Pushing
22 Jul 2010 Leave a Comment
in musings, spirituality
I have a problem with problems. It’s so annoying! If there weren’t any problems, I would just be happy, but I can’t be happy because there are and if they would just go away, if all the external circumstances would just change, if everyone else would just be the way that I want them to be… then I would feel better, and then I could be happy. But they won’t, so I can’t. Sad!
I unfollowed a woman on Twitter today because she is an Atheist who keeps tweeting about how annoying the Christians are, how annoying their music is, how they all hate her because she’s an Atheist, how she hates Jesus (what did he ever do to her I wonder?) Her state of annoyance is annoying. I am not a Christian, nor do I have a particular fondness for them, but I wonder if she really hates Christians so much, why she pays so much attention to them? Does she like being annoyed? Or does she think that by pushing against them she’s going to make them go away? Or does she think that by pushing against them she’s defining herself? Or does she think that she’s winning anyone over to her side? I don’t know.
A wise and beautiful man, a friend of mine, holds his Atheism in such a sweet way. He doesn’t believe in God, but he doesn’t have an emotional charge about anyone else’s opinion on the subject. He doesn’t feel threatened or annoyed or turned off when I talk about my woo-woo stuff, because he knows it’s just me being me, and I don’t feel separated from him that he doesn’t always use the same language that I do to describe that creative life force energy that flows like rivers through his fingertips. And actually I don’t want everyone else to be like me — I don’t feel like that would make the world a better place. I like it that I have my ways and other people have their ways. There would be no conversation, otherwise.
It’s really strange to me to pick sides and define your enemy. As if the world were full of only Christians and Atheists, or if all Christians or all Atheists thought the same way. I bet you, Atheist woman, that there are a lot of annoying Atheists out there too. *cough*
Feminists vs Patriarchy, Republicans vs. Democrats, Lesbians vs. Everyone Else. Having spent a lot of time around lesbians, straight people, republicans, democrats, christians and atheists, I seem to perceive a pattern that often the most marginalized of people are also the ones who push the hardest. That makes a lot of sense, because if you are marginalized you’d have a heckova clear idea what doesn’t work for you. And that is great, actually except that it’s a sucky place to get stuck. This is what I do not want. This is really, really what I do not want. Let me spend a whole conversation, a whole Twitter feed, a whole dissertation or a whole life telling you how much I don’t want it and why. And when after all that, is a time when it would be appropriate to let yourself feel happy in spite of it all?
It’s interesting to me to see people harp on Obama now. He gets so much stuff heaped on him, from everyone. He’s the catch-all of all external circumstances. If we can’t control ‘em, he should, and if he doesn’t, fail! It sounds like a canned replication of every other thing they’ve had about President X or political party X. It’s like madlibs. It’s like, I have this habit of thought and this is the way I think and I am just going to keep reacting to my environment in the way that I remember. How weird would it be to live in a society where we predominately appreciated the service that our president performs? It would be like living on a different planet! Or at least in a different country. What would that look like? I don’t even know.
Controlling external circumstances, man, it sucks and it is a pain in the ass and just thinking about it makes me tired. And here I am pushing against the pushing against. I’m no better than that Atheist woman. I’m saying “hey, look at her, she’s doing something that I don’t want to do.” Of course I do it too. I am a relatively normal human being (ha ha). Let’s see… what are some of the external circumstances I use as an excuse to feel bad.
Well, there’s street violence/street harassment. I can get all worked up in a froth about that, being angry that it’s like I have less of a right to use the street as anyone else. Rape. Not a fan. I get mad at jokes about killing hookers that seem to be all the rage on South Park and Family Guy. Aaaaand… the tricky thing is that almost anyone would agree with me that I am right to not like these things. I am perfectly justified in my moral outrage. But at the same time, these things have existed before I was born. They exist in a lot of instances at any given moment, all over the world. If I wanted to spend a lot of time making it my business to be mad about these things, I could make a career out of being an angry, angry person.
But, I don’t need nor want to carry that torch. I am not going to pretend it doesn’t exist… because that would be pushing in a different way. But I am not going to go out and try to find it and complain about it and complain about it and talk to more people who are mad about it and start a club and become the president of the club and make a committee and have a protest. I am going to be aware that stuff that I don’t want exists — how can I not be aware of stuff that has come into my life experience? But then, I am going to think about what I do want, and what I like, and what makes me happy. I am going to dream of the world the way I want to be, and then I am going to create it. I am going to fervently follow the love of my own guiding star — no pushing required.
