Posthumous Humanity

Dreams are free. Goals have a cost. While you can daydream for free, goals don’t come without a price. Time, effort, sacrifice and sweat. How will you pay for your goals?

I remember, when I was breaking up with one of my exes years ago, he listed all the ways I made his life better when trying to convince me not to go. And I asked him, “but how do you think you make my life better?” and he was taken aback. “I don’t know,” he said. He’d never thought about it. When I date people, I devote a lot of effort to making their lives better. When I’m with women, I read about health issues that effect lesbian demographics (higher rates of breast cancer, obesity, and depression.) When I’m with men, I read about health issues that effect straight men (coronary issues, blood pressure, and emotional issues esp. around anger.) When I date people of color, I research POC health/discrimination/etc. issues, especially issues around dating white people (mental/health effects of internalized racism, institutionalized racism, the types of micro-aggressions I may be likely to commit.) When I date people with less money, I pay for shit. When I date people who are messy, I organize their shit (even though I’m also really messy.) When I date people with physical limitations, I massage their shit (weird Emma past: I went to massage school.) But, especially with men, this energy feels so unidirectional. Women are frequently more reciprocative, but men often seem completely uninterested in helping me improve my life in any way. They often care about impressing me, by having nice shit, or looking good, or pulling in bank. But, they almost never take a look at my life and ask themselves “what is Emma missing, and how could I fill that role?”

“Auschwitz is outside of us, but it is all around us, in the air. The plague has died away, but the infection still lingers and it would be foolish to deny it. Rejection of human solidarity, obtuse and cynical indifference to the suffering of others, abdication of the intellect and of moral sense to the principle of authority, and above all, at the root of everything, a sweeping tide of cowardice, a colossal cowardice which masks itself as warring virtue, love of country and faith in an idea.”

“Move. As far as you can, as much as you can. Across the ocean, or simply across the river. Walk in someone else’s shoes or at least eat their food. Open your mind, get off the couch, move.”