of magnifying the pain in my chest & in my stomach, it assuaged it.27<\/a><\/sup>@flashbulbstudio. \u201cPlaces I Have Had to Lay Still & Watch the Light Change\u201d [zine], 2018.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/p>\n

I thank the many authors and artists whose work I cite in this essay; my patients; Rev. Tara Deonauth for introducing me to Marge Piercy\u2019s poem; and Dr. Ilya Vidrin for helping me sort through and value the ideas I too quickly discard.<\/em><\/p>\n

Enjoying the content on 3QD? Help keep us going by donating now<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Footnotes<\/h2>