Free Writing

Wrote this at RISE


Free Writing

Writing is free, they say
So I pay to hear this again
I pay to remind myself of how
I am already free.

Free before I pay for any thing
Free before anything is paid for
Free before anything is priced beyond my grasp.

Then, I remember also, that:
Nothing comes for free. I hear
That nothing comes for free, I hear that
We do not own this beautiful planet, we
Merely borrow it from our children...

This planet cannot be paid for, as
This planet has already been paid for

And this planet has been made for
those who write ourselves free.

Made for those of us who write, despite never knowing
if anyone will read what we have written,
Despite never knowing
if anyone will understand our voice,
This planet has been made for those of us who write because
We have no other choice.

I write because
I have no other choice,
but to be free.

Solidarity Politics

A reflection on two under-fleshed out politics of solidarity:
1. Cognitive Ableism & Neurotypicality
2. Ageism & Adultism

The former can manifest as:
"If you haven't read this essay, you're not in the know, you're not smart enough, you're not progressive enough, you're just not good enough!"
"If you don't speak the right language, if you misspell words, if you don't know how to Google, you're just lazy and uneducated!"

The latter can manifest as:
Endless bickering, macho outwitting, an inattention to the importance of gradual development of inclusion and radicalisation of individuals and communities, spaces which are primarily folks in our 20s/30s, and with little room for the wisdom of elders, or accusations of "selling out" (and the attendant ostracism) when people account for the shifting priorities that come with aging within an imperfect and oppressive system

They both manifest as:
A stigma around imperfection, impatience, characterisations of people as "backward" or "retarded" or "living in the past" for having problematic politics, and a rejection of relationship in the service of abstract idealism.

In brief, I relate to the above as a part of what I call the concerns of "developmental justice", which underlie many of the issues that I see plaguing (identity) politics in general, and of the Left in particular.

Liberty

"With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself … while with others the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men… Here are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called by the same name — liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatible names — liberty and tyranny.

The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep’s throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as a liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty … Plainly the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of the word liberty."

- Abraham Lincoln, quoted in
Comment: A Muslim Perspective on Race Law Changes
by Shamsul Khan

heroism

the problem with valorising heroes
may be the unwitting complicity in maintaining the conditions
in which heroism becomes necessary

my gnosis

I'm not self-hating, nor self-abnegating
I'm mostly just
self-agnostic,
that is,
my gnosis belongs to no one in particular.

Chineseness

China rises,
as do I.
Perhaps I'll be Chinese
long after I die.

Til then, I'm chaotic.
Multi-generationally diasporic.

English is my language,
honed and crafted in a body that is Chinese
and a mind that alchemically works
to integrate these, even as:
This language is my language
English belongs to me.

There is no original language
Everything is translation.

I was not Born Chinese.
I have claimed it.

post-Easter

Watched the Passion of the Christ two nights ago
reflected on the message of Jesus, that sign of anti-establishmentarianism
persecuted by corrupt Jewish leaders, colonised by Romans

Pontius Pilate, the Roman executioner, is depicted in Mel Gibson's film as a sympathetic character,
while the Jews are depicted as swivelling, irrational masses...
the exceptions, of course, being Jesus himself, mother Mary, Mary Magdelene, and Paul the Beloved

I am supposed to understand this story, because it is famous.

Reflecting on Mel Gibson's decision to portray the agent of empire (Pontius Pilate) as a sympathetic character, displaying his compassion and ambivalence about sentencing Jesus to torturous crucifixion.

Reflecting on the "benevolence" of the agents of empire...
the "Good Cops"...

Reflecting on Mel Gibson's anti-Semitism, elsewhere displayed

Reflecting on the story of Jesus, who begs his Father to forgive all who have betrayed Him, for they do not know what they do, what they have done

Father, the vengeful God, not only all-knowing, all-loving, all-forgiving,
but also Punishing...
destroys the Temple.

God the Punisher.

Everywhere, people are suffering unspeakable horrors of injustice, everywhere Jesus is alive in the crucifixion of innocence
in asylum seekers banished to indefinite imprisonment off of Australian shores
but I wonder if I can maintain faith in any Resurrection
when there is too much suffering still being inflicted in Jesus' name

"God, why hath Thou forsaken me?"

Are these the days of martyrs? Can there be any martyrs left? and in whose name shall they act?

This Easter, may I not be myopic.
May I learn the right lessons of history to dream more loving, compassionate, wise and sustainable futures
into each arising moment.

May all living beings be free from suffering and the causes of suffering.
May all living beings be liberated by insight, foresight and action.

Offence

One can cause offence
without intending offence.

Offence can be based on incorrect interpretation of intent
or it can be based on the problems and ignorance implicit in the content
of its Utterers

To be offended is neither noble nor ignoble... this extends to when I am legitimately offended by hateful or willfully ignorant remarks.

In these latter two senses, I say that my being offended is neither noble nor ignoble
because nobility arises dependent on how I respond to my own having been offended.

I can blame the Other who has offended me, and attribute 100% of responsibility upon them to change their behaviour, apologise to me, or express a deep remorse... And this may be a justifiable response to those of us who have been hurt by racist malice, privileged ignorance, and so on.

But I cannot pretend that this is noble:
My resilience cannot rely on others changing.

Misunderstandings are a necessary by-product of civic development, even as they are unpleasant and often, retrospectively, "unnecessary"...

They are necessary in that all action and orientation toward cultural innovation involves risks. Risks that are sometimes dangerous enough to warrant our expulsion from the very polities in which we took them, if we fail.

When our racist ignorance has cost people their jobs or their opportunity for home and food, this is unacceptable and must be held to account.

At the same time, this holding to account cannot detract the "holder" from a firm conviction in our own Wholeness, already... in particular, our inseparability from the Offender who is being held to account.

Let me not be myopic.

Australia's rapidly degenerating relationship to asylum seekers
does not begin with the current government,
nor the one just prior,
nor the ones prior to that.

It does not begin with the Stolen Generation
nor the White Australia policy

It does not begin with European settlement and colonisation of this land
nor with the British Empire
nor with feuding Aboriginal nations

It does not begin strictly with autopoietic human folly
nor with Divine improvidence.

Let me not be myopic.

Degeneration comes in forgetting
that there are futures
we once knew how to dream

evolution

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality.
To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

- Richard Buckminster Fuller 

They Long to Become Visible Again

They Long to 

Become Visible Again

written by me 

@RISE

in the company of some excellent people...

We paint ourselves in all shades of red,

Wishing to look more like what we know we are on the inside...

The more red we get,

The more transparent we become to one another

And that, say some of us,

is liberation.

Others, we paint ourselves blue, as skies, as we aspire to be,

Higher than we are, the peaks of our potential we have not yet met,

or blue as lakes, or the oceans of all that we hide.

Perhaps not so much hidden

As curated, like we were workers in a colonial museum of ourselves, with Rooms that hold the sum total of all of our diverse identities and life's experiences,

of sounds and smells and languages we refuse to forget,

But that others only politely nod at.

Smile at,

As if they could ever really understand.

I paint myself each morning when I wake up.

Paint myself with water and hair cream

Paint myself with fabric relevant for temperamental Melbourne weather

I have painted underneath my skins with needles and ink

Not only because I have had something to prove,

But because this is what culture is!

Alive, to each moment, unfolding in my body as it meets yours and yours and his and hers

In schools, at work, on public transport

We wear ourselves painted and read one another like scripts.

Culture is inquiry and celebration,

Or despondency, procrastination,

A yearning for saviours, or a game for a messiah complex

seeking desperate players

All of this needs to be loved and cherished and humbly released

Each night again, we go naked unto ourselves

Each night, I go naked, again, unto myself

Each morning, I get up again, to paint.

Discomfort #2

Just because something is uncomfortable does not make it true.
Just because something is uncomfortable does not make it untrue.

Discomfort is not the same as pain.
Causing discomfort is not the same as causing suffering.
Causing pain is not the same as causing suffering.
Suffering can be triggered even without a resultant experience of discomfort or pain, or at least, without a resultant experience that may be languaged as such.
Suffering can be in compulsivity, petulance, aggression.

Just because I cause you discomfort or pain does not mean that I have caused you suffering.
Where suffering lies is in the razor-thin line between what my actions may have triggered for you (by way of discomfort / pain), and how either of us then chooses to respond to what has arisen.

This does not mean that I choose to intentionally cause pain/discomfort (this would be Malice),
but only that I do not allow the fear of causing pain/discomfort distract me from the quest to Truth, a deep interrogation, as well as a deep listening for Truth.

Truth will liberate.
And what it liberates may be very, very painful.

Ideally, truth is multifaceted enough
that, coupled with loving and compassionate intention,
that its liberation will come not only with the pain, but with its wisdoms for Resilience.

Discomfort

Reading my old post below about Yin deficiency, and "cuntic" energy.

Feeling into the rage of that post, that, regardless of the truth of the admonition,
it is also about thwarted masculinity.

And this is why I feel so uncomfortable. Not that she did no wrong (she did, and it was gendered, and it was problematic, etc. --> all still true), but that this wrong hit at a particular expectation I have in me... not that powerful women should not exercise their power, but rather, that I should be a "good man" and somehow live up to some expectations of myself that refuse to see the gendered nature of that abuse toward her (in this case male) subordinate.

That I should somehow "neutrally" experience this as a "neutral" abuse of power that is pathological regardless of the gender of the people involved (either the perpetrator or the subordinated).

This is what was discomforting...
That I experienced the sharp, glass-like gendered nature of this, reminding me that I am not "above" this level of observation. That I am not so feminist as to forget the suffering that some women uniquely catalyse, that I am not so "enlightened" that I would forget my own timidity, my own faggotry, that I am, at heart, sometimes, still a lonely teenage gayboy, wanting to do good, but chronically afraid of being told that I do not matter.

Privilege

Privilege is getting to pick the battles I want to fight.

The pressure to choose

As per this Calvin and Hobbes strip, I suggest that the terms of a conflict, that is, the way that a conflict is described, is actually a composite part of the conflict itself.

For example:

To describe a conflict as, say, having to choose between condemning homophobia (and thus alienating a swath of, hypothetically, more sexually-conservative Muslims) or condemning Islamophobia (and thus alienating a swath of atheist or anti-religious gays).

The above description in itself invites the reader into identifying with variations of the "Good and Ethical Subject".

I am either the Good and Ethical Subject who sides with the gays,
or the Good and Ethical Subject who sides with the Muslims.

It is not enough either, to propose the following rhetorical alternative to this conflict, which is the existence of the gay Muslim (who acts as a mediator between the aforementioned parties).

i.e. "What about gay Muslims?!"

Those who are invested in the terms of the conflict will bear no such thing.

"He has to choose!" both fundamentalists will proclaim,
"He has to choose between his homosexuality and his Islam!
Homosexuality or Islam!
He cannot do both!"

**

In a way, both the gay Islamophobe and the Muslim homophobe are caught in the same ideological trap: of Ethnocentrism, or the belief that it is my own collective (which absents the ideological Other) that is more worth protection from intrusion or harm than yours or more accurately, theirs.

In other words, it is not that Muslim homophobia or gay Islamophobia should be uniquely addressed as issues (true as this assertion may be in particular contexts), but that they are both expressions of a common commitment to ethnocentrism, a universal human propensity that, while developmentally appropriate in certain contexts, becomes dangerously pathological when mired in an inability to be creative in an increasingly pluralist and diverse world... Ethnocentrism must be adequately attended to across the board, in all of its variations. 

Part of dealing with this is to actually notice the ways that organising around minoritarianism (i.e. identification with the oppressed minority) is always contingent, in part, on an unwitting capitulation to the terms of this disenfranchisement. 

Far from blaming the victim, I intend to point this out as a route to true freedom. As a gay man, the way for me to truly eradicate homophobia is not only to target it and address it in others (e.g. the homophobic Muslim), nor even only to address it in myself (i.e. dealing with my own internalised homophobia), it is to also truly cultivate the possibility for a larrikin betrayal of my own identity, a sincere abandonment that intends no nobility but can simply bear a privileged and detached witness to the categorical lie.

My true freedom, as a gay man, is in my ability to cease to be a gay man.
Not in ceasing to desire other men, or having sex, but in ceasing to allow these particular desires or actions over-determine the formation of my personhood, at the same time that I would advocate it should not be over-minimised or repressed either.

Incidentally, of course, this is an incipient narrative in the evolution of gay discourse, as it evolves its own "queer" trajectories, its postmodern leanings toward the blurriness of sexual categories (not only of homosexuality and heterosexuality, but also of manhood or womanhood, of the boundaries between what-is-sex and what-is-not-sex). In this case, going more deeply into my "gay-ness" can actually present the means by which I can reject its original terms and liberate new possibilities for coalition and freedom.

Note:
This strategy is not the same as the abandonment of commitment to people or communities, but only an abandonment of the drive to see people, including our own people, only as variations of "Self" or "Other".

Perhaps, to radically re-envision people as always "Both Self And Other"...?

"I am a gay man and not a gay man. I am homophobic and not homophobic. I am not Muslim... and I am Muslim!"

Or perhaps, more accurately, "Neither Self Nor Other"...

"I am neither a gay man nor not a a gay man. I am neither homophobic nor not homophobic. I am neither not-Muslim... nor am I Muslim!"

And this is what liberates me to be free to be contextually and communally relevant, as new and emerging forms and definitions of community are constantly defining and redefining what it means to be a People...

...I radically embrace my brethren, through my abandonment of "brethrenism".

***

To put it another way, freedom can be liberated not in the attempt to answer seemingly irreconcilable situations or bridge seemingly irreconcilable communities (e.g. between the Islamophobic gays or the homophobic Muslims), but, as per the Calvin and Hobbes strip, to deny all terms and conditions.

Every ideology and every community can be a straw target for intellectual game-playing...

I suggest a form of a-politicism (i.e. "this is meaningless and impossible to answer"),
an abandonment of identity politics...

...to embrace the impasse,
the impossibility,
the irreconcilability,
the restless nature of the dualism,
to reject its ideological premises,
to make room for something quiet and more enduring to take its stead...

...Relationship. Friendship. Comradeship.

Class struggle.

Decolonisation.

***

I look forward to that time when we have the strength, the conditions, and the collective will to properly reject even this aforementioned claim, to liberate more inventive, relevant inquiries and insights.

In The Future, We'll Outsource Sex

Slavoj Žižek: In the future we'll outsource sex



"Romance is maybe not yet totally dead, but its forthcoming death is signalled by object-gadgets which promise to deliver excessive pleasure but which effectively reproduce only the lack itself.

The latest fashion is the Stamina Training Unit, a counterpart to the vibrator: a masturbatory device that resembles a battery-powered light (so we're not embarrassed when carrying it around). You put the erect penis into the opening at the top, push the button, and the object vibrates till satisfaction … The product is available in different colours, levels of tightness and forms (hairy or without hair, etc) that imitate all three main openings for sexual penetration (mouth, vagina, anus). What one buys here is the partial object (erogenous zone) alone, deprived of the embarrassing additional burden of the entire person.

How are we to cope with this brave new world which undermines the basic premises of our intimate life? The ultimate solution would be, of course, to push a vibrator into the Stamina Training Unit, turn them both on and leave all the fun to this ideal couple, with us, the two real human partners, sitting at a nearby table, drinking tea and calmly enjoying the fact that, without great effort, we have fulfilled our duty to enjoy."

- http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/feb/14/valentines-day-is-romance-dead

a Pattern

someone I disagree with, either in opinion or in method.

they become "a type of person who is disagreeable".

all their future actions are stained not only by the memory of their previous errors, but by their entire Being-in-error

thus gives rise to the birth of the prejudicial epithet (e.g. "fag", "cunt", "slut")

in time, it is simply forgotten what actions this person may or may not have engaged in, nor what opinions they may or may not have espoused

all their positive actions will be exceptions to the rule that is their Being-in-error
all their mistakes will confirm my bias

Reality

I get to choose my reality!!!!
....from a range of available models reality has chosen for me.*

*While stocks last

How to be profoundly misunderstood

Step 2:
Refuse to understand