for example, if i set aside time to write or read or make art i simply will not. i will instead stress-sweat my way through those icebergs of time until they melt and i can once again do something else.

instead, my method HAS to be chaotic. it cannot be formal. it has to be me randomly sitting down and happily realizing there is 15% battery on my computer— enough to write a frantic four paragraphs. i have to read six chapters of a book standing upright in my kitchen, eating messy unstirred peanut butter spilled onto ritz crackers or else i will not read at all. i have to start an oil painting by grabbing the worst piece of a graphite you’ve seen in your life and scribbling something unpolished into the center of a canvas.

it’s like as soon as my brain realizes that something is formal or set aside for a distinct purpose that it instead must remain untouched lest i be found inadequate by my own yardstick. this is a baffling system for me; and one that i never really see represented or talked about.

it's the genocide and ethnic cleansing, the fever pitch hatred of migrants, women, and lgbt people allowing for the prospective abandonment of international human rights law. it's the various modes by which late capitalism and the fascist state is brutalising you and everyone around you. it's trauma. you can do a lot to decide the terms on your own life, but we are all connected to each other and there's a lot to feel and bear witness to and to resist, and that IS a gruelling responsibility.

whatever this year has looked like for you personally, it has been immeasurably traumatic for the global working class. and we should all feel connected to that.