Apologies for Living

alice is dragged from place to place without warning, forced to play stupid games with no good prizes, grilled over her schooling and manners and recitation and dress, scolded, judged, insulted to her face, sent away, given gifts she didn’t ask for and doesn’t like, corrected incorrectly, been subject to shifting and arbitrary rules, and then when she gets snappish with all this bullshit everyone acts like a little girl’s temper is the end of the fucking world.

Before battle, screaming his name was like a blessing, or a frenzy-inducing spell. Now, no challenge seems proper of invoking anything for me. I fight in silence. I do this because I must- not for anyone.

Happiness:

Smiling genuinely, with crinkles around the eyes.

Open body posture, with relaxed arms and shoulders.

Leaning forward slightly towards the person or object of interest.

Making eye contact with a warm and engaged expression.

Anger:

Tightened jaw and clenched fists.

Furrowed brows and narrowed eyes.

Standing or sitting with a rigid and tense posture.

Pointing fingers or aggressive gestures.

Raised voice or speaking through gritted teeth.

Sadness:

Downcast eyes and a drooping posture.

Slumped shoulders and shallow breathing.

Avoiding eye contact and withdrawing from social interaction.

Sighing or a subdued tone of voice.

Tearfulness, with watery or red eyes.

Fear:

Widened eyes with dilated pupils.

Raised eyebrows and a tense facial expression.

Frozen or rigid body posture.

Backing away or seeking physical distance from the perceived threat.

Trembling or shaking, especially in the hands or legs.

Surprise:

Raised eyebrows and widened eyes.

Mouth slightly agape or forming an "O" shape.

Leaning forward or recoiling backward in response to the surprise.

Quick inhalation or gasp of breath.

Rapid blinking or blinking more than usual.

Disgust:

Curling the upper lip or wrinkling the nose.

Narrowing the eyes and raising the upper eyelids.

Turning the head away or physically distancing oneself from the source of disgust.

Covering the mouth or nose with the hand or a tissue.

Expressing verbal disgust through phrases like "ew" or "yuck."

The Rocky Trail

Laurel Hill State Park Pa

Sometimes I like to write about the things that bring us together.

Not because I have gone soft.

Relax.

Nobody is lighting candles and singing about healing circles.

I mean the strange little human details that survive all our differences.

Man.

Woman.

Human.

Mankind.

Funny, is it not?

All these words people keep trying to drag into ideological court still carry the same root.

Man.

Not as ownership.

Not as domination.

Not as some ancient evil spell carved into language by a council of cigar-smoking patriarchs in wolf skins.

Man as human.

Man as species.

Man as the old blunt word for the creature standing upright in the storm, trying not to die, trying to make fire, trying to name the stars before the wolves get too close.

Woman has man in it.

Human has man in it.

Mankind has man in it.

And before the blue-haired grievance priesthood starts coughing blood into a reusable tote bag, maybe that should be a comforting thought.

Maybe the word itself is trying to tell us something.

Maybe beneath all the screaming, slogans, therapy language, college debt, gender dissertations, dating-app psychosis, HR rituals, and pussy-hat theater, we are still stuck in the same mud together.

Male.

Female.

Soft-serve dispenser.

Fish taco.

Whatever plumbing arrangement the universe handed you at birth, you are still trapped inside the same temporary meat suit as the rest of us.

You still age.

You still fear death.

You still want love.

You still want safety.

You still want to be seen.

You still want someone to remember your name after the lights go out.

That is the joke modernity keeps missing.

It screams about inclusion while trying to amputate the oldest shared language we have.

It calls unity oppression.

It calls inheritance violence.

It sees a common root and reaches for a weapon.

Get the fudge out of here.

We are all in this together.

Not in the fake corporate poster way.

Not in the “diversity training with cold sandwiches” way.

In the brutal biological way.

In the graveyard way.

In the nobody-gets-out-clean way.

Man.

Woman.

Human.

Mankind.

Different bodies.

Different burdens.

Different madness.

Same ending.

Same dirt.

Same sky.

Same ridiculous species pretending it has everything figured out while arguing over words older than everyone currently offended by them.

So maybe the word “man” is not the enemy.

Maybe it is a fossil.

A scar.

A root.

A reminder.

A little linguistic bone sticking out of history to say:

You are not as separate as you think.

You are not as special as you perform.

You are not as oppressed by syllables as your favorite activist convinced you.

You are human.

You are mankind.

You are part of the same doomed, hilarious, horny, frightened, brilliant, stupid animal family as everyone else.

And that should humble you, dummy.

Or at least shut you up for five minutes.

https://linktr.ee/ObeyMyCadence

BONUS: same knight 20 minutes later