Friday, August 18, 2017

Let Me Show You What the Heart Looks Like When It's Hot

I'm in a weird spot where I need to write something, but also feel like I have nothing to say. My stomach is tied up in knots and I feel uneasy; it feels like an intense pressure building under my diaphragm or a blister that needs to be popped. From my own experience, the best way to relieve this pressure is put pen to page or fingertips to keys and work something out, but my mind is all over the place and I'm not sure where to start or what I even want to say.

When I haven't written a story, blog post, or song in a while, I get uneasy and anxious. For better or for worse, I think that the concern of "not writing enough" is constant in the back of my mind. On good days it inspires me to work through something; on bad days it makes me uncomfortable and nervous. Writing something, let alone something good, is much harder in the second scenario, so you get something misguided and full of semi-colons like this.

I also feel very uneasy because of how disappointed in the world I am, which has been a consistent downward spiral over the last five or so years. Like clockwork, something happens every three weeks that reminds how stupid and fucked up almost all of the world is. So stupid and fucked up that I'm very sceptical about how fixable any of it is.

The events in Charlottesville were awful and I don't really know how to broach the topic. When things like this happen, the absolute last thing that anybody needs to hear is another thinkpiece by a cis-white male. Any opinion I would give wouldn't be anywhere nearly as important as those given by people of colour, the left involved in protests, or those who live in the community. So even though I'm livid and frustrated and my anger doesn't seem to have a place to go, I believe that it's better for me to limit my takes, because all they would really do is pile more dirt onto more important opinions. For the sake of brevity, I will leave it to this:
  • If you think that violence against the far right will only provoke them further, I am interested as to what you think further than marching with torches, running over people with cars, and gang-beatings is.
  • If you even try to play devil's advocate on this issue at all, you are incredibly stupid. As much as political issues can be painted gray by the media, this one is cut and dry. One side is wrong, stupid and bad.
  • While I don't go out of my way to discuss my politics, I also don't make any big effort to hide them. Regardless, this still does leave my thoughts up in the air sometimes, as I'm aware that I can be pretty quiet. Just to put it out in the open, as socialist as you think I may be, I assure you that it's even further in actuality.
Being depressed about the state of the world and anxious about my much more minor personal feelings was a weird negative combination and it was making get really angry at almost everything. As much as it isn't mentally healthy to be in a constant state of ire, I think it's also important to really sit in your anger sometimes and work through what's pissing you off. You can't just shove anger away when very bad things are happening. Fascism and disgusting bigotry doesn't get solved by looking on the bright side.

In the eye of this anger storm, I was reminded of a few things I love: Rebecca, Pierre and Florence, my friends, pro wrestling (yes), and socially-conscious punk music. Jesse Michaels has been a constant source of inspiration and strength to me through my life and I was very pleased to find that his second band Common Rider put out an EP I didn't know about that was even better than all of their other stellar output. On top of that, the lyrics hit me in the exact right spot after the events last week.




While reading a (albeit very positive) review of the lyrics, someone described the lyrics as "overly ideal" and I thought that was so stupid. If advocating for resiliency in the face of oppression is stupid to you, you never really got what punk was about in the first place pal.

Always grow and learn, but never forget what made you mad to begin with. Stay pissed because the second you give up that, they'll fucking march all over you.

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