gratitude & guilt

dni if you have no whimsy and no joy for the miracles found within the mundane

for those unaware today india experienced one of its biggest protests in half a decade. there were protests all over the nation for various causes but the major one was in delhi. all we asked for was the resignation of the education minister because he's failed the students of this nation time & time again. but we were met with brutality, the police had barricaded the main site of protest (jantar mantar). metro stations were shutdown, the public was restrained from reaching the protest site and all the adjoining areas had signal jammers to make sure the crowd had no access to constant updates. they had us blocked from all the sides. they were lathi (baton) charging students from one side & releasing tear gas from the other. you couldn't walk 100 m on streets without having a tear gas shell thrown at you. there were many students, women & kids bleeding — some from their head. some couldn't walk anymore. the police had removed their nameplates & acted with full impunity to resort to unprecedented levels of violence. they were pelting stones at us, beating up people for no reason, forcefully detaining them and attacking us constantly with tear gas & rubber bullets. they wouldn't let you exit either. the crowd was peaceful & looking out for each other yet they were met with violence. i made a friend who was all alone & she asked to join me & my friend because a policeman wouldn't leave her alone. he constantly prodded her for personal info, invited her back to the jeep saying they have food there, wouldn't stop following her around. you couldn't call or ask anyone for help, we were left to fend for ourselves & be on a constant lookout if you did not want to be beaten up to death by police. all for what? asking a resignation? shame on this country.

yessE..... YEAAAASSSSSSSSSA

thinking about how ursula k leguin said "what goes too long unchanged destroys itself. The forest is forever because it dies and dies and so lives" and how everyday i wake up slightly different and i can feel myself shed the skin of who i used to be slowly, slowly, until i look back and can scarcely recognise who i was... but also she is still a part of me, part of the leaf litter and the humus, supporting me as i send new roots down and new leaves stretching up to the sunlight

i do not want to live in the fucking panopticon fuck the camera that blinks above me at work, the tv watching me at the store, the "smile you're on camera" signs, the ring cameras, the flock cameras, the apps to track your child or partner, the activist friends telling me "just assume everything you do in public is being recorded somewhere", the government building protester databases, the teslas recording every move all around them, the knowledge that everything i type or search or save is being tracked and logged, the ads and search suggestions that mysteriously know what i was just talking about, the way biometrics keep creeping into more places, the way my car spies on me, the way my phone spies on me, the way there is nowhere to go to get away from it!!! no wonder the internet is full of vindictive little stalkers and witchhunts when it's the water and the air of society from the culture to the infrastructure