Usually I write a post at some point when an idea pops into my head, then I come back to it and edit it later. I have been systematically going through these unpublished posts and trying to edit them and get them up dated when they were written. What I am finding is that a lot of the ones that seem to have been written of late, as in the last couples months or so, are not very good. I always felt for such a long time that there was a critical insight, an analysis that made sense and had a point in my writing. Much of what I have just read though in the last couple days has been scattered and fragmented, with the point getting lost somewhere between start and end.
I used to write a great deal about the conflict within us and our society. But that is not coming out in these posts of late. I was out there in the world, doing, working, and critiquing. Now I am mostly holed up in a basement trying desperately to find something to do, someplace to live. I have to say that this is dispiriting and seems to be effecting me on a subconscious level. It is amazing to read about the unemployed and about skills being lost, while I sit in a basement without any outlet to really use mine. I don't think I am losing anything, in fact I feel like I am gaining perspective and a deeper understanding of struggle, nevermind desire and drive (that feels more like desperation, lol). This additional contextual clarity will aid me some day, but still, the things I am editing right now need rewriting not editing.
Where was I when I wrote those things? Both literally and cognitively? Was I out and about, writing on my phone maybe? Or more importantly, what was my mindset? Perhaps I am or was scattered to the point of desperation. When you have a million things to do, you just do them. It is the stress of all these things that makes you unable to get them done, not the tasks themselves. When that stress takes the form of not knowing where you will live, how you will pay for food, and what the future holds, not to mention the stress of the loss of a special someone all at once, things seem easily scattered.
Basically, I guess what I am saying is there is little coherent social critique in emotions. My feelings of stress from a lack of employment and the subsequent prospect of homelessness are just that: raw feelings. They are not analysis. Granted, if I could turn those feelings into an analysis of themselves, where they come from and why, I would be looking at avenues for alleviating the issues generating that stress. But I think it takes a clear mind to provide solid analysis, and when you are worrying about food and shelter, that clarity of mind doesn't readily exist. You become desperate, reaching for things that you think could solve those emotions, rather than the fog that makes them worse. You want permanence and career jobs rather than the retail or server work that can replace your short term desperation with longer term despair. But what then when they meld together over years? Struggle compounds.
I am seeing this transition of self expressive capacity - the the wavering between analytical writing, and desperation and the discombobulation of a page - and can't help but wonder how we can still talk about doing away with things like school lunch programs, public housing, and other such "entitlement programs" that so directly affect children coming from disadvantaged homes. How could they not be affected? How could they be considered to have the same opportunities as others? When you go home to a nice happy home with a family, food, and human security, you wake up the next morning ready to go back to school - homework done, familially supported, relaxation time had. But what about those without that? I can physically see the toll its taken on me - and I'm an adult! Imagine a 7 or 8 year old kid without food or stability? Of course it is going to affect their outputs.
Anyway, again, I'm all over the place. There is a lot of stress on me, as there is on the millions of un/under employed and poor in this country and world. Those of you with jobs and wealth don't see it, you don't see the struggle, the pain. You don't see the strength it takes every day. You just want to tell us how easy it is and what to do to make it all work. As if I had complete and total control over someone else giving me a job. Bottom line is, there just aren't enough jobs out there for everyone, many of those that are don't pay living wages or offer career value, and there isn't enough money to get funding to start your own. Whether I can do the work or not doesn't matter. My biggest task has become dealing with the pain and stress of not knowing what's going to happen next...
Sympathy accepted, job interviews rewarded!!
I used to write a great deal about the conflict within us and our society. But that is not coming out in these posts of late. I was out there in the world, doing, working, and critiquing. Now I am mostly holed up in a basement trying desperately to find something to do, someplace to live. I have to say that this is dispiriting and seems to be effecting me on a subconscious level. It is amazing to read about the unemployed and about skills being lost, while I sit in a basement without any outlet to really use mine. I don't think I am losing anything, in fact I feel like I am gaining perspective and a deeper understanding of struggle, nevermind desire and drive (that feels more like desperation, lol). This additional contextual clarity will aid me some day, but still, the things I am editing right now need rewriting not editing.
Where was I when I wrote those things? Both literally and cognitively? Was I out and about, writing on my phone maybe? Or more importantly, what was my mindset? Perhaps I am or was scattered to the point of desperation. When you have a million things to do, you just do them. It is the stress of all these things that makes you unable to get them done, not the tasks themselves. When that stress takes the form of not knowing where you will live, how you will pay for food, and what the future holds, not to mention the stress of the loss of a special someone all at once, things seem easily scattered.
Basically, I guess what I am saying is there is little coherent social critique in emotions. My feelings of stress from a lack of employment and the subsequent prospect of homelessness are just that: raw feelings. They are not analysis. Granted, if I could turn those feelings into an analysis of themselves, where they come from and why, I would be looking at avenues for alleviating the issues generating that stress. But I think it takes a clear mind to provide solid analysis, and when you are worrying about food and shelter, that clarity of mind doesn't readily exist. You become desperate, reaching for things that you think could solve those emotions, rather than the fog that makes them worse. You want permanence and career jobs rather than the retail or server work that can replace your short term desperation with longer term despair. But what then when they meld together over years? Struggle compounds.
I am seeing this transition of self expressive capacity - the the wavering between analytical writing, and desperation and the discombobulation of a page - and can't help but wonder how we can still talk about doing away with things like school lunch programs, public housing, and other such "entitlement programs" that so directly affect children coming from disadvantaged homes. How could they not be affected? How could they be considered to have the same opportunities as others? When you go home to a nice happy home with a family, food, and human security, you wake up the next morning ready to go back to school - homework done, familially supported, relaxation time had. But what about those without that? I can physically see the toll its taken on me - and I'm an adult! Imagine a 7 or 8 year old kid without food or stability? Of course it is going to affect their outputs.
Anyway, again, I'm all over the place. There is a lot of stress on me, as there is on the millions of un/under employed and poor in this country and world. Those of you with jobs and wealth don't see it, you don't see the struggle, the pain. You don't see the strength it takes every day. You just want to tell us how easy it is and what to do to make it all work. As if I had complete and total control over someone else giving me a job. Bottom line is, there just aren't enough jobs out there for everyone, many of those that are don't pay living wages or offer career value, and there isn't enough money to get funding to start your own. Whether I can do the work or not doesn't matter. My biggest task has become dealing with the pain and stress of not knowing what's going to happen next...
Sympathy accepted, job interviews rewarded!!
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