read with caution
READ ONLY IF YOU HAVE THE CAPACITY TO BE FILLED WITH RAGE AT THIS MOMENT AND FOR A LONG TIME UNTIL WE MAKE THE CHANGES NECCESARY FOR HUMAN SURVIVAL
preface
What I wrote below today is a rant, things I’d write in my journal and I would hope no one would read, out of fear of wasting people’s time or being judged or being seen as a fool, and to be redundant, stating things we already know. What I also am is hopeful, maybe, to bring to light, feelings kept in a dark room, maybe, for those who haven’t heard this before or had yet to hear someone say it in the right way, in a space where they were able to meet those words and feelings… that idea, and suggestion for the world, for designers and leaders, is that systems and institutions be designed to stay in a constant flux and in a constant state of change/ transformation- they should never be defined, that they change to help all people and not just one fixed class or category of people, those classes and categories of which the individuals being placed into have no control or say whether or not it is accurate let alone true - for anything to assume such authority over anyone else is nonsense, there is absolutely no way an institution or set of rules created by however many people can define anyone’s individual reality or experience. The reality is that we are all individual and have individual worlds so for systems and institutions must accept that and survive as systems and institutions by functioning and living with our differences and contradictions, that needs to be our base. We live on a highly contradictory planet, one where everything is changing all the time, in the natural world at least there are rarely any duplicates, from what we know of the natural world we create and destroy to make progress and we need to become that foundationally within our social and political designs, to unlearn the status quo of today, and relearn, to learn from ancestral practices that knew this, or reteach ourselves how to survive collectively with everything and everyone in a way that sustains us, where it is much more pleasant to be alive, where we could actually enjoy this earth and live and die decent lives.
I attended a support group yesterday at the Tate Modern in London. I live in Brixton Hill so when I got off work around 13:20 it was an easy bus and train to there. The support group has been on since the beginning of the year, I think March it started? and will run until the end of the year. This is the first session I’ve been able to attend. Abbas Zahedi is the artist who hosts a support group for the collective processing of ecological grief (link here for more info). Yesterday, along with Abbas Zahedi, who began by offering the space and setting parameters to consider and respect, Jason Hickel and Sally Davies offered the group a wealth of support and knowledge to consider inside this space and time that we then responded to… This acted as a catalyst to the writing I did this morning, because the group affirmed feelings I’ve had or feelings I’ve dismissed because I’m not seen, even today I spoke to my mother who said to me how funny it was that she and other family members had a very similar conversation about the state of the world at the same time of this support group, only to realise the next day. I believe we all need to speak to each other, everyone, at once, it’s imperative
the morning after
I’m high, but literally, above people, sitting on the very top of a double decker in London. I ride past people attending shows at the Royal Opera House and past people entering “members only” establishments to have a ravishing meal and wine, people who discuss the fate of laborers, unemployed, and homeless, people who discuss how they should distribute the workers surplus, or maybe, people who discuss when they should raise the price for a bus ticket. I hope they don’t talk about that today.
London is an endless parade of illustrious borders.
I sat and thought about how I would have to transform into someone else, maybe, to get into those establishments to discuss my surplus to those people who discuss. Would I really have to change? Why do I think I need to change to get in? Why do I think I need to have clothes that are not weathered, to have clothes that I only wear for the occasion they were designed for. Frankly, the clothes that I have, I wear for whatever occasion, especially if I’m rushed, even my nice pants… I’ll sometimes wear while I’m painting, oil painting, artworks, typically, on stretched canvas.
I have, maybe, two pairs of nice trousers, but they are both more than ten years old. They aren’t so nice, anymore, but still holding up, surprisingly well, but they do have holes where my thighs are, which only some people would notice if they were to see my thighs open too wide.
And now I’m trying to save up money to move back to the States and buying a nice pair of trousers would put me back. I just want to save up as much as I can right now. And I have bought too much from charity shops already. The ten pairs of cheap things I got could have collectively afforded myself a nice pair of trousers already. I should have not worn these nice trousers so much, maybe they could have lasted me another 20 years.
Who’s made me feel like this? Everyone’s trauma, my own included, maybe. Like those people’s trauma, those who would turn their nose up at me and call me white trash, like the once art gallery owner or the other’s silence, even worse, the silence.
The invisibility.
It made me feel inferior and angry because I knew I was not any less than them, hell maybe I’m actually brighter - I think childhood happenings made me feel this kind of pain, and it stings me to this day, adults telling me I’m stupid or “retarded” if I didn’t do what they said because I thought about it or questioned them. And ya, their parents, that art gallery owner’s dad and that one lady who said they wouldn’t associate with people who didn’t know at least 3 languages, their parents afforded them more language classes and foreign exchange, so they could understand some farci and speak fluent Italian for their upper class doings, which I don’t know much about, but how dare they make me feel like this, like I’m less than them because I wasn’t in that farci class. I was in a small town in Florida and never went on ski trips, what a waste of money a ski trip is anyway, sorry not sorry to all the folks who went on ski trips, I hope you had a fabulous time, but what a waste of money, why can’t we just have ski trips for people who love to ski and have fun without needing an average wage of a hundred grand a year to afford it.
There’s been a few people who knew where I’m from a placed me in a category that they decided was definitely in the range of “white trash”, that’s what I became to them, regardless if they even knew my definition of white trash because I didn’t feel white trash but I was to them, and then it made me realize how not shit I was… because I did the same as them… I also placed people underneath me, you see, my definition of white trash, or at least, the people I would consider white trash, were those white people in my town who were hooked on meth and were selfish SOBs who sexually assaulted, abused, or murdered their family members and cause a lot of pain to everyone around them and their community, and now, all the way in London, I’m white trash to some people, even though the people calling me that didn’t actually know what it meant, let alone to me, or they had their own definition of it, I felt disgusted, and ashamed that I was also them to define it at all… and we hurt each other so bad, this whole system seems to be foundationally suicidal - which is unacceptable - we must talk to each other on an even playing field, even those who we consider the worst.
But back to the pants, I don’t really feel like what I do is wrong, I should be able to wear my nice trousers whenever and wherever I please. And will I be exiled? Left out of the table in silence? Maybe.
I read somewhere that in a kibbutz there are social dilemmas like that, you live in this tight knit community and if you don’t conform to the status quo, without any discussion, you’re just not a part of the group anymore, silently shunned, psychologically made to feel uncomfortable for being around others because you present differently, you’ll sit at a table by yourself, you’ll be alone, all alone, silently being judges and pressured to conform, pressured to not be who you are, to feel sick, to feel like being yourself is a disease. Is that why I’m thinking about this? About feeling the need to change in order to get into those places to make any sort of unnatural transformation to be accepted to people who might find me intolerable by just existing as myself without their customary bells and whistles? I don’t want to be alone, that must be it. But when I say it out loud, it sounds ridiculous that I would even have that thought to want to be around people that would shun me for being different than them. It seems like those people who would shun me are broken, people who have sacrificed being themselves for the sake of their own survival, which is really sad, and I feel sorry for them if that is truly the case. And I’m sorry for the ways I’ve conformed to please others and will continue to grieve and forgive myself as I dismantle the chains within myself.
Humans don’t want to be alone we want to feel secure and able to love and be loved and do what fulfils us and contribute to the community.
I don’t know why people don’t care,
not saying that I can’t list off thousands of reasons why people don’t care, what I’m saying is I don’t have experience of being someone who has gotten to a point of not caring, luckily I still care a lot, I can imagine, and logically consider why someone would want to watch the world burn, but again, I have never been in that mental space of truly considering pushing a button that will blow the world up. Those who would indeed push the button to blow up the world, must have a reason why, had something that happened that turned their chemical reality to have that be the only way out, I know we can speculate when that happens to someone by case study, but how do we deal and respond to that?
————-
I asked myself what if I went to study molecular anthropology?
…But, let’s say I was interested and had some inspiration to go and study that, if I had the investors or the time and opportunity maybe I could do that, study molecular anthropology, but I can’t just do that, I mean I could just do that, but with what sacrifices? But, really what would I be sacrificing? Love? That sounds like nonsense to me now that I’m saying it out loud too. Would I really lose the love, and the love of my life, this man, that makes me feel so inspired to be on this earth? If I did want to go and study that, knowing that I love him like this, what if I did lose him? I wouldn’t want to lose him, but it could happen, of course, if I couldn’t be there for him while I was winning the Nobel prize in physiology or medicine, and it would break my heart but I’d want him to be happy, even if it wasn’t with me. Would he be upset with me if I decided to not do that and be with him? To want to live close to each other and do normal things together every day? Could we still do that if I was studying? What is normal anyways? I just want him in my life, it feels so easy to love this man. He’d probably think I’m crazy to stay for him, maybe, I don’t know, I haven’t asked him. But he is more important than the Nobel prize to me, or am I naïve to say that? I am most definitely naïve, but to even say the Nobel prize is important at all is naïve … it’s just a prize… another one of those things that people with privilege get, for the most part, or something that gives someone more privileges than another.
I want to dismantle all of it, and unlearn them, and relearn what it means to give myself the privilege.
Ya… fuck the Nobel prize,
why can’t we just all have the opportunity experiment and make the world a better place, why do we have to worry about the price of bus tickets and worry about paying our bills every month and worry about feeding our children… we have no choice but to be in this system to survive…
but we can’t worry about surviving anymore, it is unacceptable…
why can’t we all have the funding to create designs that benefit all humans of every kind, every person on this planet, and live in a flow of ecological growth and transformation, nothing that would stay the same, so our design would be organically in a constant state of change, in a constant redistribution of power, to give the control to those who would be the most logical and natural to make decisions for the collective at that time, for women to make decisions for women, for farmers to make decisions about our food, etc etc we need everyone, every person on earth to be involved with politics, we do not need it to be a profession but a basic human activity.
Does that not add up? Again, I’m not a mathematician,
though I was very good at algebra, and yes, I was president of my chapters Mu Alpha Theta, again some silly Latin words to say I was the figure head of a miniscule percentage of a small high school maths honours society, but what does that do for me? It made me appear clever on a sheet of paper for a moment, a moment that could possibly help me get accepted into a University, possibly consider me more for grants and award me financial aid, which I did receive
But everyone should have access to all known knowledge and research, studies, etc., no human being or thing should be denied access to our collective knowledge, why do we have to have barriers to knowledge, to pay hundreds of pounds, or exponentially more, to have access to knowledge why hinder progress – people working in finance would have to learn how to work. Maybe, that’s why, the nearly twenty one thousand people working for Blackrock would need to learn how to work in a community garden and build houses, to care for people, or are people who work in the finance industry unskilled? (I bring up Blackrock because they were mentioned in a support group I went to yesterday.) I don’t think so, I think they are people just like us, and they have more skills that knowing where to send and collect numbers. Can everyone in the finance industry perform a collective strike against their industry, saying that they won’t distribute any money until the investments are distributed back to the people? Could that happen? What would happen if everyone in finance didn’t show up for work? Well, maybe the workers will decide where the money goes. (Jason Hickel, I think would agree that’s one of the better choices, if I understood him correctly.) Oh no, is that not okay? Of course, it's okay. I say that is what needs to happen. I say that either the finance industry strikes against investments and funds that are dehumanizing and ecologically destructive and if they don’t then their institutions need to be destroyed, and I’m talking violently destroyed, their systems corrupted and burned to the ground, all of our money taken away from them, they should not be able to work or distribute our surplus anymore they do not have the right to, they do not have the right to do this to us, this is our work not theirs. It is completely unacceptable what is happening to us. We have been so desensitized to this abuse. We know on a very personal level how difficult it is to leave physically abusive relationships and I find now no difference between this economic and resource abuse, to make us feel so insecure to leave this situation on a societal level is absolutely nefarious. I was once with a man who had locked my car keys and phone inside of his car so I would not be able to call anyone or drive anywhere. He stopped me at the door and pushed me onto the couch to yell at me and degrade me, and when I had the opportunity I saw a path to the door, I said I was going for a walk, he laughed because he didn’t think I would go far, and I walked straight to the neighbours to ask for their phone and they handed me the phone and I was beginning to call the cops, and the man walked up behind me and called me a snitch and I said well give me my car keys and phone back while I had two witnesses behind me - so alone, it is difficult, sometimes impossible, but together it is so much harder for them to abuse us when they know it’s wrong.
I put myself down a lot, more than anyone else would ever do to me. I really want to be kinder to myself and think of myself better, to feel like I am smart, I just have to try and believe it more, and forget about all the things in this world that make me feel small, and try to replace it with things that build me up. I know I am not a genius, but I try really hard to stay informed, as informed as I can be without suffering psychologically, which I feel like today is really difficult, with the more awareness I have the more upset and ridiculously angry and, at the same time, I feel stronger, I feel so much stronger. Someone said recently, yesterday, actually, at the support group…
it’s going to get worse before it gets better…
I just want it to get better, I really don’t want it to get worse. Why does it need to get worse? I think for some it can only get better. People who already suffer it can only get better, right? Or maybe she’s saying that they’ll start killing people, like in the streets, the military will be sent in and they’ll start shooting people, and they already started to send in the military, maybe that’s what she meant, that would be worse for everyone... I can’t see that happening though, I can’t see our military taking commands like that anymore, I can’t believe that will happen - for the sake of everyone that I love I can only imagine that they wouldn’t take those orders if they were given.
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My dad
My last memory of him, really, the one that comes back the most these days is seeing his lifeless body on a stretcher being walked through our yard as I pulled up to our home in my car - his yard, our yard, his body, carried by the medics to an ambulance parked on our driveway. They carried him through the house that he built with his hands, over the concrete he poured for our drive way and porch that held the beams he cut that supported the roof he built for us and his bodied was carried past the porch swing he built for us to enjoy the world on. I felt like I didn’t have time to really appreciate that moment until now, what he left for us. He said he was not worried about my brother and I because we have good heads on our shoulders and we’re strong as hell.
I feel like this whole process is healing me, I feel like an alchemist now, how I remember that moment is a gift to me, it’s not as heavy, it’s beautiful in fact, and I used to be very numb to it for the longest time. Thanks to this and my mother, and words from my brother today, I love you so much.
