I dont want this to be a thing. I do not want to reopen old wounds. I do not want to call a single person out, or even at this point, give anyone anything more to think about.
Yet, I must write this. I must move on. I must get my closure, for myself, and let the demons stop hounding me. For that I apologize in advance.
As of late, there have been many a post, pre and post mothers day, national health awareness month; about suicide, bullying and compassion. Compartmentalizing and defining each of these things. Honestly, my brain loves it. It loves seeing the lines. But I wrote something a while back that was a growth for me... and it seems that I was doing it an injustice by avoiding and relying on my old love of categories. Not that I dont still love when something can be defined, when it can be specific in its unemotional, and thus rational, logical, most basic definition; but I must also recognize, in an attempt to not take steps back, that it can't always be rational.
This mind set has done so much good in my world, in my embracing, and in my core understanding. I spoke about a guitar chord. Here https://thecage.co/blog/userblog.php?blog_id=33502&postid=48523#comments (does that work? Whatever) A straight line from here to there. It is how I see emotions. What I am learning to see, is that when you pluck that chord, there is a colorful and invisible reverberation. That is emotion. It could be argued that is the purpose of the chord, not just to be from A-B, but to make invisible music, beauty, even if it takes understanding of something implied, when not seen. I mentioned that I was just learning this, because where once I could not see it, it seemed to me others, already had a firm grasp on the concept. I am seeing these last days, that possibly, they are also not fully in tune with it.
So here I am. Expressing what I have been processing. I don't get right into my intuitions, feelings, opinions; no ill will against those that do. I just get burned often when trying to express myself instantaneously, so I have conditioned myself to take things away, contemplate on them. Try and assemble thoughts in a recognizable pattern. There is that rational again, it will never be gone, it will always be my default, I merely try and balance or acknowledge it with the beauty of the music and emotion I see around me.
Enough about me.
There is a pattern I have noticed, and it relates to a far higher root cause or application than the debates of late over bullying, indecency, hate speech, racism; but also, self expression, culture, kindness through harsh truth and personal journey. The pattern I noticed is that everyone has decided that defense was their best offense.
This is not a positive thing. This is not how bridges are built and understanding is achieved. There were those Making demands behind a pretense of decency. Many outright calling people out and shaming them for having been shamed. Not without due cause. They had Every. Single. Right. This was not the everyone, I am sure there were examples that were missed or overshadowed. Every statement, then also argument came with a giant BUT! Attached to it. "I try and do this" or "I often do this" -BUT- "I shouldn't have to", "It is not my fault".
Each of these statements is true. Not your responsibility? absolutely. You get to live your best life? I hope you do. It is the delivery that has been nagging on me the last week, unable to process it, until I realized what it was. None of us (disregard of course, if you did manage to) took accountability for it. Why is that?
I have been really deep into this in a cultural term as of late, looking into my privilege where it comes to the difference between culture and race and understanding my right to my person and my thoughts and my feelings. It has also been thrown in my face that I have been insensitive, or accused of racism, or transphobia. But you know what? That is fine. I can take accountability for the fact that I said something that was perceived as transphobic, or racist, or bullying/misappropriation of Bipolar people (done that too) all in the last month!! Holy fucking hell!
But you know what I tried not to do in those situations? I tried not to defend myself. I tried not to be another biased voice behind my friends. I tried to own it. Do I have to feel ashamed about it? No. Will I? Nope. But I will acknowledge that I did it. I am not perfect, I may have even conditioned that acceptance with a big old -BUT-. Will I change? Not if I double down. Not if I come to my own defense and stand by the words that tumbled out of my mouth, or gather up my allies and build up my return fire and defend what I did or my rights to do them. Understand, I still maintain all my rights to not think I am a bully, a racist, an activist of hate, you won't ever convince me I am. At the same time, I can maintain that "oh shit, that may have been insensitive. My bad".
If you have read this far, and don't hate me yet or have blocked me, please know that this is not saying that a hostile response to a hostile accusation is not merited. Only that the cycle needs to be broken, or be forever doomed to repeat. I am also never saying that whatever happened in escalation, what ever behind the scenes condemnation happend that needed a defensive retaliation in response, was unmerited, it should have never been levied against you specifically. If someone comes for you and yours, it is purely balance to return the favor, own your space and stand your ground.
I merely think the first step to embracing the things you all, very apparently, want - that statement you all have said, before the -BUT- statement- is letting that wave crash against you. Showing it you are indisposable, but not immovable. For whatever reason, we tether all our worth to the follow up statement. "But I was justified because" and not the initial statement "Yes, I said that".
It reminds me of people arguing, when in reality, they agree on the same thing. Ever been there? Where you have been arguing with someone, only to find out, that you both agree on the outcome... but maybe not the ways to get there, and you have been spatting for no reason? It is convoluted, amusing... but still painful to watch (or recognize after the fact in my case).
It has saddened me, over the last week or two, to watch everyone defend their right to be defensive. I have even been trying to figure out if there is correlation, or root causes. This might be just another of those. But this is my blog, so I am pretty solid (now that I am writing it) that this is the reason that has most recently dawned on me, and thank goodness it has... because I was torn, I felt like two thoughts not coalesced... yet they seemed to want the same outcome.
I would never push anyone to take anything upon themselves, or explore anything they are not comfortable with. BUT (I am not immune) I do hope that there is reflection that comes out of all these threads. All this expression. That maybe we can all just take one thing we HAVE done, that we can take accountability for, that we possibly could have done better at. So we don't have to make threads or posts defending ourselves, but can instead embrace what we didn't know yesterday.
I personally found out a lot of people are having suicidal thoughts of late. That is not my fault, if they want to translate something I said as their cannon fodder... I dont even know what to think. But I also have a hug for you. But how will they know if all I was able to focus on was "I did nothing wrong". Heck... I have done 3 things wrong in this blog alone and 4 more in that scary real world today.
I didn't mean to reopen old wounds... I just process slower than most. I truly am a turtle. Maybe this is selfish of me, and I am doing the very thing I am asking not to do. I can understand that, I am also on a journey.
Thank you for crawling in thought with me.
~Oracle
