where we are
All I needed was some space to think, and in October of 2019, I was left with plenty of it. I’d already lived and left a life that was less than satisfying up to that point, and there I was, about to do it again.
That fall, I stepped away from my role as a startup founder and found myself (re)evaluating everything about my life. It was tough, at first. I spent what felt like endless weeks between then and the new year disentangling who I believed myself to be in relation to me, society and the things I spent my time doing—whether they be associated with work or otherwise.
By winter, I’d become more accustomed to viewing rest as more productive for my life than I’d felt it was before. I slept and ate regularly. I lounged and pursued new hobbies. I read new books. I got my nipples pierced. I did the things I wanted to do (within my limited budget, of course), though some things weren’t as deliberate as others. The time I spent thinking was probably the most unexpected outcome of the space I found myself in.
This is not to say that I was not an avid thinker before that point; however, I historically hadn’t permitted myself to delve as deep into my thoughts—my questions, that is—since it hadn’t seemed appropriate, acceptable or constructive for the kind of life I strove to live and portray myself to be living. A mostly unspoken proscription of asking too many questions was in place within the flavor of Christianity I was steeped in growing up. Much was left up to the bible to explain, and challenging the bible was far from an admissible option in the pursuit of… pursuit of what?
Unsurprisingly, for a long while, my interrogation of life could only go so far if I was to remain limited in the questions I could ask. An unearthing and examination of whatever roots lie throughout this so-called “existence” in the world around me and everywhere else is what followed once I let that constraint go.
I regularly found myself in heavy thought several times a day over a span of months. I journaled often—what a time! I wrote and confronted aspects of my life and lived experience that did not match up with what I said I believed was true. And I was honest about it.
Delusion was not something that I found was bringing me joy or pleasure in life. Not sustainably. I wanted to explore what could come of genuinely confronting more of who I thought (my)self to be. If I was more transparent with me and others, would that clarity also lend itself to the realities of the world, or at least my world? I began to seek information. I needed to understand what I was missing as a result of my suppression.
• • •
Books became a doorway to thoughts I hadn’t yet considered—a way for me to widen the aperture on the life I thought I was living. They gave (and continue to give) me a more nuanced understanding of where I stand within the broader society; and where I do not and, very possibly, have never.
Initially, my genre of choice was self help. A sensible starting point, I suppose, but it gradually became apparent to me that I could read all of the self help on Earth and still be marked black in America and the world. Over the course of the next two years, I found myself growing less interested in work productivity and more intrigued by the question of whether or not “improving productivity” there was even an endeavor worth pursuing.
This shift in where I found my concerns to lie was accelerated abruptly during my encounter with Toni Morrison’s “The Origin of Others”, Justin Clardy’s “Why It’s OK to Not Be Monogamous”, and kink/BDSM.
Prior to the moment I picked up Morrison’s book, I hadn’t given much (close) thought to the constructs of race, the normalcies of slavery in America, or the magnitude of the sociopolitical on the experiences that we’ve continually had since the advent of the modern era, at least (and how tightly wound the industry of pleasure is in all of that). That is to say, politics and the political were not matters to which I believed myself to be closely related before that point.
Suffice it to say, that is no longer true.