On Freedom and Independence
ways for creatives to decolonize
What does it mean to decolonize the mind? How can we do that if we are afraid to discover what we think and feel? What do we actually think and feel? How do we find out?
We may be aware of the impulse to write. Yet we are also aware of the fear of what arises might not be "appropriate." When we don't know what we have to say, it feels strange showing up to write. I think this is why we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to have ideas. You all know by now that I am not a fan of ideas.
I am a fan of delving which means to dig or search, in particular under the surface, in a place of depth. I am a fan of discovering. I am a fan of surprising myself. I write this, and everything else I write, without ever knowing what I'm about to say.
I do revise. I do edit. I do decide things later. But first the chaos.
Example: I do not celebrate this country's “independence.” My professors taught me that a 2-party system cannot possibly represent all the people in any meaningful kind of way. Our system will always only allow for the majority. And that majority is invented by a select few.
It is obvious now. While a large actual majority of actual people in the U.S. want reproductive rights, the destruction of these freedoms make it seem as if it's sanctioned by a large majority. It's not. (For more on this, read Jessica Valenti. )
Welcome to All-Out-Fascism. It didn't take long to get here.
What can we do to reverse it? Yes, of course we must speak up and speak out, and make demands of our so-called leaders who don't lead but follow the orders of their personal lobbyists. But beyond all that, we must decolonize our own minds.
This is easiest done by writing. Putting on the page whatever arises. No one else has to see it. We don't even have to keep it, although I hate the thought of destroying these things. But being able to let our thoughts and feelings flow onto the page (and including our internal chaos), this is a freedom many of us - me included - have had to learn.
What do you think? What do you feel? Why do you think and feel that way? What is the opposite of that? How does your world support your thinking and feeling? What would the world look like if you thought or felt the opposite or the gray area in between?
I am not trying to suggest that what I think and feel is right or wrong - it just is. I am suggesting it is important to know what you think and feel and to be able to look at that dispassionately.
Example: in the mid-oughts, walking with friends, we passed the Lincoln Correctional facility (a prison) at 110th Street just above Central Park. The windows were all barricaded. I was asked if I thought the prisoners deserved a view.
My first reaction was no. My second reaction was, what? Why would I think that? What's that about? That's about not considering those prisoners as people, same as me, with circumstances that led to their imprisonment that I didn't know. Especially in a system that works to profile and remand them and incarcerate them unfairly. So I had to deconstruct all of my thinking (about prisoners and about our government) to get to the compassion I needed to access to find the better response. The response I wanted to be able to have. I had to find it. I had to learn it, to grow compassion and empathy.
But the beautiful thing about being alive is that we can learn. We don't have to sit with our shame and our darkness. We can delve into ourselves, find it, and expose it to the light. And this can be healing.
artwork by Scott Sherman at ScottShermanStudio on instagram
Writing Prompt
Make a list of things you believe, or things you were told to believe, or the rules in your home growing up, or, as in my examples here, how you were raised (cw: these are particularly provocative to inspire you to delve being about sex, money, autonomy and relationships).
I am most importantly a sexual being Money will always come As a Jew I'm part of a Diaspora and will never feel at home I am only loved for how I look and what pleasure I give I must always accommodate others before myself
Pick something from your own list that stirs you, and do a 5 minute free-write about it, off it, from it, perhaps making more lists of moments that consolidated this belief in you, or describing images that arise from these statements.
Create 2 characters. AJ encompasses this belief, and BD refutes it. BD exists as the opposite. Do a free-write for BD and how BD exists as the opposite, especially if AJ is part of a world that expects AJ to act based on AJ's up-to-now uncontested beliefs. BD is the antagonist. Or set it up so that they are opposites (a dialectic) in a world that agrees with BD if you prefer.
They are not strangers - please don’t make it so hard on yourself. Strangers have no history. Strangers start from scratch and require so much exposition, and exposition is boring. So let them be related.
Give them a task to accomplish together, an assignment like make a birthday cake for mom. Something they can do together in a scene. An activity.
Give them both wants and needs. The want is what they know they want to get in this scene. The need is what you know that they truly need underneath it all. (They may not know or be aware of their needs. That’s for you to know and for them to discover.)
The want is relatively concrete: to make the damn cake and be done. Or to finally get along with my sister. While the need is more abstract like acceptance, love or freedom.
Write the scene starting with an event. An event is what forces the action forward, changes the playing field, or raises the stakes. In dialogue, an event is a revelation, a moment of recognition, a discovery, accident (if it means something) or deed, a decision, a proposal, a promise/vow or a threat.
Write to an event that will take you to a final event which is a moment of recognition that causes a transformation - ok two final events. Four events in total. (You can have more, but not fewer.)
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