Writing has always meant a great deal to me. Despite that virtually all of my friends in my life have been talented artists, drawing anything remotely artistic was far beyond me. What I visualized felt much more comfortable with words. But as time went on and I changed, I noticed that my writing followed suit.
I stopped writing partially due to my own insecurities about the worth of my writing, but moreso because I was unsure who I was. No writer is worth anything if they are not completely honest with themselves, an impossible task if they can’t understand the beliefs they’ve always lived with. My views have undergone drastic change through the years and I am young; there is little reason to believe they won’t continue to mutate. That any should be condemned for defining what it is to be human, to learn and to evolve and to understand more, is the ultimate denial of ourselves.
Our society condemns change and abhors growth – no one is allowed to error in fear of unforgiving peers. Americans cling to individuality like a sniveling child, defined by their façade and refusing change. How often is heard paraphrased the familiar mantra: “I am who am I am and no one can change me.”? That few seem to be aware of the inherent arrogance and social regression in that statement is appalling. Mistakes are seen as a weakness of character rather than the natural humanity that infects us all. If we refuse to learn from one another, how can we ever become more? To believe that one needs not to change implies perfection, a characteristic hardly evident anywhere in mankind let alone an individual.
Through this obsession with our inherent infallibility we become stuck in flaws that we describe as “personality”. Apathy we describe as a characteristic rather than a destructive and internal personal flaw that jeopardizes all of us. Those who refuse to care will certainly be taken care of by those who would control. Without a voice to oppose injustice, what will? We are divided into those who are aware of life’s travesties and fight, in their own ways, largely in vain; those who are aware something is amiss but have chosen apathy for ease, choosing to ignore injustice; and those who are truly, blissfully and ignorantly unaware. Unfortunately, as is the motto with life’s seemingly sadistic nature, the latter groups not only end up overall relatively happier than the struggling first, but when the hammer finally drops, each is affected equally from the fallout.
Life is only defined through our eyes for us – reality cares little for all the lies we burden ourselves with. Existentialists debate construction versus discovery in meaningless intellectual games in fruitless perpetuity, while war and poverty and misery march on worldwide in everyone’s perception. A prison is always a prison no matter how fanciful the imagination.
I write now not because I believe my voice to be important but because perhaps if similar voices are heard, the chorus will boom. I can’t be the only person aware of our divisions and fear of one another, our depression, our automation and our loss of humanity. I can’t be the only person who doesn’t scapegoat our massive social flaws on drugs and guns and gangs and terrorists. I can’t be the only person who wants to ask any question without ridicule, to dream without mockery, to live to the fullest our species is able.
I can’t be the only person who knows we live in this prison.