Essays - JMPerkins

On Problems April 25, 2024 Essays When I was much less mature, I was fond of bandying about with the phrase, ‘The reward for a job well done is a harder job.’ I used the cliché to

On Radical Inclusion March 8, 2024 Essays In a lot of my communities, either explicitly or implicitly, the concept of ‘radical inclusion’ come up. For burners, it’s a stated value. For

Terms with the Dead March 1, 2024 Essays As a big part of my life, and an even bigger part of my spiritual life, I’ve been focusing on coming to terms with my dead. Most

Dog Shit: Practicing Judgment, Practicing Being Hated… February 13, 2024 Essays …but not really. In Two Cheers for Anarchism, James Scott advocates (ethically) practicing breaking rules as necessary and good to be better

Enlightenment & Reductionism February 9, 2024 Essays I was reading about enlightenment the other day (from a thread on twitter I can no longer find). The basic premise was

Fatherhood 8 Years In July 19, 2023 Essays Elliott flourishes, and this pleases me. She has friends and family. She has school and her dog. She has more or less good

Story Capture June 1, 2023 Essays Human beings live inside stories. Perhaps it is possible -with brain injury or with enlightenment- to live outside them rather than simply take

Meditations April 24, 2023 Essays I started writing this when I was 19. I had less chill then, was prone to imagining that hardness would allow me to be what I wanted

Status Hacking April 2, 2022 Essays Depending on what door you enter a building through, your mannerisms, your _; the same data/information will be interpreted differently as

The Numinous, Trauma, and What Comes After August 2, 2021 Essays Imagine you see a UFO. It doesn’t have to be a UFO, but Something that doesn’t fit in your worldview: light(s) in the sky not following all the

Fatherhood – 6 Years August 2, 2020 Essays Let me begin, my daughter thrives (even now) and nothing makes me happier. And while I believe that, today, I don’t have the certainty of that I

Soul Retrieval December 6, 2019 Essays I grew up in the library. I was -in large part- raised by books… for much of my life I marinated in books, I inhaled them. They were some of my

November 3, 2019 Essays & Travel

Note: This piece was heavily edited for a bunch of reasons. If the transition worked, I just cut the bit but you may occasionally see [Redacted]. If

On the Limits of Relationships October 9, 2019 Essays The ‘Dunbar Number’ is a figure that purports to be able to determine –by looking at primate neo-cortex proportions- how large a particular

Composing a Life June 9, 2019 Essays On an episode of one of my favorite podcasts ‘On Being’ I heard the guest speak about ‘composing a life.’ I appreciated this metaphor; so often it’s

A Review of Desert X March 20, 2019 Essays & Travel

Let’s begin here; attending Desert X was a phenomenal daytrip and the most ambitious artist’s date I’ve ever taken. If you’re unfamiliar, Desert X

Fatherhood - 4 and a Half Years In January 20, 2019 Essays It is an extreme pleasure to start this essay, as I been able to start all these fatherhood essays, that my

Scare-People & False Signifiers January 14, 2019 Essays In my apartment’s laundry, there is what appears to be a security camera (it might be fake). Someone has placed a crumpled sticker over the plastic

Pilgrimage to the Center: Burning Man 2018 October 3, 2018 Travel & Essays Of all the cultural and tribal identities that have accreted to me like barnacles, the one I am most comfortable with, the one that fits best is

ScreenWorld April 4, 2018 Essays Plato imagined a cave of untruths, chained captives captivated by flickering shadows on the wall. Marshall Mcculan said the medium is the message

Fatherhood: Three Years In September 25, 2017 Essays On July 30th my daughter -Elliott Rose Perkins- turned three. On September 12th, she attended her first day of pre-school. Milestones like these

On Why so Many of ‘Us’ Suffer August 19, 2017 Essays Recently, a friend posted ’Why do so many of ‘US’ suffer?’ Which was a question I found interesting and personally relevant, so I ended up writing a

The Skills I Intend to Give My Daughter March 17, 2017 Essays The only thing I know about the future is that it will be different than today. This presents an interesting dilemma when it comes to deciding how

Pokémon Go and the Invitation to Play November 5, 2016 Essays I considered –briefly- writing an essay about why I’m not playing Pokémon Go despite it seeming to be nearly perfectly designed to appeal to me: a

An Invitation to the Burner Scene October 4, 2016 Essays & Travel Dear John; You are 29, and for the last few months your dear friend has been inviting you to house parties, camp outs, and other events of a

Fatherhood 22 Months In May 1, 2016 Essays When it comes to parenthood, first and foremost let me say my daughter thrives and nothing makes me happier. I recently reread my earlier essays

3 Things I Learned Wearing “Women’s” Pants April 13, 2016 Essays So, first things first, there’s nothing particularly ‘womanly’ about the bright blue pants I picked up while thrifting (which are perfect as a base

Fatherhood: Seven Months In April 2, 2015 Essays TLDR - I Like it, it’s hard sometimes, but it’s helping me become a better person and I love my daughter. Long Version If what my mother modeled for

Monogamish March 9, 2015 Essays It is the 9th day of March in the year 2015 and as I write these words, I am deeply in love and lust with my wife, someone with whom I

Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Frankenstein, Lex Luthor, and the Hobbled May 4, 2012 Essays Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Frankenstein, Lex Luthor and the Hobbled Genius in Fiction I dig me some supervillains, but of all their tropes and flavors I