MaxQ

I think I'm beginning to understand what’s going on with this whole MaxQ thing.

At first I thought MaxQ was a pen name, inspired by the sublimity of Samuel Clemons’ moniker Mark Twain. But I wasn’t sure. I definitely had a song named MaxQ that I was writing. But the main thing that has stuck with me is the idea of MaxQ as a metaphor for our species' current situation.

In the rocket business, "MaxQ" denotes the point of “maximum dynamic pressure” in a rocket launch. As the rocket goes up, ever faster, resistance from the thick atmosphere near the planet increases pressure and stress on the rocket until a point of maximum dynamic pressure – MaxQ – is reached and then passed as the atmosphere thins at high altitude.

The MaxQ metaphor works for me because I can see humanity similarly beset by a multitude of stresses that will likely accelerate and increase to a point of maximum dynamic pressure in the not distant future. Our species will either survive or not survive the ordeal. We are likely to be much changed by the experience. To spell it out as clearly as I can, humanity’s current stresses – global warming, chimpanzee politics, pandemic disease, overpopulation, the uncertainties surrounding artificial intelligence, unprecedented new communications and military technologies, a resurgence of fascism, food and water insecurity, and on and on – are metaphorically comparable to the previously cited stresses of a rocket launch.

We are in the rocket. The ride is bumpy. It’s probably going to get more bumpy before it gets less bumpy.

We might not make it through MaxQ.

So now I see MaxQ as the future focus of humanity’s current historical situation – the context within which humanity will navigate the near-term future. As a writer and artist, this time approaching MaxQ is a field – a sensibility - within which I will create. If I do good work and I’m lucky, maybe I can help us get through.

You see, I want us to get through. I have children, and I want them to have a good life. I want there to be a Golden Age waiting on the other side of MaxQ.

So how does one go about writing within the context of MaxQ?

I'm thinking the solution is that I need to write within a mythology informed by this MaxQ time in human history.

To that end, I’ve been revisiting Owen Barfield’s “Poetic Diction”. Commenting upon the power of the language in the Odyssey, Barfield notes, “The gods are never far below the surface of Homer’s language – hence its unearthly sublimity. They are the springs of action and stand in place of what we think of as personal qualities. Agamemnon is warned of Zeus in a dream, Telemachus, instead of ‘plucking up courage’, meets the goddess Athene and walks with her into the midst of the hostile suitors, and the whole earth buds into blossom, as Zeus is mingled with Hera on the nuptial couch.”

My solution is to identify the gods of this MaxQ era, and then write songs informed by their participation. Who are these gods? Well, they don’t have proper names (like Apollo or Athena) yet, but here’s what I’ve got:

- The god of interpenetrating mythologies, all divisible by one. We need to be informed by this god if we are to have any hope.

- Mother Earth. A big player.

- a Kinetic god – “the faster we go, the hotter it gets”

- an Existential god – “We’re riding on the Big One and it’s too late to stop.”

- the god of all the Problems arising as we approach MaxQ (and other sub-gods of this nature)

- the god of Solutions – i.e. Artificial Intelligence (and other sub-gods of this nature)

- the god of “the Occasion” we must rise to

- the god of the “Heavenly Road” reaching back to guide us from a joyful future

- the Chimpanzee god of human nature

and, of course,

- MaxQ, the god of maximum dynamic pressure

Just as Athene walked beside Telemachus in Homer’s great story, these (and probably some others) will be walking beside me as I write and perform these songs.

It’s a good challenge.