homeland

The politics of societal structures are interesting to me in as far as they relate to the processing of trauma on a macro scale. For instance, the idea that the people who make up a system are unwilling to face the harm we’ve caused and instead uses the power available to gas light an entire population, (is awful of course) but it also points towards a construction of many dysfunctional people working inside of a dysfunctional system.

I’ve thought about the idea of a homeland. How in many ways as a white person (inside whatever America is) I am estranged from a home living on stolen lands. A product of generations of the American ethos that is directed by violence and conquest and a deep set belief that some people deserve things more than others and that people don’t deserve to thrive just because they exist. Try that one out at the next dinner party you are at with capitalist leaning friends. (You may start a fire). See what happens, or don’t. I think this speaks to a deeper wound though. This fundamental idea that we must prove that we are enough, and in all that grasping and insecurity we blaze right past our liberation, into more suffering.

a problem i see here is that it’s contextual. The words one might speak to a person with access to many resources and the words spoken to a person with access to very limited resources are different. One needs shelter and clothing and stability and the other needs to be challenged to rethink their privilege. However, both are still worthy of being seen as human beings and not objectified. This is perhaps the most difficult part. It’s very easy to objectify the other. To find all the reasons why the other deserves to burn in hell. “eat the rich” If you have seen the rich you know why this vengeance feels so good. It feels so good to say fuck all y’all.

They have access to everything materially available and could help the ones who need those resources desperately and yet they hoard them and destroy the planet and find ways to abuse those with less than them. Try to escape the planet or name hospitals after themselves so that their image may endure a little longer once death comes. I think this is damning in it’s own way. They say it’s lonely at the top. I think it’s interesting to think about why. The idea that a person is simply the sum of what they have access to is a hellish way to view people and in my opinion creates hell on earth.

We could talk about cars, or food, or money, or surfing, or careers, or engaging with sexuality, whatever you want to put in and there is going to be a struggle to move from a position of grasping and objectification into a willingness to see the other as sacred. To care deeply about the other in a way that I am learning to care for myself. Deep abiding generosity. True care that seeks to uplift and inspire, to champion the cause of the dreamer hidden under the weight of all the objectification and violent energy that is in the spaces we occupy. Love your neighbor as you love yourself. Most the folks I’ve met hate themselves. Obsessed with an ego that leaves them empty or trying to get as far away from themselves as they can through various forms of medicating.

Come home. Come home to yourself and your heart and you. No one can do that work for you. It’s the best work around. Just come home. I promise it gets better even though grieving the harm you’ve caused is hard work. Taking stock of everything that’s made you, you. It’s heavy work. It’s so rewarding though. Who doesn’t want to see clearer and have more peace inside? Love yourself. Show up for yourself. Be curious about what you care about. Come close to your heart and feed it with hope. Feed your body with good things. Take care and get sunlight. Come home.

It is enough to experience joy.

It’s enough to be human. It’s enough. It’s enough to like a thing and do it because you like it, without needing to justify it to anyone. You can like what you like. It’s good. It’s good to care about things. It’s vulnerable to risk loss. You will lose. But you will also find and what you find will be more meaningful than you can imagine. The merciful really will receive mercy. Go gentle on me.