I've had writer's block for probably decades, it feels like. I have some projects in the works but I'm having difficulty carving out time for them since I'm primarily focusing on making a living, and that's taking all my concentration at the moment. Sometimes you have file your art away for another time when you need to just focus on paying your bills and surviving. This isn't to imply that what follows is particularly good writing, it's not, but I do feel like letting some poison bleed out.
I've moved to a different city, and I've taken a new job. It's not anything in my field, but I enjoy it, and I prefer to keep busy and do work that leaves me tired at the end of the night so I don't have to think about anything else. I spent a lot of my time in the months before I moved keeping to myself and avoiding a lot of public situations, mostly due to anxiety but also because I think I needed some time away from the world to feel less angry at it. I suppose angry might not be the right word; frustrated, exasperated, disillusioned with its pernicious effects, maybe. When I emerged into the real world and threw myself into another urban setting I again felt, I guess, totally fucking pissed off at how people act, how society functions.
I rarely hold my tongue around people I know quite well, once I establish some sort of relationship with people they'll start to learn how I feel about things, whether they like it or not. I'm not right all the time, and I enjoy learning from others, even if I sound like a total moron asking questions. But I do know, like, one or two things which I am confident that I'm right about. This knowledge has allowed me to examine my surroundings from another angle and it's through it, I think, that my frustration with this gay earth has arisen. Regardless, I find myself unable to vocalize this frustration articulately in public settings.
I'm talking about people's blatant prejudices, bigotry, sexism, classism, "ironic racism," etc. Maybe you already know that these things bother me, if you ever scroll past my social media musings. Well if you don't I'll just enlighten you right now and let you know that I don't like that stuff. In the most amplified, flamboyant, manic way, I don't like that stuff. So it physiologically repulses me when a coworker (at a former job) describes an affluent, upper-middle-class couple at the restaurant as "ghetto" or "uppity," or when a man "shushes" me when I'm talking (seriously!), when I am called a slut by someone I met seconds ago, when my personal space is violated just by walking down the street, when a friend insists that they "aren't racist, I just hate everyone equally" or "if you're poor, suck it up and get a real job, hard work is the key to everything," or when I am repeatedly harassed and the only way for them to leave me the fuck alone is to lie and say I have a boyfriend, because the only way dudes respect women is through the threat of another dude. I've experienced most of these things within the past couple weeks and I'm not sure if things have always been this bad or I'm just now noticing them.
"Why don't you just speak up? Why don't you call them out? If you don't like it, do something about it."
Yes. I'll completely disregard the public verbal berating about me being a "complete bitch," the violent physical threats, the insisting that I "like it" or that I "can't take a joke", or that I'm some sort of social justice warrior because I get mad when people vocalize their ignorance. I'm not confrontational, and for a reason. I have experienced all of the above for throwing it back in peoples' faces, and I know others have experienced a lot worse. Additionally, I have being verbally abused, physically assaulted, or threatened (sometimes all at once) for talking back to people that have the stronger hand in a particular situation, not necessarily pertaining to some sort of prejudice, but for merely talking back, disagreeing, or refusing to do something they wanted me to do.
So no, unless I'm a hundred percent certain I'm in an environment where I'm safe, I probably won't tell someone off. Sometimes I do, but again, it's not always the best idea. And I shouldn't have to worry about that. It gets bigger than me, too. It's happening everywhere. When people retaliate against a system that mistreats them, they are faced with the realization that their rights are irrelevant, and they'll be snuffed out.
I'm not insinuating that my personal experiences can be equated to situations that exist in the framework of domestic and foreign human rights violations or anything like that, but microaggressions like casual "everyday" sexism, racism, etc serve to illustrate that these things are pervasive and inescapable.
I think it's important for people that maintain some sort of social ignorance to be educated on these sort of things, but it's difficult for me to implement this in my every day life, especially if it might get me in trouble. I suppose my point is that nobody should have to be anxious or worried about speaking up in the face of prejudice. And it makes me really upset every day.
Aside from whatever type of crisis that is, everything else is pretty fine. I'm having a very interesting time moving forward into this chapter of my weird little life.
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