Come Away With Me

I've been gone from social media for over a week.  Facebook and I parted ways two weeks ago (my account is still there, but I do not peruse it for anything but to post an occasional link to this site). I deleted my entire Instagram account last Tuesday.  It's been an interesting thing, being gone this long.  It's hard to believe that I spent a quarter of my life being ruled by Them.  I don't even know who They are, but They controlled much of my life, all without me realizing it.  If I'm honest, it's been an interesting transition.  I had no idea how addicted I'd become to the instant gratification; the dopaminergic exhilaration of posting something, and instantly seeing that someone, anyone, saw it.  In the time it took my finger to press a button, my words were seen and responded to by people out in the cosmos.  Fantastically brilliant, right?  So going from that, to suddenly after more than a decade being completely alone with my every thought...it's been an odd transition.

And you know what I've found?

I like myself a lot more behind closed doors.  Lately, it's just been me and my pen and paper.  Yeah, I still write in a paper journal with an ink pen every day of my life.  Even if it's only a few words, I write them down.  But lately?  It's been lots of words. Sometimes hundreds of words a day.  And I'm no longer writing to the masses- I'm writing to my posterity.  I feel this magnetic pull toward generations of people yet to be born; people who will share my genetics, who are left to clean up the disaster we are making for them. I find myself apologizing every night for what's happening. I tell them I'm sorry that I'm only one person, overpowered by a world who just doesn't understand.  Overpowered by a world who believes themselves to be warriors when really, they are puppets of the very machine that seeks to destroy them.

"The people will not revolt. They will not look up from their screens long enough to notice what's happening." -1984

I read George Orwell's 1984 again this week.  It was my fourth time.  Actually, this time I did not read the book, but I listened to it, and it was quite a different experience listening.  I read it for the first time in 9th grade under the duress of my English teacher.  I hated that book. I despised the book and found it to the be the most boring and pointless thing ever written.  Five years later when I was nineteen, I read it again.  My scope was different at that age, and it was an entirely different story than it was the first time I read it.  Two years later, the very fabric of my beloved country changed on the morning of September 11, 2001.  I happened to be working at the university and my office had several books stacked around, and I had a lot of spare time as I waited on students to show up for appointments. On a dusty shelf way up high, I came across a worn copy of the same book I so despised years earlier.  I spent several days reading it, now through the lenses of eyes that were forever changed. It was the first time I cried when reading it.  I found myself clinging to Winston Smith as he held to his reserve against The Party.  I knew what was coming, but perhaps I thought that somehow in my own way, I could change the story. He wouldn't break this time. O'Brien wouldn't win. Somehow, he would fight them, never stop fighting them, and die a heretic like they so often called him.

But like each time before, he was not strong enough.

Yesterday, I finished the story as I weeded the garden. This time, I sat there in the grass with the story ringing in my ears, and I didn't merely cry.  I sobbed.  And the funny thing is that I did not cry for Winston Smith or even for Julia.  I cried for what and whom they represent.  They represent you and me.  They represent this primitive force that is good and noble and made of the stuff of Gods.  They represent all that is right in the world, and all that's worth dying for.  And suddenly, it wasn't a fictional story, nor had it ever been.  I sat in the grass with my dirty hands and I clenched my fists without realizing it. 

"We control life, Winston, at all its levels. You are imagining that there is something called human nature which will be outraged by what we do and will turn against us. But we create human nature. Men are infinitely malleable....If you want a face of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face forever." -O'Brien

I am considered a heretic by many and in the last couple of weeks, I've grown comfortable with that idea.  In fact, I think I'm embracing it.  Maybe the true heretic is the person who sees the puppet strings for what they are, and decides to cut them. But after being held up by those strings for so long, your muscles have atrophied and you walk with a funny gait and it's obvious to everyone around you that you are cut- not because of the floppy strings with no anchor, but because of your wobbly knees and flailing arms.  And you're spit upon.  And you're ostracized.  But even those shouting profanity at you are not truly free, because they are still bound to their masters and always will be.  

But you? You, the heretic? You will never be bound again.