on painting flowers instead.

sometimes i think about the amount of horror and violence to which one can be exposed at second-hand, to which one can bear witness, in an average day; and i feel very overwhelmed. sometimes i think about the ways in which the operation of social media reduces all of us to characters, a spectacle to consume at a distance which is always critical, and i want to weep. sometimes i think about what shulamith firestone wrote to her sister in 1970:

“basically, I don’t believe finally that the revolution is so imminent that it’s worth tampering with my whole psychological structure”

i think about the ways we can act to open up or close off possibility for one another; about how “power is everywhere because it comes from everywhere” (foucault); and about whether it’s even possible to live gently in such violent times. i think about my faults and my failures and my not-measuring-up; i think about every misplaced step i’ve ever made. it’s a lot to think about.

hut then, also, at the same time, the rain falls with a softness that is almost melodic. something like a raindrop breaks the surface of my thought (which is like a murky pool, thick and stagnant). i pour water, mix colour. i paint a flower, petal by petal. i suppose that this is how a life is made.