I’ve been spending a lot of time at the library. I rarely get any reading done because everyone is so fucking loud and I can’t focus. I was going to say it is only in the children’s section when we are there so my son can go on the computer and I sit nearby. But it’s not, even adults talk loudly in the library when they are self important, tutors, sometimes parents of tutors. Kids are usually not the problem unless they are rolling around on the floor or god forbid takes their shoes off on the rug and then they are not the distraction it is the annoying librarian yelling at them for being kids.
When you see a kid acting out look slightly further and you will see their disconnected parent. Kids really just want attention. Another reason I get no reading done when I am there with Zack, he stops his reading to ask me random questions or tell me something funny he reads every 30 seconds on average. The library is a good community place. Anyone and everyone are welcome. I notice a lack of respect for it sometimes, people who’ve never been to a library, that one or any one, before. Even the librarians aren't respectful of how awesome libraries are as a societal accomplishment. Free information for all is a beautiful thing.
I know this world is wrong. I live in a very safe community. I’d say aside from the ultra wealthy that have security systems in their daily lives, as safe as you can get culturally. I did the most terrifying thing the other day. I let my son go to a public men’s room at the library, while I was slightly out of view, I would see him when he came out but couldn’t see the hallway or the door. Why should this have been such a fearful thing to do? I was GRIPPED WITH TERROR. But he is old enough to go take a pee and come back without getting lost or wandering off. But we both looked unsure. That’s not right.
It is partially a product of rape culture. Can’t let a child be in a bathroom with grown men. Do I think like that because I am a woman? I think men also think like that, in fear for their children not themselves. Is that a symptom of rape culture? There is also the stranger danger fear we had instilled in us as children that if a child is out of an adult's sight for just 30 seconds or more someone will snatch them away and we’ll never see them again.
How is this normal societal progression? Is there a reason we don’t trust our neighbors? In the light of day would you pick a stranger up and give them a ride? Would you let them use your phone to make a call? Would you ask them for a quarter to pay a toll or get a shopping cart? Why do we fear strangers?
Why don’t we trust our innate abilities to judge who is safe and who is not? It is because wolves lie among us. We have dressed wolves up in $2000 suits from Armani and we treat them as kings of a financial language no one else understands. No one else understands because we are not selfish by nature. Otherwise it is very easy to understand the world of venture capitalism.
People are designed to have a positive chemical response to altruism. Helping other people literally delivers a dose of the chemical that is mimicked by heroin and oxycodone. Oxytocin, the love hormone baby. We are hard wired for cooperation. People who screw over the tribe for the good of themselves should be the ones considered mentally ill, not the ones who are sick because of this sick society.
I realized the other day that at one point in history there was a treatment for people like me, crazy women, political commentators, naysayers; it was called electric shock treatment. And when we went on hunger strikes in protest we had feeding tubes shoved down our throats. Feeding tubes are torture. Shock treatment is torture. These things used to be standard practice. It is sometimes good to remember, we have come a long way.
There are still far too many people in the world suffering. But this class, the working class has never been so well off in the aspect of available information and technology. We may not have enough money to go anywhere but the global world is at our finger tips. We have in our hands a lot more power than certain people want you to think. You tell me about your pork chop mashed potato dinner, and that’s great, it makes food insecure people like me really hungry because it looks delicious even though I know it’s full of nasty GMOs.
ANYWAY, I’m glad that my family has not shunned me and locked me away in some hellish institution for embarrassing everyone because that was a reality at one time. If I was a housewife of the 60s I could just take some Valium and take a nap. I feel like Xanax plays the same role in our society of quelling dissent. I am not a big fan of barbiturates. In my experience they don’t make me feel less anxious; as a matter of fact they don’t let me feel anything at all.
Only one thing cures fear. Having nothing left to lose. Seeing the bottom. Realizing how many things could set your life’s goals back but continuing on no matter what because what else are you going to do? The alternative is worse, the alternative is nothingness. Maybe everythingness, but it isn’t life as we know it that’s for sure.
I want my son to live in a world where he can explore and be trusted to return. Kids used to roam the neighborhood because kids love to be social and they need the exercise. Now they are chained to the schedule to participate in activities. Now they are all locked in their houses primarily connected by electronic devices. Just like us. We are all on our schedule. Can’t miss a day of the schedule. Work is important but more importantly the pay from it. Can’t miss any days of school or you have to make up the work and what if you get sick and actually NEED to miss days of school?
Children want to talk and learn together, that is the reason they comply with the senseless rules of school. They like to be and want to be together. We teach our children well how to ask to go to the bathroom. I don’t see how that should ever be necessary. The industrial revolution, can’t get off the factory line, gotta stay, can’t pee. Pee and shit on schedule from now on future generations.
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