contodostodo - Tumblr blog

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goodbye shorts poonq, you've served your time well, 'twas una buena rodada

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is poetry individualistic?

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Children lose interest in their parents when they are left. They are not sentimental. They are passionate and cold. In a certain sense some people abandon affections, sentiments, as if they were things. With determination, without sorrow. They become strangers. Sometimes enemies. They are no longer creatures that have been abandoned, but those who mentally beat a retreat. . . . Parents are not necessary. Few things are necessary. Some children look after themselves. The heart, incorruptible crystal. They learn to pretend. And pretence becomes the most active, the realest part, alluring as dreams. It takes the place of what we think is real. Perhaps that is all there is to it, some children have the gift of detachment.

—Fleur Jaeggy, S.S. Proleterka

[contodostodo]

some thoughts on silence

Lately I often find myself asking, do I need to be understanding where people are coming from? Do I need to be trying to include more people who don’t really get the chance to speak unless prompted, including myself? Do I need to go along with the conversation before bringing up what I think is important to me?

Or do I need to just what is on my mind, take up the role of the other more vocal people I am surrounded by?

I am part of a study group in which I frequently and unwillingly regress into quietness, and appear to mostly serve the function of listening, depending on how often folks utilize terminology I don’t know, or just simply take up a lot of space. Some of the time I do believe it comes from an unmitigated response the frequent internalization of racism and alienation I experienced in college, where coming from a public school program in which students of color were continuously failed, and I myself as being the child of immigrants, had to manage my education on my own. Now I know this, that I wasn’t resourced either internally or externally to confront the differences in language and disposition of my mostly white, affluent peers, not to mention academia in general (I didn’t even consider college until my senior year in high school), which felt threatening or at least alienating to me, and how they professors in the university system are relegated to give them more attention and legitimacy, as this is how knowledge and understanding was determined. Unfortunately, despite the radical and militant politics I find myself pursuing, this experience still lives within me, festers in my body, in which when more often than not white men are speak that part of me is triggered, and I silence myself or become resentful and tune out, because, well, why am I feeling a sense of marginality here?

And I get that reducing things simply to identity politics that is extremely limiting, and of course we all suffer and have our challenges, as well as how representation solely doesn’t actually achieve liberation. But still, there is about being considered in this way that would just feel awesome. I know that my politics are much more expansive than this and I do reject a lot of the points I just made for for the most part, but I am talking about space here - how they function socially, physically, linguistically, intimately as well - probably more theoretical words I could use here that I am not familiar with a at the moment. And really though, how our experiences due to the various ways systems impact us, effect that? More often than not, and likely to a detriment, I focus on these things more than the actual subject or matter at hand itself.

In terms of something tangible, I don’t think this question should be solely on me to tackle, in spaces where “radicals” are trying to interrogate something via discussion. My question is, even if you’re rad, do you notice how you may take up space? And I don’t want to reduce this to a matter of identity politics, but rather, silences often signify something more than just not knowing what to say, or having the right information to form a response. And I would like to be part of a space where the silence is somehow incorporated into the discussion and sociality.

After the reading group was finished, I was exhausted from having to listen to the same people over and over again, and I thought to myself, even though I often feel like I have moved past this position of, “Well, I must not be smart enough to be in this group, I need to study harder”. Even though I know this isn’t true, tackling that voice is just very difficult to do alone. And I know because I’ve been trying to hush it up for like 13 years.

Often times when I have spoken to other friends, especially when I talk about these situations, they encourage me to take up more space. And often times, I bring these issues to counseling as well, and again there is still some sort of prescriptive how-to as if dynamics would magically reconfigure if I just say some shit. Why should I take the effects of my oppression and abuse into my own hands, solely? There is only so much therapy can help me in learning that it’s okay to take up space, that I have the right to speak. The concept of using therapy to address these issues I believe also silences actual experiences that lead to this kind of position. I also find it to be highly individualistic, and constructed out of Western European conceptions of what it means to be a healthy, self-respecting being. And like, what if we simply cannot afford to go to therapy? I get that therapy helps us come up with tools to self-soothe are redirect when these moments arise, but I think this is really more about adjusting to the temperature of the room which one just has not acclimated to, and so it is one’s job to regulate.

I am not trying to discount what other folks says, they are intelligent and I want to hear from them. I just think there are always dynamics in radical circles in which still some folks are heard more than others, or are intelligible more than others, and how I feel this still produces hierarchical relations, and want to address this. Does anyone else see value in this?

Audre Lorde said that our silences will not protect us, and that we need to speak even when were are afraid, because not speaking won’t make us any more afraid. And of course I agree, but I also don’t necessarily find myself surrounded by folks that take notice of where there are silences are present and what they could mean, and address those silences. I believe people have a hard time speaking because of a plethora of internalized antagonisms, they can manifest themselves as imposter syndrome, insecurity, and can also become triggered because the loud presence of another may be reminiscent of when an abuser has raised their voice at you, and also believe many of us need more than to just believe that we can speak and should speak and must speak, we need to be a part of a space in which we are heard, regardless of whether or not we speak.

The work must be internal as well as external. I want to work on grasping the moment to speak up more, as well as I want these spaces to fundamentally change, where it is not just what is said or presence that is valued, but also what is not said, and a further investigation of that to generate more understanding. Is Audre Lorde talking just about experience, or knowledge as well? Or also thoughts and opinions? Why must knowledge be spoken?

I get that schooling people is important, but at the same time, do you always have to be the one talking? Is there a way to reconcile these two things? Because when you are speaking a lot, are you really listening, taking other things into account rather than if words are uttered, and what they supposedly mean?

I think about this further when I work with indigenous folks. I am not here to make them speak in order to understand their experience or further be in solidarity and to organize, not only because often times we don’t even speak the same language, but because there is more power than just in speaking, in articulating one’s self. I guess, as much as I love Audre Lorde and her writings have been so pivotal for me, there is a limit to speaking, to language.

I’m thinking about the legacies of colonialism, of abuse, patriarchy, and their silencing mechanisms. Of course, we should all be working hard to make space for others, to take up space for ourselves.

We must pay attention to the silences. Learn how to hold them, how to take information from them. How to still see rebelliousness in them, the will to fight, to will to change, just because they may have taken our voices sometimes, doesn’t mean we don’t have anything to say, that there is nothing to learn from us, or that the only thing to learn from our silences is how we have been conquered, harmed, violated.

How would this work in a group dynamic, rather than just one on one, which is easier, could it work?

So do I need to be more militant? Should I insert myself more, and by that I believe I would have to dip into my own reserves of anger, bashfulness, to get me going, to have the energy to speak, because I believe because of trauma and socialization, the other reserves to speaking, just may not be there. There is then of course, the paradox of if the anger is utilized in the incorrect or illegible way, then there is backlash.

Maybe there is a bit of self-victimizing here. But I am also not trying to shy away from illustrating the depth of my silence.

Maybe I will just try speaking more next time, at the risk of potentially stumbling over my words, or not sounding coherent, talking about something different, whatever it may be. I guess I am anti-study in the sense that study groups must only deal with the text and topic at hand. And because I want to be heard somehow, and most of us if not all, do not know how to listen to silence.

[contodostodo]

idk wat to be angry about at this point

Should I be angrier? Call the shit out I see more? Do I silence myself and not want to stir the pot because I am surrounded by white people, and have somehow internalized conflict avoidance to avoid being considered crazy, or like I’m trippen? Are white people actually acting wack or are they just chill and don’t need to be called out on their shit?  Is everyone around me being wack and am I just not confronting it to avoid going crazy?

Wouldn’t their chillness be afforded to and entrenched because of their privilege, their power in being white?

So wouldn’t breaking that chillness be actually a galvanizing step towards change?

Is their behavior something they ought to change; should they be angrier, or no?

Am I passive because of childhood trauma to avoid getting hurt? Or because it was my natural response to the racism and sexism I’ve endured? Or is it also because of my own whiteness, my own fears in acting because I can also benefit from whiteness?

Is there a proper way to respond? I don’t know. Not only white people are selfish and take up space in an inconsiderate way towards others. What’s justified? Should all interactions try to avoid confrontation in order to be “generative”? What’s generative about allowing whiteness to continue? Is it a waste of time to confront each other rather than larger, structural and material systems? But we each uphold these institutions too. Do we all have to get everything right at the same time?

When I’ve faced harm, I usually resort to just trying to take care of myself. I don’t really reach out. I resort to care. Also taking care of others. Is some of that entrenched in individualism? Not trusting? Old patterns of childhood behavior? What what extent are politics of care actually liberatory and allow for change? Does it allow those people to continue harming? What would be actually taking care of myself? Am I allowing ties to my abuseres and harmers to keep going, leaving me to continuously submissive? I’ve also been historically hesitant to call out harm. Writing this is giving me a headache.

Just at least, don’t tell me what to do or try to save me.

[contodostodo]

i want you to share with me what you feel and experience

i can take it

my shit//ur shit//getting enmeshed//////creating something new

is meditation then a method to escape our subjectivities mediated by the material, by all screens?

is there an opportunity in reeducation? play? fantasy? magic? mushrooms? dreaming?

how much to we let things take substance in our lives because what does the body remember

what are galvanizing powers then that we can harness towards communism free form of everything

how do we embed this in our organizing in our sense of justice

what is collective, what is individual start it up by myself and see who else  joins?

everything is mediated by these imposed temporalities

organize for temporary camaraderie now or is there a long term strategy ever

how do we find each other, how do we get more people to join in

got to focus on our home base, our home community, to grow it

no, do not turn back away from me

i deserve to be here and so do you

we could spend forever here just to unravel one tiny, tiny machine that is the task of love what love does how it functions we must expand this ability in attempts to communize this has now become the internal world in my love for you world has expanded, changed, gone in a new direction devastation is both the result of failure and a blank canvas for new transformation

what we do with all the devastation around us? it is all around us, materially, in time, stacked one on top of each other, having grown from capitalism, we must return to the earth that connection cannot be commodified

is that also true when i look into your eyes is it really you behind them is there a you i can see through your pupils that has been untouched by the devastations

what do i do with this "privilege" and comfort ive been given then best be grateful from my tower right?

when actually i believe that those without a home mediated by the household - a function of the state are forming new relations or relations despite the attempts to sever kill - this is resilience

though everyone should have a "home" the "house" gained comes from having traded something else

the result of a traumatic event is the the ends trying to come apart again despite a rupture and they do find a way to connect though it may not make sense to the "untraumatized" aka the "ideal human" free of certain traumas but everything is trauma - everything is the result of a certain event

and so while i may have been without a home for so and so time ive found other connections other experiences outside of what a circumscribed capitalist order has tried to instill over me though how i have coped with that has been in contrast to how my body remembers being inside a home

we are who we are because weve let some things in and some things out

i think ill probably sit in this chair forever

how do we choose friends is it a worthwhile project to agree on a common set of principles who are we outside these walls

so this is why you should tear down your own walls youve set up or that have maybe always been there

tell me tell me so i can

imagine how you might feel

see my world

may not make sense to you

this is why we share

let this be deindividuation turn that spark into a full on flame