Sometimes the Answer is Just to Not

I keep trying to sit down to write something, but honestly I don’t feel like I have much to say. What a rousing advertisement for my work, I know I know. But like, sometimes you don’t have anything worthwhile to say. And we live in a culture mediated by go-go-go social media that tries to teach you that unless you’re shouting all the time you’re isolated and bad at life. But also, maybe that’s what we actually need? A little more isolation. A little less yelling.

Okay “isolation” is a bad word. Especially after the lockdowns and constant crises. But yall are smart and you know I mean, to lean on Le Tigre without endorsing the rest of the song, “GET OFF THE INTERNET!”

I’m writing this because I feel like I should. Like I need to use this platform or lose it.

Which is a whole other nonsense issue.

Or maybe not that unrelated to how we’re expected to shout and fight and shoulder for attention all the time. I don’t know what I’m saying. I never really did. My success in the literary world was contingent on being a model trans woman: Fight, affirm, accept uncritically everything presented in the name of “trans rights.” And as soon as I started questioning the value of certain (again) uncritical positions it was exile and relegation to the dust bin.

What I’m saying is that I’m not really saying anything. And this is true for so many people we think are saying things. We’re following patterns and insisting on walking pathways we know are safe because they’re the same pathways other people walk down. Where are we going? It doesn’t matter. What matters is that every time you meet a fellow traveler you furnish them with attention.

I’m saying that none of this matters. Not in the way we build it up at matter in our minds: In our little, constant fantasies about if we could just… but who cares?

Sometimes you just have to put one foot in front of the other. Sometimes you have to stop caring about if people are moving in the same direction. Sometimes you have nothing to say and still you pump out almost 400 words of, well, nothing.