Entry tags:
Frustration and Anger
I had just tried coming out to people on campus and that had gotten me locked up in the nuthouse. My expectation had been that once they were satisfied that I wasn't insane, the conversation would go on from there: after all, these notions had relevance and applicability to mental health! That's not what went down, though. They transferred me to the "moderately deranged" ward, gave me a day pass, and while I was out of the building they dumped all my clothes and books and stuff in a pile and told me upon my return "We've decided you aren't crazy and you can't stay here. Take your stuff and leave".
Hand-lettered sign on my bedroom door three years later: IF I THOUGHT IT WOULD RESULT IN YOU UNDERSTANDING THE THOUGHTS IN MY HEAD I WOULD GLADLY PLUCK IT FROM MY SHOULDERS AND DASH IT OPEN AT YOUR FEET; I WOULD GIVE MY LIFE TO ATTAIN A MEANINGFUL COMMUNICATION WITH YOU
Between 1980 and 1998, this is what I did with my life. I worked on expressing it in words and finding a venue in which to express it. I cornered friends and strangers and bade them listen to me talk about my cause. It was frustrating. People actually don't spend much time sharing thoughts and ideas they consider momentously important, and aren't expecting others to start doing so. If one presents it to them more as the sharing of ideas that are interesting and innovative or entertaining, they listen more readily but with a lessened awareness that you're speaking of things you consider really important, and they think you're just making conversation.
I had to get people's attention long enough to speak. Then I had to come out, although they would not understand right away what the fuck it was I was coming out as. It was different from what they were familiar with so I had to explain it. The predictable result was that the people willing to listen thought I was whining about my insufficiencies, my sad failure to be a man, or that I was whining that other people were mean to me.
I suppose in a sense that is what I was doing, but I saw it as political. I didn't want personal sympathy, I wanted social change. Wanted to raise folks' consciousness, not just prompt them to say Aww poor baby you had a rough time.
Between 1998 and 2010 I put it down, set it aside. I didn't stop understanding myself in these terms but I stopped trying to tell the world about it. It's exhausting trying to dig in and make something happen and feeling like you aren't getting any traction whatsoever, and all that anger is hard to carry around. Maybe I convinced myself that it was healthier, and me happier, to just live my life and let the world be the world, you know? Besides, I'd at least gotten my article into print.
Now that I'm picking it back up, my partners and friends have seen some frustration on my part and I suspect they worry about me a little bit.
Yeah, there is some, indeed:
In 2010 I began writing my autobiography, to reassess myself and get my bearings, and as I put my experiences into words I realized this was a new tool in my hand. But having a publication-worthy book doesn't get you published. These days one doesn't directly query a publisher, one gets an agent and the agent contacts publishers on your behalf. So first you have to get an agent interested. Being able to write a clever snappy query letter isn't really the same skill as writing the book, so for months I cranked away at it, editing my pitch, being told by other authors in blunt terms that it was no damn good. Then I'm told that my original website (where I have many of my academic theory papers up for folks to read) is so "unprofessional" and antiquated-looking that it will drive away any potential agents who see it. Then I'm told that it's not very likely that a memoir will get published unless I have a platform, I need a social presence, a premade audience of potential readers of my book, fans-in-advance. Where have I been doing public speaking?
Well, OK, yeah, I could do presentations, I've been a teacher... but when I go forth to volunteer myself as a speaker, people may say "Yeah, who are you? What's your audience, who will come to hear you speak?" You need a blog, I'm told, so I have a blog (and hey, this is fun!)... but now how are you going to direct sufficient traffic to it? Who is tweeting about you?
I am by nature reserved and shy, even if also self-confident; so now I gotta be some kind of effusive gregarious extroverted salesman? Not just that but an effusive gregarious extroverted salesman explaining really personal things about myself. Thrills.
But I'm in a different space now than I was when I was 23 or 30. I am now in the relationships that were only theoretical when I was first trying to come out. I have the good life and the personal joy and happiness that my ideas told me I could have. I have the confidence that comes from all that.
And frustration is not a bad thing. Not at all. Consider: I am trying to tell the world, "Hey, world, hey society, look at what you're doing here. This shit's got to stop". It is an angry sentiment. To express it, I am going to have to do a lot of things that will not come easy to me: putting myself out there, being pushy about having a message to convey, shoving myself forward into networks of people, grabbing them by shoulder and hand and introducing myself. Networking and self-promotion. To do that, I will need to have the energy to do it. The determination to do it. The stubbornness. I will need the anger.
I embrace my frustration. It will be my engine. I will temper it with confidence and patience and I will harness it.
This is what I intend on doing, if necessary for the rest of my life. Watch me.
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Hand-lettered sign on my bedroom door three years later: IF I THOUGHT IT WOULD RESULT IN YOU UNDERSTANDING THE THOUGHTS IN MY HEAD I WOULD GLADLY PLUCK IT FROM MY SHOULDERS AND DASH IT OPEN AT YOUR FEET; I WOULD GIVE MY LIFE TO ATTAIN A MEANINGFUL COMMUNICATION WITH YOU
Between 1980 and 1998, this is what I did with my life. I worked on expressing it in words and finding a venue in which to express it. I cornered friends and strangers and bade them listen to me talk about my cause. It was frustrating. People actually don't spend much time sharing thoughts and ideas they consider momentously important, and aren't expecting others to start doing so. If one presents it to them more as the sharing of ideas that are interesting and innovative or entertaining, they listen more readily but with a lessened awareness that you're speaking of things you consider really important, and they think you're just making conversation.
I had to get people's attention long enough to speak. Then I had to come out, although they would not understand right away what the fuck it was I was coming out as. It was different from what they were familiar with so I had to explain it. The predictable result was that the people willing to listen thought I was whining about my insufficiencies, my sad failure to be a man, or that I was whining that other people were mean to me.
I suppose in a sense that is what I was doing, but I saw it as political. I didn't want personal sympathy, I wanted social change. Wanted to raise folks' consciousness, not just prompt them to say Aww poor baby you had a rough time.
Between 1998 and 2010 I put it down, set it aside. I didn't stop understanding myself in these terms but I stopped trying to tell the world about it. It's exhausting trying to dig in and make something happen and feeling like you aren't getting any traction whatsoever, and all that anger is hard to carry around. Maybe I convinced myself that it was healthier, and me happier, to just live my life and let the world be the world, you know? Besides, I'd at least gotten my article into print.
Now that I'm picking it back up, my partners and friends have seen some frustration on my part and I suspect they worry about me a little bit.
Yeah, there is some, indeed:
In 2010 I began writing my autobiography, to reassess myself and get my bearings, and as I put my experiences into words I realized this was a new tool in my hand. But having a publication-worthy book doesn't get you published. These days one doesn't directly query a publisher, one gets an agent and the agent contacts publishers on your behalf. So first you have to get an agent interested. Being able to write a clever snappy query letter isn't really the same skill as writing the book, so for months I cranked away at it, editing my pitch, being told by other authors in blunt terms that it was no damn good. Then I'm told that my original website (where I have many of my academic theory papers up for folks to read) is so "unprofessional" and antiquated-looking that it will drive away any potential agents who see it. Then I'm told that it's not very likely that a memoir will get published unless I have a platform, I need a social presence, a premade audience of potential readers of my book, fans-in-advance. Where have I been doing public speaking?
Well, OK, yeah, I could do presentations, I've been a teacher... but when I go forth to volunteer myself as a speaker, people may say "Yeah, who are you? What's your audience, who will come to hear you speak?" You need a blog, I'm told, so I have a blog (and hey, this is fun!)... but now how are you going to direct sufficient traffic to it? Who is tweeting about you?
I am by nature reserved and shy, even if also self-confident; so now I gotta be some kind of effusive gregarious extroverted salesman? Not just that but an effusive gregarious extroverted salesman explaining really personal things about myself. Thrills.
But I'm in a different space now than I was when I was 23 or 30. I am now in the relationships that were only theoretical when I was first trying to come out. I have the good life and the personal joy and happiness that my ideas told me I could have. I have the confidence that comes from all that.
And frustration is not a bad thing. Not at all. Consider: I am trying to tell the world, "Hey, world, hey society, look at what you're doing here. This shit's got to stop". It is an angry sentiment. To express it, I am going to have to do a lot of things that will not come easy to me: putting myself out there, being pushy about having a message to convey, shoving myself forward into networks of people, grabbing them by shoulder and hand and introducing myself. Networking and self-promotion. To do that, I will need to have the energy to do it. The determination to do it. The stubbornness. I will need the anger.
I embrace my frustration. It will be my engine. I will temper it with confidence and patience and I will harness it.
This is what I intend on doing, if necessary for the rest of my life. Watch me.
————————
Index of all Blog Posts