pacifistically yours

these last few days i'm shuffling around, shifting goal posts, defusing the weaponry that i've placed around me. i want nice. i want respectful. i want to communicate openly, responsively, purposefully. i want to no longer blame other people for fucking things up for me.

i guess i've been projecting some fucked up things over the past year or so, and these things, i feel, have contributed to many relationship and communication break-downs. maybe, just maybe, i'm passive-aggressive. yikes. i'm always quick to call it, never so quick to own it. but maybe.

so yeah, my new mantra is to be nice, respectful, open. and to not jump to conclusions if someone doesn't respond to something i write or say. and to not blame people for bringing me down. and most importantly, to not find refuge in feeling misunderstood.

i hate to say it, but a lot of these feelings arose from attending the feminist conference on the weekend. i found it disappointing. i found that people didn't really listen to each other. i found that many people arrived with their agenda items, adamant to voice them, but not ready to engage in any real, useful, dialogue. what i did love was listening to Larissa Behrendt. she put me in the zone i needed to be in. she made me want to do something.

but in all, it was angry, bitter, and awkward. and i do wonder how you can change the world with anger. well, i guess it's warranted, but need it not be distilled into something else, something that shifts people, shifts ways of doing, rather than culminating in 'us' shouting at 'them'? so much 'us and them'. and that just marginalised most people there. i felt myself shifting between the margins in much of the conference discourse. as male, i was 'them'. but as a festival participant, i was 'us'. i was enlightened, but only to a certain extent. i was privileged. i was other. i was the upholder of the patriarchal system. but i wasn't. and i'm not. and i have much in common with 'the oppressed' if you wish to be spouting such language. but i don't think we should be. surely if you position yourself and 'your group' as the oppressed, then you put yourself in a bind. how can you ever move beyond 'them and us'?

there was much talk of 'the movement', particularly in the last afternoon summation. but i'm not interested in belonging to a unified movement. people felt the need to draw lines around 'the movement' and surmise who 'we' are and what 'we' stand for. what the fuck? isn't anyone aware of why the 2nd wave 'movement' fractured? identity politics is not useful here. 'we' are too many people with too many struggles to fit under one umbrella. gone is the time to move in one direction. mutual support is good. dialogue is good. respect is necessary. a delineation of 'the' movement is not.

maybe i'm stupid for thinking that we live in postmodern times.