in matters of spirit

it's best to do justice to the spirit of the matter. @ hand.

today, for example, orwell is on my mind, and so, i write badly, but i think sincerely.

i stopped reading 1984 the moment he opened a book inside the book. i was too bored to read another constitution. you see what one bubble looks like, you know what all bubbles look like. my father reads me his constitution everyday. but i did exploit some of orwell’s ideas about privacy for a desperate elocution at school later that week.

if i put together my fragmented memories of that piece- it began with me jumping to the side of the board in front of class. and then i whispered, pointing to my side, “this is a telescreen. on this, the government broadcasts advertisements and propoganda. but it also monitors our every move.” wide 9th grade eyes. “but if i stand here, they can't see me.”

this became my definition of privacy. as the speech progressed, i kept switching between that corner on the side of the board, and full front and centre of it. under the telescreen’s watchful eye, i spoke in full formal sentences, flexing my elocutory prowess. in the blindspot of its gaze, i switched to progressively more vulnerable confessions.

i traversed everything from what little i’d read of foucault’s panopticon to my feeble case for the importance of safe spaces, reserved from shame, for reflection and ‘finding yourself’. the kids loved it.

when i performed it at home for my parents later, i saw them realise, in real time, everything i’d been trying to explain in recent fights i had with them what i needed more boundaries with them for. i wondered if they were the ones i actually wrote the piece to.

i never know who i’m writing to, so i call it a trick of memory instead. i pretend it's reflection when it's me desperately trying to shine a light on some blindspot of some wandering gaze. spirit is matter yearning for light. a night blooming into day. stay woke.

a life in commons dreams not only of safe spaces, but a way to nurture safety in all places. to pluck shame from the bud of pride. labour in the private realm has historically been undervalued. powerful men have built empires out of their shame, throwing the shade of a telescreen over their performance of victory. outside the light, we build our only vocabulary for the darkness and march into the sea. god’s wrath is climate change and ours is a fabled flood. we wait for the rain and for the dust to settle. it will all be truth soon.