A List, not *the* List(s)

A List. Of what no one knows exactly. Observations perhaps. Does it matter? Must lists have consistent or linear themes?
1. Nothing is working out as I wanted it to today. Learn how to relinquish control, control freak. You list-maker you.
2. Watching someone try to back out of a lie is sort of pleasurable, though I know that doesn’t make me sound like a nice person. It just proves what I had already been suspicious of.
3. “You’re not queer enough.”
4. Seems like an accusation that is very likely to spiral out of control. You’re not woman enough, Hillary. Feminist enough. Black enough. Butch enough. Patriotic enough. Soft enough. Done enough. Warm enough. Good enough. Enough already — ‘nough is ‘nough!
5. Paranoia reigns supreme. “You’re so paranoid you probably think this blog is about you,” says Eve. (Potentially spoken to Adam, the presumed atom that started this big authorship mess.)
6. I like the bunnies hopping around here. As a sort of post-Easter event.
7. Not sure why blog name changed where the bunnies now hop. This poststructuralist problem haunts me in other arenas as well.
8. Too many competing events this week. I feel like ducking out of all of it, but know I will be pressured into attending some things.
9. Like the one I organized for tonight.
10. Umbilical cord needs to be cut on project 1. Otherwise, I’m having triplets and that sounds painful. Too many pooping bodies. Too much potential for — poop.
11. I could go for a c-section though.
12. Does the rise in the number of c-sections in women have anything to do with the impatience of medical physicians? Medical or cultural pressure to hurry it up, punch it out, and purge ourselves of the foreign bodies/texts that are indeed of our own making. What about fear of complications?
13. “How can you complicate this idea further” seems to be a standard academic request. Request posed as a question.
14. How does the technology available affect the birthing process? Or, as Minh-ha suggests, is this really about female productivity? The inability to produce on cue or the waiting for the thing/body/baby to materialize?

This list is incomplete. It’s not a list of commandments. It’s not a to-do list. There’s no authority presumed here. This is just a list, only a list. You should now return to your regularly scheduled lives, as dictated by npr.

Bring Being into Being

I want to know what the world would be like with out negativity. What would happen if we all stopped saying hurtful things about others? (Directly, indirectly, whatever.) What if we just deal with our own suffering, instead of inflicting it onto others. What if we never said (and eventually thought) bad things or had negative feelings? How would this alter the way we treat ourselves; how would this change our essence of being, and ultimately the world around us?

I was struck by something someone said to me last week to this effect. It was one tiny comment mentioned in passing, intended to be a throw-away thought, but I held onto it. Realizing that this is not possible, I still want to find out. I want to find out what the world would be like if people stopped sending their negative energy and notions of themselves out. I’m not talking about repression or giving up on criticism. I’m talking about completely revamping our conceptualization of critical modes and the habits of judgement and self-loathing that it has caused us to develop.

Try it. No negative statements or thoughts about anyone, including yourself, today. Starting now.