Thinking about how it requires a kernel of illusion to do activism. Thinking about how impossible words like ‘happiness’ and ‘hope’ feel when we begin to do the work of remembering how violent the world is. Thinking about how resistance is continually swallowed by our oppressors and repackaged as liberalism. Thinking about just how bleak the times we are in are: not because the world is crumbling beneath our feet, but rather simply because the television screens would have you believe it’s not. Thinking about how violence is no longer just about the episode or the casualty, it’s about the story they tell us about it: like, “prisons make justice” like “multicultural society” like “it gets better.” Thinking about how each one of us finds our own intimate flavors of delusion that help us justify waking up in the morning, sucking his cock, marching on a street. Thinking about how I wish we could name that more. Thinking about the labor of resistance: how we no longer can have a vision of a better world, we must have the right analysis; how we no longer can admit that we don’t know what we’re doing, we must shout confidently in the night ; how we cannot show our battle wounds, we must pretend that ‘hurt’ is a ritual we experience outside of the struggle. Thinking about how my politics do not actually come from a place of strength (and that is okay). Thinking about how my vision of the world is contradictory and limited and misguided (and that is okay). Thinking about what it would mean to rid ourselves of the impulse to be perfect, the need to be justifiable, the expectation to have our shit together. Thinking about what it would mean to be inspired by the chaos, the messiness of it all. Thinking about how much more sustainable than a dream that feels like: what is more consistent than chaos, anyways? Thinking about the constellation of questions that we ask ourselves every day and call it a ‘body’ or an ‘argument’ and sometimes an ‘apology.’ Thinking about how to reside in those questions, how to unlearn the desire to find answers, how to share the most intimate fissions, how to hold the tension, how to name the deep and profound sadness, how to trust in our own inadequacy.
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