Unhinged might be a good word for this
Stuck in the world’s contradictions
My attention keeps getting pulled away. Drawn to this thing in my hand, distracted by a relationship breakdown that I wished I had made a significant bet on happening months ago. It’s annoying, this thing that must go everywhere with me, even around my house. It’s an easy distraction from everything, family, feelings, work, even the enjoyable things that I like to do.
Because words have been clunking around in my head. I’ve been carrying them like a young child, close to my chest, unwilling to put them down and willingly distracted by anything else around me whenever I try to focus on them.
I’ve written less in the six months than in the past year - my half-empty notebook wearily flipping empty pages in the breeze where I’ve left it on the table outside. No matter that I carry it almost everywhere with me. I slip it into my purse next to my phone, or under my arm when I walk out the door. You never know when inspiration will hit, I tell myself. Some jewel of a phrase could rise out of the primordial gunk of my brain and rush out of my fingertips onto the page. This rarely, if ever, happens. No, the notebook is a weird security blanket that would be mortifying if it fell into the wrong hands. Anyone’s hands, really.
Instead, its become much more socially acceptable to retreat into a phone. Bored at a party? Pull out the phone. Waiting in line, show face to screen to unlock. Driving? Look at your phone!
I scroll and a cacophony of noise enters my head even with the sound turned off. Silent moving pictures incite rage, hilarity, calmness, distraction, whatever I may need in the moment. I lose time. I lose myself. I kill a few more minutes of work. But the work is still there as well as the words bouncing around in my head. There is something burbling under the surface that if I don’t get it out and, with all the drama of a teenage girl, I might die if I don’t.
Seriously, though, as someone now affected by an autoimmune disease, let it out. Don’t be distracted. Don’t be distracted. That’s what they want.
You know, they, them, those people over there. Those who encourage healthy activity but want us to sit for 8 plus hours in a chair and churn out work. Those who don’t want you to follow your curiosity and pick up a book or take a class, but want you to ask AI about it, because that’s totally the same. The ones who point fingers and other much harder than I am doing now. They who bash the scientists and the artists and the activists who actually help the world bend towards justice.
And I’m one of them. I can’t seem to escape them. Their privileges and rules. I’m tangled up in the web they’ve - we’ve- woven. I squint up at the hazy sun and get in my car and go about my day. My performances belie my beliefs but what matters is the performance.
A performance. Is that what this is? A story I’ve told about myself and can’t seem to let go? I will send this post off and do I become more them? More noise? A distraction? I’m a girl - that’s all I’ve ever been told that I am, a distraction. Right? Isn’t that why we always had those dress codes? Hide my boobs, my legs, my brain. But maybe I’m a good distraction. The world needs more thoughtful words. Some people need to take up more space, but the world is actually on fire, where the sun is being blotted out by smoke. Not a literal sign of anything. No, no, not at all. Maybe I should shut up and let the trees talk for a while.
Did you know that the noise humans create can be so loud it drowns out humpback whales’ songs? Have you ever ignored a little kid? And they get louder and louder and louder? What would happen if you did that to a giant creature that could swallow you?
Outside of killer whales, I have not heard of any other cetaceans starting an uprising, but I’ve read too many dystopian novels not to notice that we are in one. What character would you be? Truthfully, I would be one of the first ones dead. I am not made of leading character asbestos or whatever those people are made of. But, I would want to be Pieta from the Hunger Games. Blending into the foliage. One with the rocks or whatever he made himself into. Drowning out whale song distresses me. Simply walking on a path in the woods distresses me. My steps could lead to more erosion and the death of the nearby foliage eventually making what was once a path into a pit of despair. Instead, I want to be Pieta, one with nature. I shall sprout leaves and become a tree. Support the Katnisses of the world. But is this inaction? Am I refusing to stand up? Am I more “devoted to order than to justice?1” My secret fear is that I’m actually one of those people in the Capitol, dressed to the nines, sipping champagne and betting on all the girl players because I’m still a feminist.
Oh, LOL, to this because I’m also a millennial and that’s the only way we’ve been trained to show emotion. Am I really so narcissistic about my existence that I think stepping on a path in the woods will lead to total destruction or have I been lead to believe by oil companies and prolifers that my life actually matters that much? I know, there’s the thing with butterfly wings and a drop in a bucket causes ripples or whatever. That thing they call optimism. Hope. Thats what I should be writing about. Gooey uplifting the kids-are-all-right shit. But, like, I’m pretty sure we are eternally trapped in this capitalist hell scape. Because your retirement is fueling it.
Even if I wrapped every single piece of food I will ever eat for the rest of my life in beeswax and never use a Ziploc bag again, 5% of my income and 12% of my employer’s contributions (I know, I have a sweet retirement package) is being invested into…a miasma of corporations disguised by names like Vanguard Total World Stock or Responsible Index or Emerging Markets! Those big huge corporations (they have so many goddamn rights I’m surprised they aren’t breathing on their own) are being fueled by my desire to not have to work for the rest of my life. And sure, there’s the illusion of control. You could invest in government bonds for the rest of your life, but I hope you started when you were six.
But that’s a distraction, worrying about your single lone footprint and not seeing the structure you stand on. It makes me feel trapped. Like a seal caught in a fisherman’s net. Unwanted and dead. Drowned by my contradictions. The world’s contradictions.
I can’t tell if I should take up more space or less space. Speak up or shut up. Dig a grave or wish to turn into a blade of grass. Have I done enough? Not enough?
All of it a tangled mess where the morality of every decision leaves me sweating. I remain chokingly silent on so many issues like there is a dam at the back of my throat built by good manners and the government. I work and I work at tearing it down. But it is so big and it’s cemented in place by privilege. I have to keep trying but…Time to pick up my phone.
I’ve concentrated on something for much too long. I’m sure there’s a good meme to describe all this. Have I hit 1,000 words or should I have just posted a picture? Like the one of the dog sitting at a table while the world burns around him and he’s telling himself it’s fine. We’re fine.
I think the meme has the win here. A picture is worth a 1,000 words. Forget I ever took up this space.
https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html