Here in this world of fine plants and interesting animals, we continue to torture our selves and our loved ones. The hierarchy loves possessions more than life. Life is merely a play on who is superior and who is inferior.
We install special people like Kings and Queens, Movie Stars, Scientists and Most Important of All, Soccer Players. When I entered my teens I concluded I was nobody. There are Somebodies and Nobodies and I often heard I would be the latter if I didn't wake up. This was because my aunts, or one aunt kept reminding me I will never amount to anything. It was a warning for me to become more like my cousins. It's also something you hear in TV Soap Operas.
This is prescient now because my condition, hydro cephalus, has interfered with my ability to move. For the last ten years I haven't been able to walk. To look at me in a wheelchair you might conclude it was laziness.
Our society really relies on labels. They are addictive. Upper class, workers, witches, Americans, Canadians, Male, Female, Child, Adults and Experts -- you know the people we go to find the right names.
And when we think we know it all, some media finds a way to invent new labels. Doctors, Lawyers, Trans, Bigots, Artists, Jocks, Intellects, Scientists, Christians, Jews, Muslems, Atheists, Protesters, Wimps, Crybabies, Communists, and on top of this, sun signs along with Winners and Losers.
It's not the labels that are the problem. It's the way the Roman Empire taught us how to use our power to deny others theirs.
So what am I doing writing about this? I am trying to save the world. Yes that's more than most will admit to. You may think I am entering into comedy here as if I am a writer. As if I collect labels for myself like Mother, Wife, Poet and Friend. Forget senior citizen, we are invisible.
Yesterday I watched Adolescence. A Documentary about a family who's youngest child at 13 years old was charged with murder. It was a brilliant look at the family and social issues that tell us who we are and send us into a state of confusion.
The main thread was the story of the family. The young boy was attempting to be who his society taught him to be. There were many instructions between stories, school, media and society but many lessons seemed to conflict.
Father was a strong dominating man who loved his family and dedicated his time to working, building a home. When the incident of an attractive girl was murdered the young boy was charged. He couldn't remember killing her and couldn't admit his vulnerability. He had to be strong, in charge and not show any weakness just like his father. The school the boy attended was full of this masculine energy. Even girls were aggressively modern.
The boy was trying to be a man fully understanding his strength and his place in society. This documentary did not make social claims but focused on the difficulty everyone had in dealing with this tragedy - a boy overwhelmed with a sexuality no one prepared him for other than to show him how to be on top never unsure, never weak, always strong.
He had no memory of killing the girl. I was reminded of white supremacy in the US and how so many people of all ages struggle with the fact of racism, misogyny, current expectations and puberty. No matter how much anxiety we carry we cannot be sure we are who we are supposed to be.
We have family expectations, media presentations, friends at school or in the office and mythology. These are not all neatly aligned and fed to us in an organized way. When masculinity is presented in tv dramas, the main character, the dominant male is always right and never wrong. The main female is perfect in her beauty, strong and gentle, soft and loving. Her hair is never out of place. Her clothes reveal the shape of her perfect body and her make-up natural. Her voice is soft almost musical.
In short, the media shows us perfect people and evil monsters. Easy to tell the difference there but in real life we don't have it so clearly defined. We are trying to model ourselves on unrealistic models. Characters on TV are manufactured to serve the plot.
Unless we have degrees in psycho-sociology we haven't unravelled all the messaging that spins through our minds. The more modern our society the more we are fed messaging that contradicts itself. Add to this complexity the will to power and it looks like a bomb will go off any day now.
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