April 7th, 2024
"Here's the secret, no one knows what they're doing." You've probably heard this more than once, I know I have. Ask yourself, who told you this and what's their privilege? Today I am thinking about dreaming big and dreaming small. I'm trying to figure out if I'm a big dreamer or a small dreamer.
"Desperation, survival." That's what my friend says the difference is. Building off of that, I mustered "It depends how many people you gotta get on the same page, and what they have to be on the same page about."
Australia. Australia. Australia. Far from the western world's densest population. Word of mouth only gets you so far when mouths are few and far between. I keep thinking there's some secret place I haven't heard of yet that has all the answers I'm looking for. This leads to two questions: could I be the difference between if a group makes or breaks? Of course, this group's existence is completely hypothetical. The second question is, if I leave for somewhere more active, "queerer", does that mean I'm giving up on the people that need me here?
Let's get on the same page about me. Little trans and autistic me. People hate me even if they don't realise it, people who would gamble on me being a failure or unreliable or a lost cause. I need disability justice to meet trans justice. Can you tell me what that looks like? Can you tell me what that should look like? I don't see it here. People gamble on COVID. The miasma is out of sight so the miasma is out of mind.
One time, when planning a novel in my head, I came up with a scenario for a failed revolution: A group of white cis feminists after fighting tooth and nail to drag their protest from the city streets to inside parliament house, knife at the throat of the enemy. In that moment they decide that they've had their fill of the fight and negotiate for a private neighbourhood for their all female utopia. This is a happy ending in their minds, but life goes on. I'll spare you the upsetting details, they Lord-of-the-Flies their utopia, and one by one the neighbourhood is abandoned. The only remaining woman is left to wonder if things could have been better if they had fought for more.
Where am I going with this? I don't believe in failed revolutions, just a revolution that's been postponed. I do believe that with fascism on the rise, the only thing worse than finding yourself next to a bigot is finding yourself next to someone easily impressed.
Part of the reason I feel so strongly about Australia, particularly as I live in the suburbs, is that the population density is at most 5000 per square kilometer out here, and it only gets thinner further out. It just feels so much emptier than say the US where I hear about people regularly travelling between states and major cities for events. Or Europe with its diverse colleges where you could meet so many people. I don't know, maybe I'm just being romantic about it. Chances are I'll be just as lonely anywhere else. And then we come back to the self. We come back to this idea of "if I leave here I'm abandoning something, someone." Like Australia is the place I have to make the most of, regardless of whether its a fulfilling life purpose or a dead end job.
All of this is under capitalism, all of this in a settler state, all of this under a facade, all of this under a centuries old gamble.
Part of me feels like this needs a happy ending. But this isn't my happy ending diary.