Mental Musings from
The Marginatrix
...because sometimes I just need to share my thoughts.
It’s an almost-universal sentiment this New Year’s Eve: Fuck 2020. This year has been an unrelenting series of monstrous events, one after another. Each atrocity has been heralded as worse than the last and as we finally approach the end of the year, it’s hard to dispute the undeniable conclusion that this year has thoroughly sucked ass. In fact, this year has been so awful, many have been completely crushed by the horror and unable to function. This is compounded by an inability to cope in the usual ways. It is a common need for people to commune with others to process their feelings, but this year, socializing has become an activity that risks death. Then, there are people like me, who don’t suffer so much from the lack of socialization that others crave, but instead have found this year so demoralizing that it has resulted in the inability to process the feelings into lucid thoughts. To suddenly find yourself unable to construct sentences to convey your emotions, when that has been your main coping strategy throughout life, is something that can make you feel, in addition to overwhelmed by feelings you are unable to define, utterly useless as a voice to reflect the pain that others are feeling. Because, let’s face it, when we write about feelings, there’s always a sense that there are others out there who get it, who feel the same way. Maybe in some way, we’re hoping to help other people. Unfortunately, this tongue-tied affliction of mine has not been limited to psychological pursuits. No, it has affected my general productivity in all aspects of my life. I have been helpless to write an intelligible paragraph to save my life, so saddened by the inequities I see around me. Just…so…utterly…. Trounced. Pummeled. Destroyed. Thank God for thesauruses. Though not alone in my disability, there have always been others whose brains work a little differently, and dare I say, these people found inspiration in this year. These are the people who gave voice to my muddled musings. Unable to communicate my own thoughts this year, I found myself particularly touched when I read something that someone else had written that touched on something I’d wanted to say, but had been unable to verbalize. Still, though there were others able to describe the day-to-day events, to assimilate these events into a deeper understanding, and sometimes, even suggest actions, there were few who tackled the emotions we all felt. There was something dangerous about addressing the pain directly, so we tiptoed around it, hoping that if we just ignored the losses, they would go away. Like the assumed-dead villain in the horror movie, 2020 just kept coming back to attack one more time, to draw a little more blood. Force-fed a daily diet of negativity and fear, it’s easy to succumb to despair. We’ve all heard how necessary it is to take a break, to focus on self-care and allow others to carry the torch from time to time. We’re told, turn off the news; do something for yourself. Those who immerse themselves in the daily strife that has become our reality are invariably jaded and resigned. Like me,there are those who can muster the occasional sardonic observation before creeping back into obscurity to sit with our pain. Ultimately, it all comes down to a sadness so great, there are few of us who are equipped to bear it. The last thing I wrote that expressed my own emotions with any clarity was back in February when my dog died. Still reeling from the emotional destruction of that, we moved right into Covid-19 and lock-down, and although I am not personally affected in any tangible way (thankfully), it hurts to see so much suffering all around. People dying needlessly, people struggling to pay rent and buy food, people being blindly led to blame the wrong people for their misfortunes... All of it weighs so heavily on me that I cannot find the words to explain it. My strongest writing is expository, specifically persuasion, and I feel unable to persuade anyone of anything. I fear that if I start vomiting words onto paper, a technique that has usually worked for me, it will just be incomprehensible, useless vomit. And yet, that is essentially what I have decided to do. Because I realized something today. The solution, at least for some of us, has been sitting in front of us all along. In fact, I’ve been using it, more than ever, without recognizing the healing benefits it bestowed upon me. Amongst all of the possible escapes available to those experiencing daily, long-term stress, there’s one that I think has been vastly underutilized. Fiction is the balm for that which ails us. It creates imaginary worlds, allowing us to escape from the reality that tortures us. Even more importantly, though, it is that thing which taps into our emotional turmoil and makes it okay for us to express it. It’s safe. In a time when reality surpasses any apocalyptic visions of what we thought the future could hold, it’s easy to think that reading fiction is escapism. In a way, that’s true, but there’s so much more to it. Fiction is what gives us the strength and the will to live in this reality. It’s what makes it possible for us to survive. This is my long-winded way of saying: fiction matters. Although it may seem far-removed from contemporary life, fiction provides an outlet for the emotions that so many of us find overwhelming and unintelligible. It gives us the necessary vent to shed the tears that are always just below the surface, fueling emotions that we cannot identify, but which can lead to health problems or societal conflict. Now, I understand why I was having so much trouble writing. I was directing my thoughts in the wrong direction. I'm not good at negativity. It doesn’t inspire me. Hope is more my style. If I want to be able to write, I need to be passionate about something. Personally, I cannot be passionate about misery; I can only be passionate about hopeful and joyous things. This epiphany came to me today as I was trying to explain why I have spent so much of my time lately reading (200+ books this year, mostly fiction), and very little time writing. And as I extolled the value of reading fiction, all at once, the passion I’d been missing returned. TL;DR: I want to dedicate this, my farewell to 2020, to the many, many fiction-writing authors who have accompanied me through this year, have made this year bearable, have allowed me to express the emotions I’d have otherwise kept bottled inside of me, by writing about pain and suffering and love and joy and redemption and being a human being in a complicated world. Fiction is important and what you do matters. The next time you feel like your words are meaningless or don’t matter, remember that there are those of us who rely on you to express the things we wish we could ourselves. Fiction allows us to feel. It teaches us to feel. Feeling leads to compassion, and compassion leads to healing. Your words hold the power to heal the world. December 31, 2020
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Elizabeth J. Connor
|