On an evening such as this…
I find myself awake tonight. Painfully awake.
I’ve often been a night owl and sat up listening to the sounds of the night. Cars and dogs and tweaked out neighbors…
Tonight has a hum. A whirring, suddenly rising in crescendos after lulls and achey moans of motorcycles. Anger and fear fill the air. Not simple tension but rage. Palpable discontent.
The sounds of bar hopping maniacs, late night runners, wheelers and dealers. I’m struck by the realization that it’s been getting louder day by day. More aggressive. More honking. More sirens. More gun shots.
More of everything.
It took me a long time to have any desire to return to writing. Or social media… or to know people…
About a year ago I started research for a book about mathematics. I thought for sure it would be a dry enough subject to not end up traumatizing me in some fashion. And I know now that that was a dumb idea.
I could have written about trees. Why didn’t I research trees. Trees are great. Math is terrifying. I’d really like to go back to a time before knowing anything about… like… knot theory. Group theory. Inverse Problem Theory…
Damn it…
I could have gone my whole life without understanding inverse problem theory.
We stand on the precipice of the end of what America believed itself to be. Our shared struggle more a mass delusion than a life.
“Telling me thousands of times what's next to want.
Just doing their job, but you know that's a dirty job.
Can't stand this game, still we're bullied to play along.
When bullies grow up, they get meaner, yeah, they really get it down
Oh, yeah
They think that they get it,
But they always get it wrong.
They'll play your favorite song,
Just to sell shit to you.”
I come back to this song maybe three times a week. It’s just so true. It’s like a guided missile designed to light up that part of your brain that knows your boss isn’t a decent person. That knows your landlord would watch you starve. That knows fascist jack boots don’t read books or care about right and wrong.
Music is a force against tyranny. For me, for many, it’s a refuge from what we know to be wrong. A perhaps none too quiet place to dance. To sing. To be alive in the face of incredible cruelty. To be angry and justified.
On a night such a this, to be defiant. To be radiant and joyous and true. Put on a Bikini Kill record and remember where you come from.
Beautifully stated
Agree Completely. Just spent a week in Boston and the nightly cacophony of sirens, honking, and booming rap music, plus today some guy on the corner using plastic buckets as drums. And amplifying it! I just don't understand at all and very glad I don't live in a city full time anymore.