And it’s still there, that drive, that passion, that need to just EXPLODE, to vent all the frustration, all the bitterness and rage that I keep locked deep down inside, that force that needs to either create or destroy. All too often I choose the latter, finding it easier to lash out and disrupt than it is to internalize, focus and channel all of it into….whatever. The Word, a painting-picture-poem –play-script-story-stencil of the subconscious; created in whatever medium you have on hand.
I haven’t written in too long; I’ve been able to release this volcanic cavern of white hot magma into my hands, my shoulders, my arms and legs. Working physical labor, especially digging in the dirt, lifting rocks, planting trees, cutting grass has seemed to provide enough release from my troubled thoughts, until just recently.
Maybe it’s just getting in touch with the emotional side of myself that I’ve suppressed for lifetimes, finding out how to soften the hard, cold exterior I’ve built up over years of living as an outcast. Maybe it’s all in my head, or it all was in my head and now its flowing into my heart, a heart that’s now beating for two. There’s a certain sick, twisted pleasure in being looked at as an asshole, a certain side of me that wants to just alienate myself, to push that limit of rejection . It’s like the hostage who falls in love with their kidnapper, a certain part of me loves to just cut loose and rage, relishing the odd looks and as upturned noses, the fear and confusion.
Reject-degenerate- subversive-miscreant- reprobate-hooligan-punk-stoner-rager types are few and far between. The real ones at least, the ones who haven’t forgotten that the class war rages every day, that every dirty sneer at authority spreads the seeds of revolution. We see the stock market crash, the government cutting spending at local levels yet bailing out fucking car companies, see the fat get fatter while the middle class gets poor and snicker as the cracks appear in the crystal façade of capitalism.
It’s a part of me that I’ve completely squashed, that irreverent- brash-in-yo-face attitude that will walk up to a cop in full riot gear and scream “THIS IS WHAT POLICE STATE LOOKS LIKE!” with my middle finger up. A part of my being that I worked long and hard to cultivate, to educate so we could CREATE a spectacle, yet portray a message at the same time.
That life was the most beautiful and ugly thing I’ve ever experienced, memories that have scraped through my head for the past five years and need to be released. Memories that boil and bubble and keep my head hot. So much passion and emotion put into an effort to change the course of history still lingers with me, overshadowed by the sadness and frustration after Bush was re-elected.
I still want to change the world, I still want to smash the state, I still want to see the cracks spread and the System shatter and fragment into complete anarchy, but I don’t live every moment dedicated to it as I once did. Finding alternatives has become more important that attacking the pervading social-political structure head on in the streets.
I still hold onto that rage though, that frustration at spending so much time and effort into forcing the Bush Administration out of office, then seeing them dig us into a depression during their second term (yes, I know, there are many, many other factors involved in that), I have a deep, almost bottomless reservoir of simmering resentment to draw from, and with no outlet, it can boil over.
Working with my hands is an outlet, a reconnection to the earth and its core values, creating a building, a fence is a satisfying, empowering action that I pour myself into, yet there’s an intellectual void that drives me up a wall, especially considering the crowd I’ve surrounded myself with here in Hawaii simply can’t understand the mental anguish I’ve waded through the last five years.
I need to get it out of my system or it’ll strangle my psyche forever, and I think I’ve found a way to release that steam into a cloud of pages, a story for the ages…
But it’s dangerous…
It’s dangerous because it forces me to go back and revisit a time in my life when I fueled myself with the frustration and outrage at the political system, the superficial society in which we live; a time when I was hurt and confused and searching for answers, searching for a scapegoat upon which to release the pent-up rage I’d felt for so long.
I’m a different person now than I was back then, a time when I could channel all this negative energy into an action, a protest, a demonstration instead of truly exploring the source of my anger and finding constructive ways to transform it into a positive form of expression.
The struggle now is that transformation, the act of finding light in the darkness of those difficult times. Looking back, I can see the futility of all those street marches, all those times screaming myself hoarse at lines of riot cops who weren’t even part of the organizations we stood against (granted, the police state was one of them).
It’s easy to lash out, to take all the aggression, rage and frustration and channel it into breaking through a riot line or taking an intersection. And yes, there is a power to gathering with people of like minds and chanting our passion in unison on the streets. I felt an empowerment unlike anything I have ever felt, before or since.
Did it really make a difference, did we change the system we railed against? Perhaps not in a direct form, but the energy we created and released into the world is nothing to be trivialized. The System did not fall, Bush got re-elected, and the activist community which was growing so strong and so powerful seemed to dwindle and fade away into a haze of depression and hopelessness. I remember those first couple years of Bush’s second term reading the newspaper with tears of frustration in my eyes, watching the world around me go about their daily routines as if nothing had happened, just placidly accepting the political system as flawed yet untouchable by the average citizen.
It was disheartening, to say the least. I drifted away from the activist world and into a period of deep self-analysis where I discovered that my path was not that of the street-stomping anarchist, but that of the lonely troubled artist searching for beauty in a world full of ugliness, superficiality and greed. Eventually I came to the realization that the only thing I could truly effect was my own mind, and to change my perception of the world around me was the true activism.
I’m still coping with this, almost five years after Bush’s re-election. The country has a new president now, but the scars of the previous administration run deep through every facet of our economy, society, the entire world’s for that matter. I still see the political in the way I relate to people, the way I speak, eat, dress…
All that’s left is to release these lingering feelings onto the blank page, to purge myself of this frustration, anger and fear. Without this release, I can’t move on with my life, constantly reminiscing of old times and old ways. I’ve done so much work trying to embrace the present, the simple beauty of the moment, but these memories haunt me at every turn, and without their release, it’s impossible to BE HERE NOW.
So this is it, my purge, my catharsis, my acceptance of the way things were and the way they have come to be. I cannot change the way things came to pass, but maybe, just maybe I can inspire someone to take their lives into their own hands and help create a better world for all of humanity, just as I tried to do that year, 2004, lifetimes ago…
