It's been a while since I last sat down and put words to paper. Electronically anyway. Part of that is that I've been busy but it's also more than that. Over the last couple of months, the idea of writing hasn't been as comfortable as it once was.
Writing is a comfort blanket for me. The words knit together in a powerful collage that becomes more snug than a brand new IKEA duvet. When the world seems to be dashing incoherently yet definitely downwards, writing acted as a reprieve. It demands consistently and insists on a narrative that can be easily digestible.
But in the last couple of months, I've felt a change. It's hard to truly encapsulate what I mean. Nothing has really moved yet in a sense, it's as if heaven and earth have switched places.
The power of words to free me from the constraints of my reality had gone. It just wasn't fun anymore. Before it felt like language was the tool to end all tools. It was the leatherman of communication. It had so many beautiful, unexpected variants that continued to surprise even though you'd owned it for so long.
But then someone took the leatherman and instead of appreciating its beauty and utility, merely used it to brutally and barbarically stab someone to death. Of course, the leatherman is innocent in this. It's merely a multi-tool but by being used in such a horrid way; its beauty is intrinsically stained. More than that, the danger of it is for the first time, manifest.
In a way I feel responsible. Like a child that harmlessly wants to play in the garden but in doing so leaves the back door open for a burglar, I think I've let down language. Pushing at its edges, laughing at how constructed it all was. Highlighting without any malicious intent, the vacuum of meaning that lies in the abstract.
And as we stood playing hide and seek with simile and metaphor, Trump slipped into the house. He and his team pillaged every unlocked room.
It would be an alternative fact to say he did that alone. We are bored of experts after all.
Combine arrogance with ignorance and the result is terrifying. When none of the rules apply anymore, nothing makes any real difference. Actions don't have consequences when those actions are washed away on account of their emptiness.
And in all that, words had lost their magical touch to me. Words were just words with arbitrary meanings that could turn on a dime.
But then to hell with it, that's completely missing the points. It's not like words ever did have concrete meaning from somewhere divine. They just had what we gave them.
And that's still true now. Even if these words are now being used to mean the opposite of what they did before. The trend before was to string them together as a tool that would be in turn used to create order.
Now the reverse is true. Words are now assembled by ruthless architects hoping to create most complex route in the myriad of dead ends of a maze. And do you know what, well good for them.
They can use the words in whatever which way they want to. I don't mind. I'm going to keep on writing. The game might have changed but if we're playing with no rules surely I can play by the old ones.
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