A Place to Scream
A Place to Scream is not a place but a chasm. A scream can be a shout into the void or a protest song—a cry, a catharsis, a celebration. Or this space can entangle itself into its own parts: a lingering in between-ness, a spell, a perfect uncertainty. A Place to Scream is interested in the collective intersections between disciplines, where rupture and disparity can morph into a grander diasporic consciousness, holding each other with urgency.
A Place to Scream
Ep.11 Off the Dome & In the Heart Space
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If you're driving, put it in park- if you're standing, please be sat. Because today, we are ripping off the bandaid and diving in heart first into the scary wounds of commitment. It is one thing to be committed to liberation on a practical, more logic driven, level, but what does it mean to be dedicated to what Toni Cade Bambara refers to as "the radicalized self"? What does it look like to deject from a culture of surveillance and punishment to seek the still quiet voice of wholeness? This is only part one of this conversation, of which will likely be returned to as we all grow in maturation in this liberative journey. Stay tuned for more!
instagram: @place2scream , @lagnajita14 , @safara___
substack: SafeWord!
books references: Alice Walker's Meridian + Possessing The Secret of Joy, Imani Perry's Black and Blues: How a Color Tells the Story of My People
Hello, my name's Saf.
SPEAKER_02And I'm Blogner G Uh, and welcome back to a Place to Scream podcast. Today's episode is Off the Dome and In the Heart Space.
SPEAKER_00Well, we're back for another one, folks.
SPEAKER_02Are you sick of us yet?
SPEAKER_00Have you had enough? Happy pride! Happy pride. Happy pride to all the hee she we they thems. Happy pride to all of my fellow, because now I have dyed my hair. All of my dyed-haired, anemic, delicious non-binaries. I know y'all are all struggling out here in this heat. But you know what? The bricks must be thrown. The the ass must be thrown. Our our skin must be getting tanned. We're out here.
SPEAKER_02Um, well, currently it is torrentially raining in London. But um, mark my words, I think this is just the grieving period from from our gay god. Uh, and then we're going to we're going to slowly transition out of this mess um back into you know the ways that God intended for us to be.
SPEAKER_00Um well to quote a by our bisexual icon, Frank Ocean. Sometimes I'm dancing.
SPEAKER_02Tears in my ass. Um shout out uh Dr. Carice John. Um that was my epigraph to my final final essay for my American literature class. Oh my god. What? I didn't know the essay was on Eastern philosophy in the four quartets.
SPEAKER_00Oh my god.
SPEAKER_02And yeah, sometimes I dance with tears in my eyes was uh the epigraph. So uh shouts, shouts out to the English department for uh making me who I am today.
SPEAKER_00Oh my lord.
SPEAKER_02Oh my god. Yes. Uh anyway. Comment down below if I should release that on Substack. It's a pair of gems.
SPEAKER_00Press press the number three in the comments if you think that the Gina should release this epigram. Well, folks, we're you know what? We're we're here to speak off the dome and from the heart. We are in the spirit just speaking from the heart space, really. Just speaking from the heart space on the real tip. Let's you know what? In in the spirit of pride, in the spirit of debauchery, in the spirit of queer love, in the spirit of queer joy and queer resistance, we are talking about commitment. Oh no. Oh no! That nasty, nasty word. I can't believe you've done this. The the Freddy Krueger, the find you in your dreams, find you in the woods, finds you when you are feel the most safe, the most relaxed, the most yourself. Them commitment issues are coming for your ass.
SPEAKER_02Back room's final boss.
SPEAKER_00We we it is coming for you, whether you like it or not. So we are here. We are here as your martyrs, as your as your knights and warriors, your Jones of Arcs, dare I say, into the battlefield of commitment.
SPEAKER_02You know, I didn't this was way above my pay grade. It says this is a conversation we've avoided uh being who we are as people for um months now. Um and it's you know, I refuse to let anyone label me as an avoidant, but um gag. However, comma. Um if the shoe fits.
SPEAKER_00And you know what? Yeah, if the shoe fits, uh You must acquit. By the second OJ reference in 11 episodes, the second one, that's crazy. I'm so sorry.
SPEAKER_02Um that's absolutely nuts. Let's get room and down, let's get down to business to defeat the Huns.
SPEAKER_00Ugh, okay. Sink down with me, folks. I have um I've been on, and now that it is sunny, even though it is about 5 billion percent humidity out here in Miss Southeast Michigan, um, I have been sitting on my porch doing my little meditations, etc. And you know what? I have actually been uh I've been out of a regular therapy practice for I would say now it's been about maybe eight months, which is kind of insane.
SPEAKER_03Boop.
SPEAKER_00Especially for folks who uh who've been on the ride with me for quite a while now. I it was a regular once, twice a month for like four straight years, and then like once a month for two more years. So, you know, we're really out here. And um I most of that has been uh just because I was in a good enough place. I felt pretty self-sufficient for the time being, etc. etc. But uh for whatever reason uh in these little meditations, I've really have been thinking about, or the the narratives that keep coming up is about uh my relationship to people, my relationship to family, and my I guess kind of putting myself through different, I don't want to say lines of questioning like I'm interrogating myself, but just being curious about the way I relate to people. I ultimately just came to like realizing how much of an effect my the the examples of relationships that have existed in my life, early ages and you know, early, you know, early 20s dating and stuff like that. I've just really been illuminated to the shit ass examples that I have had by basically my whole life, and I think that many people, I I've I'd argue most people do not see health reflections of healthy relationships most of the time. Um and yeah, I don't know. I've I've really been feeling a strong, you know, maybe maturation into this curiosity of like I actually am genuinely curious about it as opposed to that kind of shame inner voice that's like I know I have commitment or just relational issues, but I don't want to deal with that right now. Right. It's it feels a bit more mature in the sense that I'm like, oh, this is the next step. Like, there is no other, you know, there's no other prereqs to take. There's no other, you know, oh, I need to be working on this in order to do this, blah, blah. There's no rationale anymore. It's like, sister, get with the fucking program. Because you're trying to be a better person out here. You're trying to experience love in a way that you believe in, that your belief your your systems of belief literally champion and like are directing you towards. Like this liberative heart space, this liberative idea of community, etc., etc. So like be about it or don't.
SPEAKER_02Well, damn. Five minutes into the episode, folks.
SPEAKER_00So that's just like where I'm checking in right now.
SPEAKER_02Oh my god. Um to second the notion. I mean, I I don't think I'm like I don't think I've uh grounded in in it um as much as you, perhaps. Um but I do feel like yeah, it's that it's that scary mask lingering in the in the background, just always trying to make an appearance. Um but yeah, I find it interesting how you know this link between something that feels very like super individual almost, um, like an individual choice, an individual mindset, a state of mind, or like a trauma response, like whatever it is. Um how that is like linked to this collective like liberation that you're talking about. Um I mean, we've obviously already discussed in-depth like isolation. Um but yeah, I would love to hear more about like some of these meditations that you're having, like on the kind of opposite end of isolation, and you know, not necessarily on the on the buzzwords of community, but like on on the interpersonal level, on the self, you know, relational level, like how do you connect, you know, the heartwork? Um and you know, I hesitate to call it like healing because you know, it just sometimes healing feels very like linear, like like you're uh achieving a certain goal, and then you know, kind of like what you said, like there's step A, step B, step C, I've done these steps and now I'm healed. Like um, but yeah, just more so along the lines of how you connect commitment issues to you know the larger work that that we're engaged in.
SPEAKER_00Totally. I think I so like we've talked about this in private before, of like me like wanting to get uh you know, working towards a artist visa for the UK.
SPEAKER_02Please cosmic gods get Safara over here.
SPEAKER_00Surely they're on the they're doing their you know, they're slowly but surely. I have I have faith and trust. But you know, I've been w I've been I think it was quite conceptual. I think so. Early days of me thinking about this was like 2024, three or four. Um, but really I've been thinking about wanting to move out of the states for fucking I don't know ten years probably uh of like this kind of dream generally. But it felt like a very un unattainable dream. Sure, I'll travel to Europe or I'll travel, you know, whatever. But it's you know, the concept of a life outside of the life I was living was just like bitch, I don't I don't I do not have the imagination for that. Um and so it just, you know, it was just kind of this off-distance thing. But as, you know, as I you know, mature and become more become more of a participant in my own life. Boop. I I think the with the m with the agency that I've gained in the last like six years of quite intensive therapeutic practice Um I have learned I've I've really star started to close the gap uh between the lack of agency that I feel, felt, used to feel about my own life. Of me just being the victim, the punching bag of whatever, and my actualized, you know, dream state of how I would like to live. The gap has gotten c smaller in a good way. Um I've gained more agency. And so I think at the top of this year, this will connect, just give me two seconds. In the top of this year, I had um some really, really bad pain flare-ups and different medical things that have come up that luckily, you know, aren't the most detrimental things that I know. I have close friends who have had really fucking scary health concerns the last year or so, and so, you know, I'm grateful that it hasn't put me at like complete, you know, harm's way. But regardless, it's something that I was unaware of of how bad it was, and it's related to hypermobility, it's a lot of a lot of just physical joint pain, really fucked up, whatever, along other things. And weirdly enough, I feel like the commit the the ideas of commitment and how it connects to a liberative struggle started with the physical pain that I was feeling because I felt like it took some of that agency and power away from me. And I could feel myself uh feeling very powerless and internalizing this narrative of powerlessness. Yeah of like, damn, I really did all of this fucking work, the ABCs, I did all of this fucking step one, two, three, and I'm still powerless. Like that that is really a painful thing to feel. And it made me want to isolate, it made me want to it made me want to revert back to the existence I had before. Big and I think now that I do have the skills that I have, I was able to at least take myself out of that spiral and say, hold up a second, let me get into some like higher self and realize like this is an opportunity to break some cycles of isolation. You need to be asking for help. You need to be you need a walking aid. You need to be and you need patience and you need to commit to your patience with your own body. Because this is not this isn't because, oh, you're not eating well and your body is reacting to whatever. Sure, diet and exercise always has to play a part in something. But ultimately, like, no, bitch, you have chronic pain because you have an autoimmune issue that is out of your control. You are going to be dealing with this your entire life. That is okay. But you need to accept that that's happening, that you're not this like your body is not a bulldozer. And through these readings that, you know, we'll probably get into, is I've been reading a few books recently that have been really helpful of as a reminder of like a major part of the sensation of the of the actualized idea, but also the feeling the literal embodiment of liberation is learning uh how to include other people in your own work. And oh that gagged me gag. Because I don't like that. Well So yeah, I mean, long, very long story, but you know, I think weirdly the the the conduit for this understanding was my physical like chronic ill pain and illness issues. Yeah And now we out here.
SPEAKER_02I mean I do think obviously mind-body connection and all that, but but also like I think what interesting to compare body to bulldozer because I think like again, I have to give so many disclaimers on this shit, but again, shitty slam poetry aside, um I feel like we were having a discussion about this last night of like a lot of these issues come down to this this uh in feeling of entrapment um that you know is the resultant of various obviously systemic structures, but also um is the resultant of very like interpersonal, you know, community-based, commitment-based structures. Um I think obviously when like physical pain, I mean similarly, I've been, you know, uh dealing with some chronic pain for a bit as well. And I was talking to a friend and I was like, you know, it's just I guess this is like what aging's like, and it's like, you know, this bullshit of like you know, uh as women, how we're like conditioned to view like aging and like the the deterioration of our bodies, etc. etc. etc. But my friend was like, um, yeah, sure, but it's also not normal. Yeah. And I was like, oh. Um I was like, yeah, I am only about to be 29. Like, I I there is there is something to be said about this like narrative of like, oh, we've accepted the entrapment of the deterioration of our bodies. We've accepted that you know we we face this kind of pain, whether that be like physical, emotional, whatever, whatever, whatever. Like we've survived for so long, we've battled for so long, da-da-da-da-da. This is just how it is. And um, this this is what happens to people like us, I guess. And and when they were like, No, I mean, it's not normal, actually. Uh it's actually it could be a combination of loads of different things that are actually symptomatic of of larger problems. It's not necessarily the the the passing of time. No, literally. You know, and I was like, oh, this is like this is actually like a good reframing in the sense of from our conversation last night of like every so often we do have to remind ourselves that we are, you know, at the steed of our own life. Um and things will and can will continue to happen to us, uh, that's not in our control. But like at the end of the day, like no one else can actually, you know, address those issues or or no one else is you know in charge or responsible. Um and it's not necessarily fair, but you know, yeah, I do think that like feeling like there's a lot of th like what can you know, not taking it to the point of again the healing culture of like, oh what did I do wrong? What more can I do different to like, you know, to heal or to improve or like you know, the kind of the toxic wellness culture that we live in. Um not necessarily in that sense, but in the sense Of like, how can I reframe, you know, like the helplessness that we're feeling? And how can that be done through like a recommitment or maybe you know a first-time commitment to certain things that we've been uh putting off or you know, forgetting?
SPEAKER_00Well, I um this will be the first of many literary references. Well, this is technically the second, because yours was the first. Um, but I um just finished reading the other day uh This Here Flesh by Cole Arthur Riley, um originator of black liturgies on Instagram, also a guest of the Liberation Podcast hosted by yours truly five years ago. Which is conceptually insane. Five years ago? That don't make no damn sense. Five years. Um, but anyways, they it's kind of like a book broken into different I would, you know, weird to say meditation, but basically a meditation. Um, and there is a whole chapter on rest in here. And they uh she talks about her grandma as well as uh the matriarchs, and really just you know, generally the lives of enslaved people and in the US and kind of generally everywhere, wherever they've been enslaved. But the the concept of rest in small notions, so like the connections of rest and agency itself. Um and they talk a lot about how you know at times uh when our agency feels so small if you know, whether that's self-induced into a spiral or if that is a material condition that is creating that sensation um in us, there is um her kind of I I guess recommendation or her process of of dealing with that is um relating to the small acts of rest and resistance. I think part of our conversation yet last night was also thinking about um in these moments of what we were calling an existential embarrassment, right? What these conditions literally what these conditions create in us is an existential embarrassment. Um and you know, we can go in and describe that further in a second, but I there's something that Cole says like multiple times or reiterates throughout the book of when we feel at our smallest, sometimes it is best to think of the smallest example of a resistance to whatever feeling you are having that can help you claw your way back to a more at least neutralized state, if not neutralized, at least gets you to a point of what can I I hate, you know, what can I learn? It's like a sometimes that feels like it's putting the pressure back on like, well it's your job to like turn this turd into a diamond, like you know, like whatever. Right. But you know, what can I do? What small agency do I have in this moment of, you know, fascistic bullshit? What agency do I have to at least bring myself bring myself dignity?
SPEAKER_02So I think, you know, to kind of go off of what we were saying earlier, it it's I feel like I'm at a point in my life, you know, and we've discussed this before, of like I don't know if it's an age thing. I think, you know, as I brought up the aging comment from before, I was like, maybe it is an age thing, and I've just been avoiding like kind of interacting or engaging with the idea of of of getting older. Um and you know, I I have an I've always I always have, and I, you know, I still am I'm strangely terrified of death. Um I think from when I was a kid, I remember like I anytime I would think of the concept of of you know death, I would get this like pit in my stomach that felt like a black hole. Um and like my whole body would kind of like shudder a bit. Hmm. Um it always felt like a very existential fear. Um and I've been thinking about it more recently because I mean not, you know, apart from the the many uh many a rumination on the the ending of a life um or the the purposeful ending of a life. Um apart from that, just it's been on my mind, I think, a lot recently, thinking about family and thinking about, you know, legacy and thinking about, you know, like what are we leaving behind and like what have we inherited and you know I've always had this just and I you know I'm sitting with it now of like one day just you know we won't exist. So it's kind of like all this consciousness not to like not to be like so inflated, have such a big ego, but like all of this consciousness and all these thoughts and all of these feelings and all of these ideas and all of this like you know I don't even know if you can call it at my age like potential and like girl you know what I mean? I'm just I'm like sticking to the sticking to the the the theme at hand here, yeah. Um like all of this will just like cease to exist. Um and it feels like as a direct result of that, I've been feeling very useless. Um in the sense of like there's there is and there always has been like fucking loads going up going on in the dome. Like it's it's always been like that. It's not like um it's not a vacuousness of of thought. Um it's just kind of this inability, maybe not inability, but this kind of you know anticlimactic resultant of such thoughts. Um where it's like and and then you know, we both resonate on this of like we've got like again a lot of ideas, a lot of you know I like to think that I live my life in a way that feels very rooted in my belief system. I like to think that I have very strong ideas of of value and like values and ethics, and you know, like what I think is is the the key to like a liberative world, to like a better world for all. Um however, um the being soldiers in that fucking battle, yeah, that we reference almost every episode, like it is a recurring theme, right? Where it's like it's not like uh it's not a fucking choice, it's a duty and it's a responsibility to be on the front lines, but that means that we're fucking just decimated every day, right? So I think recently I've been feeling like, oh, like, you know, what the fuck are my prospects? Like I've you know not done anything that is quote unquote expected Um from a woman my age or whatever, like bullshit. And you know, not not to say I obviously have never subscribed to like what is expected of me, but at the same time the societal pressure still exists. The societal pressure still exists, where it's like, you know, on one hand you've got these like looming feelings of like disappointing yourself in terms of your creativity, in terms of your career, like in terms of financial stability, in the fact that I can never support my parents um the way that I wanted to, and like you know, all of like what the fuck am I gonna do in five years? You know, like none of that is certain, obviously. Yeah, well, one can one can deal with that if uh if there's some other elements of life that feel like you're hitting the mark, right? Um but I think recently it's been an overwhelm of like I feel very lonely. Um I feel like I failed in two different western uh systems and structures. I've immigrated an East, bro. Right. Just tried and failed twice to like, you know, belong somewhere. Um, not that I don't feel belonging in London's probably the closest thing I've felt to home, but like to to perform or to play the part that these places expect us to play is not something I have ever been able to do. So, yes, maybe you can call that a failure. Um, and I feel like a failure in that like I've tried over and over, like every time we failed, right? We've been knocked down, we fucking try again, it's the same like pattern, but if if I don't have the feeling of like solidarity with people around me, I don't know how we can answer the questions of community, I don't know how we can answer the questions of commitment, how we answer the questions of legacy, liberation, and all of these big questions because again, it's not a question, sorry to ramble, but again, it's not a question of like oh I have no one in my life. That you know, that's not what it is at all. It's just it seems to be indicative of a larger problem of like a larger societal problem of like I don't necessarily subscribe to the idea of like, for example, big friend groups or like having loads of people to like go to functions with. That's not how I view real friendship. Um that's time passed, as we say in in India, you know. And I can procure that. I think anyone is capable of having a having friends. Like, I don't think that that's like you know the problem here, but I do think there's a demonization of people that struggle to make like to maintain like genuine relationships. Um and I think it's larger than us. I don't think it's like you know, you there's all this all of these narratives of like, oh, it seems like if this keeps happening to you, then you're the problem. Like maybe you need to fix yourself, maybe you need to like behave this way or that way, but yeah, I feel like we've tried and tested the theories or like or or the or the the ways of being that we could be, and I'm like, I don't want to be that way. So then how do we reconcile the lack of commitment we experience um with with the lack of commitment we feel prepared to give? Mmm. Mmm.
SPEAKER_00Do you know what I mean? Someone hit my. I'm sitting. I'm I think that's like a really a really excellent way to phrase that question, so I'm just sitting with it for a second. But um I'm gonna put a pin in that question just for a second. But I want to um it's embarrassing.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I forgot to even mention that. It feels yes, feels embarrassing that I'm at a place I'm at this place in my life, and I feel like, you know, of course I have a lot to show for it, but I feel like I don't have enough to show for it, maybe. Yeah. I don't know. Existential embarrassment.
SPEAKER_00Yes. Um, well, thank you for sharing those feelings, because that's those are hard feelings to grapple with just on a private level and difficult to say on a public level. Um yeah, you know, even through shaky voice, it is very important. But um, so don't obviously that's important to acknowledge, but also I think um what I've been this is a a a left field reference, sort of, not really for us because we've been talking about it privately, but it it something that has really gagged me about watching the show Couples Therapy and reflecting on the way my therapist and I interact, um, I guess I kind of didn't even realize what you know how important it is to recognize what you're hearing in a in a longer tangent of what somebody's saying. And I think often when when either of us are feeling what is both uh global in size and extremely small in our interpersonal inner worlds, you know, it touches on both s both uh ends of the scale in terms of size of impact, but as well as um how we interact in the world. It it like you know, the scale of interpersonal and personal politics how it's reflected on the outside, you know, there's a like a large scale that's happening. And but at the core of it, of this like embarrassment is um feeling like you're not enough. Yeah. And that happens through both right, that's reflected in two fuck-ass ways, where it's a capitalist white supremacist society, a increasingly, ever increasingly fascistic global consciousness that always is always going to tell you, regardless of what you do, it's going to be a forever-moving goalpost, is going to be a forever-moving identity politic, it's going to be forever moving. You're never gonna be good enough within a capitalist society, even if you're white, straight, and cith, and moneyed, you're still not good enough. That's why domination exists, right? Right, uh, it exists out of an inferiority vacuum. And um so that there's that. And then on a liberative, on a collective scale, if you were looking to our peers left and right, our comrades left and right, we are all battling that same demon. I would say there are many people's coping skills that are fucked. Yeah. But that is also leaving people who are regardless if you have commitment or relational relational issues, we are still seeking a connection in some way. You know, we're still and when that's rejected, or if that's thrown back in your face, it you're getting it on both sides. Right. It's leaving you in a in a in an exile of some kind. Right, self-exile. Yeah. It's a self-exile and yeah, it's a self-exile. And that's our protection, right? Like I think you and I both can identify with isolation being a protective mode. Yeah. Um, and I think many people who are displaced or immigrants ex it it feel that on a very cellular level, right? Yeah. It's safe to be uh internal, it's safe to be here, like never leaving right here. And sometimes, for me personally, I think what keeps me in that protective mode obviously is the constant, you know, being reflected over and over and over and over again, whether it through dating or through family systems or whatever, of like, you're not enough, you're not doing enough, I'm also gonna take from you, right? I'm gonna tell you, uh, I'm gonna tell you who you're not being, what you should be, da da da da da. All of my projective desires, needs, wants to you. But for me, the embarrassment started coming in when I knew there was an alternative. I know that there are other people I know I'm not alone in this feeling. Right. But somehow I am still alone. Right. I still feel lonely. And I can see myself from the outside being this well of resource but I there's some there's a missing there's a missing element here.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um I don't, you know, we're we're having this conversation in the present, right? So I I don't have an answer for that missing piece, right? But I can acknowledge that um that something that I've learned through these books that we're re I've I've been reading, but also, you know, being in different cohorts, just kind of being outside, just being on a I've been in a much more observant vibe lately of just looking at people and just kind of witnessing. Yeah. And I think, you know, I've really been humbled, humbled in a good way, of like there are brilliant people everywhere who have the same values as us. And who, you know, whatever they might be, they might be an internationally published poet or they might be not want to be published by any means, but they're, you know, whatever, you know, whatever varying degrees that people exist and want to do with their creativity, etc. etc. Something about something changed about I think when I would see people who might be really brilliant to me, I would be like, why aren't you doing something on a bigger scale? Like, why aren't you why aren't you doing more? Like more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more, more. And I've really started to like question that judgment. Because number one, who the fuck am I? And not in like a not in a mean way, but it's like sister, like what? Like, who are you to tell anybody like what they should or shouldn't be doing? That's crazy. But also, like, oh, I've actually had to hold on to this kind of all I not quite self-engranizement, but something like that, something ego, where I've had to put my abilities in a really protective, higher up shelf where it can't be touched, and parts of my vulnerable self has to be up there because of all the bullshit reflection that I keep getting from this material world that we live in. And I don't know, I just I've really found myself softening this idea of like scale. Of like, I don't actually need to make anything big in the sense of like I shouldn't my work isn't gonna bring me community either. That's big, yeah. Have been saying in a couple episodes, more or less, is that like a revolutionary life does not guarantee you anything. That's the same thing about the revolutionary work that you do. Your revolutionary thoughts, your revolutionary creativity, none of it guarantees you anything.
SPEAKER_02In fact, it does the opposite.
SPEAKER_00It often does the opposite. And I think I you uh there's a real sorrow that comes with that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's grieving, that's what it is, right?
SPEAKER_00It's a lot of grief that comes with that, but I'm also realizing, you know, more and more is like okay, kinda good. I want to be in community as Seth. Right. Yeah. Which means all of me has to show up. Right. Not just a poet, not just a scholar, not just these things. Because there's still a border between who I am and whoever I'm trying to interact with. Yeah. And I'm just kind of softening myself to that of like, okay, so if we take away that, if we take away that approach to like community, of like my work is what brings me community, my blah blah blah or whatever, what am I left with? Just the things that I how I interact with people on the day-to-day, my relationships. And I just think that, you know, for me, I feel like I want to do a better job of not just relying on my intellectual properties to be the thing that I ultimately connect with people on. Even though that is a good thing, and it is like our revolutionary efforts are going through that, there's that is still only a part of me. And I want to give space to the other parts of me that have been put away, right, or that feel the most vulnerable, or who feel the most infantilized at the moment, you know? Um, and give them space to feel and be and exist and not just have to be shoved away as I intellectualize, or if as I do these other things that maybe I've been able to survive on without this other parts of me existing or or being vulnerably out.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I mean, so what I'm hearing, like mainly, and you know, it's might sound cheesy or cliche, but again, things are cliche because they're true. Um, it feels like it feels like the the omnipresent thing is like a commitment to self, right? I think it's I think like I can use so I was recently on holes and I was doing a bit of solo traveling in the Balkans. And you know, I was staying at this hostel and I was there for a little bit longer. And yet again I was reminded at how easily and how quickly humans can connect with one another. Um and also I was reminded of how how being a being kind of a a student of the world, um, being kind of uh an observer, like you said, um how far that goes into like, you know, creating connections with the people that you feel like you know you will have a connection to. And in those settings, I feel very unapologetic about like, oh, I know, you know, me and this person are not gonna talk to me. Why should I spend any moment thinking about how this is a rejection, right? I shouldn't because I'm like, well, I don't want to talk to people that don't want to connect with people that are not like them. So what why am I feeling rejected? Or why am I feeling small or why am I feeling overlooked and like look how much I have to give. I'm funny and I'm smart. Like it's it's not relevant. What's relevant is how quickly in those situations, if I sit in my in my quietness, if I listen to people around me, I know immediately, within two seconds, you know, who who is on the same page. I know exactly what they're they're missing. I know about their deep sadnesses that they're not able to express. Like, yeah, not to psychoanalyze. I'm not trying to psychoanalyze, you know, I was joking about doing psychic readings, you know, that's kind of what was going on. But I can feel that, and I don't think it's like a superpower like people have made it out to be. I don't think it's like this crazy supernatural ability. I think it's literally just oh, I'm watching this go and like someone told her to like do something, she clearly doesn't want to do it, and she's like smiling and like kind of you know hesitant, and you know, what should I do? I want to step in and just do it. Like, yeah, it's not that it's not rocket science, right? Yeah, but I think it requires a certain level of commitment to self because you have to commit to the fact that like I am unapologetically, like you said, this is me. It's not just the funny cheetah I can pull out at the party, it's not just the the smart one who can like yeah, you know, drop some knowledge. It's this is what this is how I am, this is my personality, this is you know what I believe in, and this is how my mind operates. I can't really that's natural, that's just an innate thing that happens. Like, am I gonna commit to being myself? Or, you know, again, it's not really about authenticity, right? It's it's or as simple as like, oh, just be yourself. Like it's not that, yeah, it's not that simple. Um because at every given turn, being myself, being the kind of people we are, it's it's punished. It's punished by all aspects and elements of society. However, like you're not gonna feel better doing doing the other thing. And you're not gonna feel better committing to someone that doesn't want to commit to you.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02When there's a lot of lack of commitment that you're seeing, um, I think again, I don't have the answer to like uh to that question, but I think definitely what I know is not an answer is is committing to people that don't commit.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, and you know, this is actually really making me think of like you know, asking again, like where does this embarrassment come from? I think part of it is the knowing. Part of it is the knowing, you know, we we know we we are able to name upright, down, forward, and backwards every material way in which the a society does not want to see us th thrive. Right and yet we are still hurt by that. Yeah. That is painful. Yeah. It's painful to know that we are born into a sisy like Sisyphus nature. Like that that that's psh bruh, being being black and brown in an anti-black fascistic world. Right you it is a Sisyphian nightmare. Right. But I'm sure Sisyphus feels embarrassed sometimes. And that's real as fuck. I'm sure that man sometimes feels like a fucking fool going back down that motherfucking mountain.
SPEAKER_02And that was the that was the point of the punishment. Right.
SPEAKER_00Literally. And uh, you know what? Like, I'm with you, bro. Like, that shit's embarrassing as hell. But also, you know, to step out of the analogy a bit, um, there's a uh I think some of that the lingeringness of that of like it's hard to feel enough. Ooh, I'm about to cook. Y'all better sit down. If you're driving, put it in park, bitch. Because I'm about to cook. Seat belts on. Ooh, I'm about to drop something on y'all. I just got chills. It is still hard to feel enough in our leftist spaces because we are being policed non-stop on how to be the perfect revolutionary, the perfect leftist, the perfect whatever. We are inundated every motherfucking day. And sometimes we'd be doing it to ourselves going through those carousels. I'd be going through those TikToks, I'd be going through those carousels. How am I not doing enough? How am I not better? How am I not being as revolutionary as I should be? What knowledge do I need to know? What should I have known before? Da da da da all of these things. What should I have read? Why can't I read that author anymore? Why can't I do this? Well blah blah blah blah. Somebody tell me when I'm good enough. Right. Actually. The embarrassment is waiting for someone to tell you that you're good enough.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Or I see you. Or I see you. It's that simple.
SPEAKER_00The returning back to yourself. And this kind of pulls into uh Meridian and the other Alice Walker book that I was reading. Yeah, the returning to self to say to say I hear you, you know, comrades, I hear you. I hear what you're saying on how we can always be better. But respectfully and with love, I am dejecting and rejecting this notion of not being good enough. Your version of not good enough relies on surveillance.
SPEAKER_02Abolish the cop in your mind.
SPEAKER_00My engine and what I'm trying to transition my engine to be, and this is, you know, as I've said from the top, the first episode of this year, I am on discovery of my whys. Why I do be why I'm doing this shit. We and we might have arrived early. Um transitioning your internal engine from a I don't know, something that feasts on scarcity versus something that runs towards wholeness. I want to feel whole because I have lived a life or I lived in an environment that never made allowed me to feel whole. Yeah. A lot of my late teens, early twenties, early through mid-20s was an engine that was sprinting, allowing me to sprint away from the environment, but was not allowing me to reconcile with my own self-worth. When we look at characters like Meridian in Alice Walker's Meridian, or Tashi, who is in the secrets of possessing joy, uh possessing the secret of joy, excuse me. Um these are two characters who are black women that both experience very intense traumas in their early lives. They continue to kind of be isolated and isolated and isolated by these horrific things they witness over and over and over and over again, either in their immediate community, with Meridian being in like rural South, with Tashi being in her own village. They both make decisions that they think are bringing them agency, but they are ultimately out of obligation until they have a turning point of violence where they realize that I cannot be responsible for other people's violence. Yeah. I cannot hold myself responsible for the way that other people process or understand their own violence. I cannot be responsible for appeasing the way that people resist their violence. Resist the violence done onto them, I should say. And not bending to the whim and and timing of these other people. Regardless if they understand me or not, many a times they do not, and they try to come back over and over and over again, like cosmic lessons, over and over again, coaxing her, coaxing either of them back into a life of repression or some kind of fight that is not hers to take. And that leads them both in a very interesting, and I think this is what I also was gonna tag on about the scale of things that we were talking about earlier, is that as both books uh continue, their worlds get smaller and smaller, but their assessment of what they're doing, their work, the importance, the gravity of their work is becomes more and more rooted. And I find that so profound that we both find strong connections in Meridian because as we are both struggling with this scale of largeness of being overwhelmed by concepts that are global and interpersonal, also with these bodies that experience so much violence either ontologically or you know metaphorical. And perhaps an answer that Alice Walker provides in her work, I'd argue there are a few, I think Audrey Lorde is also a proponent of this thought of the smaller you can act, the smaller that you can realize yourself, it brings you to that quietness, that still quiet voice inside that tells you exactly what what needs to be going down.
SPEAKER_02First off, um I told y'all to sit down and put it in park. First the fuck off. Tell me how it's the year of our lord 2026. It's the first time we have done a book recommendation to each other. Right. Um bitch, out the gate, so far as like read Meridian. Um, and I'm like, okay. Sorry, this was over a year ago. Let me tell y'all that. Yes, yes, yes. Um, it was over a year ago, so far as like you're I mean, I feel like you might see yourself. You might see yourself in in in Meridian. Um I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Um I'm not really ready to see myself yet. Um, so then, I mean, that's just the truth. Um, I I needed I had to see loads of other things. Um, and then you know, Hermit era began this year. I'm like, you know what? I'm about to go on holiday. This seems like like absolutely not a holiday read whatsoever, but if you know the way I travel. No. If you know the way I travel, it certainly is uh the perfect um holiday recommendation. I was like, you know what? I'll bite. I'll bite. Bitch. Not me reading on the beach of Montenegro, crying in public. Mm-hmm. Yes, of course, it's it is as simple as like, yo, like, why is she me though? Um, yeah, like I was I was gooped and gagged. Uh I was like, this is the timing is crazy, the the similarities are crazy, the lessons are crazy. The smallness of life, you know, I think there we internalized this idea that we need to live a big life. Because it's gonna end one day. Like, it's gotta be big. And I and I've I always joke about how um I feel like I'm on my sixth life. Like, that's the scale, that's the scale I've lived. On the flip side of that, when you're coming into a certain quietude, a certain stillness, or in my case, finally the Hermit Era, um, it's not that you've never sat with your thoughts before, it's not that you don't understand yourself, it's not that you don't, you know, know, as you were saying, A to B, like what's going on mentally, and you can talk riddles around yourself. But like when you actually sit down at the end of the day, the the largeness of your life and the smallness of your life almost kind of feel the same. Um you know, and it it feels like and it's in her name. She's called Meridian, right? Right. We're talking global, we're talking a divide, we're talking a border, you know. At the start of the book, you know, sh there's a a literal page on all of the definitions of meridian. Yeah. Um, and how all of those definitions are so massive, yeah, um, and so varying, yeah, but also so so like precise and specific.
SPEAKER_00There is an example to go with that a different type of example for every one of them. Exactly.
SPEAKER_02And I think that is, I mean, I think specificity, I mean, if we're talking literature, we, you know, well, I we're not gonna spend the rest of this episode trying to I'm not gonna put my my all the literary elements on. Yeah, I'm not gonna put my English uh student hat on. However, like in the sense of this large, large life that this character has lived, um, but how precise and specific every incident, every plot point, every lesson that keeps returning, every trauma that keeps repeating. Um when you read it over the course of the life, it also just feels like quite small, right? Mm-hmm. And it's interesting how she could tap it like she as an Alice Walker could tap into this very specific and very individualized life in a very specific time in history, in the very specific uh arena of the American South during the civil rights era. Um to kind of tell this massive story on on revolution, this like massive story on on liberty practice and what it means to lead a revolutionary life and what it means to like be, as you said, rooted in the the pain as well as as well as the progress and how at the end of the day, you know, no spoilers, um, but how at the end of the day, like it's the quiet, it's the quiet comebacks, right? It's the it's the small moments of a of a of a revenge. It's it's the tiny fraction of feeling whole. Uh when you've lived your life in parts. Literal parts, literal chapters. Yeah, yeah. Um, yeah, I mean I'm sure we'll talk about it further in depth in more more episodes, but what a work.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. This um when you said when you were describing Alice Walker's ability to share a story that is seemingly so big but only a tiny function within the grander narratives that we're that we are aware of of of these movements and and whatever that you what really str that that really struck me for a couple of reasons. Um that is also you know, bringing me into this deeper understanding of like Meridian partnered with Bruh. I love when the universe just be giving you back to back books to read, and it's just like, damn, these all these all these bitches got connections, like this is Crazy because I'm reading um Blacks and Blue by Amani Perry, a story of how color um uh a c a story of a color that like changed our people or whatever. Um is the subtitle. But the she uses this the color blue and also the concept of blue um as a conduit to talk about a million little stories in black history that have all cumulated in our culture making and on a global scale. And that really just like as you were talking, like had I had misty eyes because I'm like, wow, like thinking of that of just like the concept of the color blue and how it exists in how she ties it from in one chapter she's talking about uh these beads in West Africa that they would use as bartering or they would use for like different, you know, just accoutrement like aesthetics and whatever, sometimes it was currency, different different reasons. But there was a it was a particular blue that in indigo, the indigo used in West Africa was extremely potent, da da da, whatever. Became basically the precipice for the transatlantic slave trade. Um was this access to indigo and uh tying that to this a story of the the island of Saint Dominic uh slash Haiti and how blue became both a you know a revolutionary color for them but uh for Haiti Haitians, but also became a weird, you know, in in their revolution and in their independence, indigo then also became a border wall between Dominicans and that became racialized by Spanish and the French and putting black people against each other, uh, and like all of this crazy stuff, and then tying it to um land stewardship in North America, where often when enslaved people were either killed or died of exhaustion or just passed naturally, they really na unnaturally because they were still being worked to death, but you get it, they were buried with unmarked graves. But often when you would see morning glories strewn across different patches of areas, or there's a different kind of different purple flowers and stuff, literally tying the color blue from life to death. That is the ultimate scale. And everywhere in between that life and death, there are like millions of stories of people's resistance, of people's joy, of people's culture making that like we'll never know every story. Right. Um but every story has its own universe. And that's what I want to be connected to.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And um yeah, this um that doesn't begin with me thinking obviously you w you the the I know I am my own cosmos. We are made of cosmos, right? But there is a I don't want to live to be known in that way. I want to live towards wholeness. Obviously, I'm creating my own record of this through our podcast, through our own poetry, through all of these things. Um But my scale is never global, you know. My scale is not to think globally. My scale like should be here.
SPEAKER_02Should be and in doing that, you are thinking globally. And I think I think that is like, you know, it's something I'm I'm still thinking about, you told me last night, and it it's something we tell each other all the time, but surely the the repeated lessons, the repeated lessons, the repeated trauma, the constant, you know, push and pull, like there is a lesson there, but it's a the lesson is you know, as you said, passed down from the ancestors. And I think like of course passed down like lineage-wise, but I think also just cosmically, as you said, like we are inheriting, you know, the cosmos because we are the cosmos, as you said. But I think, you know, each each story being like this is quite common in like you know, the lyric eye. You want everyone wanna argue about the lyric eye and the shit. But I think I'm such a proponent of it because I feel like w and what else? Right? But what else? And I think when we think about these like spiritual, like ancestral lessons, we think about the stories that you know are in that book. Um I feel like you would be a psychopath if that didn't touch you. You know, I feel like you would be so detached from yourself if those millions of stories didn't connect to you in some way, you know? And I think like as artists, what you said was really important. I don't think I don't think sharing your opinion, sharing your voice, I don't think that's the goal of art. Um I I do think that it is it is it's it's a cosmic remaking um and making and and and listening and and teaching and you know having like committing to that at the end of the day, let's tie it, let's tie it all back. Like committing to the fact that we are on the battleground, committing to the fact that every person, a universe, you know, committing to the fact that it is again, as we said before, a responsibility to like listen to these stories. It's not necessarily a responsibility to tell them. And I think if we think of it that way almost, um I don't know. I don't know what kind of change we can bring in interpersonal commitment, but I do think that will help us connect to something bigger than we are, and that will give scale without needing to feel like it is a mammoth task of pushing the rock up the mountain every day.
SPEAKER_00Yes. I think, you know, I with the um, you know, to to take from uh Tony K Bombarra A revolutionized self is a commitment to yourself. Like it is a commitment to the scary, the uncomfortable, the the fucking ugly, the like sick and twisted, all parts of it, and to purge, you know, hopefully, uh many elements that are destructive um to yourself and to others. But i there is um in the you know in her anthology, she the the reiteration over and over again is a turning inward. Um and the I think you you know when you are able to achieve uh a healthy relationship with this the still quiet voice, to understand it as your ultimate tool of self-knowing, um, as uh your ultimate tool to be in actual relationship with ancestors, to to to develop dialogue with ancestors because you know there it's it's one thing to feel the presence of it's a whole different fucking craft and work to work with them. Alright, yeah. Uh that's a whole different beast that we are beginning to start now, and I am gagged uh left and right. But the you know, the I've just noticed with even even just you know breaking the conversation barrier in that ancestral work, in the still quiet voice, learning to the gate first giving yourself the patience to just be, right? That's a revolutionary act for yourself of just like let me work against the timeline that this capitalist society expects me to be on, and let me actually work quite slowly and quietly. And then I think it's it's allowed me a softness to understand just my my present much better, and knowing like, okay, like I cannot um for me personally, I like what I think what has come up a lot is like my um my like trust issues, yeah. Trust issues with people, trust issues with myself, uh, trusting vulnerability, trusting uh whatever, trusting love. Yeah, right? Trust trusting love. Yeah. And uh unfortunately I do have to go to work in like 23 minutes, so we can't talk about commitment to love too much or for too long, but cliffhanger, but the I think um I am excited to see my capacity to trust love grow as I commit to the small thing that I can, which is to listen to myself and to listen to my ancestors.
SPEAKER_02Listen to your heart. When the call there for you Well, yes.
SPEAKER_00Um yeah, I mean T. I just, you know, I yeah, I think this is gonna be a a regular check-in for, you know, for both of us in general, of of like, okay, when we adjust the scales and we adjust who we're trying to talk to. Yeah. And who we who we actually desire response from the team. Who we actually value the response from. Let's be honest with ourselves. Let's be so real for that. Um, yeah, I just feel like not to be like corny boots, but I just like I think my world's gonna fucking change, dog. Like, that is a world-changing thing.
SPEAKER_02Happy fucking pride, everyone.
SPEAKER_00Happy pride, bitch! Happy pride, go be gay on the streets.
SPEAKER_02Go be gay on the streets. I mean, there's really no good way to end this episode because it's been fucking profound, if I do say so myself. This is gonna be a two-parter. I'm just I think I'm calling it right now.
SPEAKER_00Um yeah, I'm gonna call that. We're gonna do a pride. It'll be called the afters. It will be called the afters. This is the pride episode. The afters will be in July.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. And don't worry, we will be getting down to the nitty-gritty of the books that we mentioned because there's so much more to say on that. And and um I you someone will have to hold me back from not discussing the fucking mess that is the FIFA World Cup and the discourse surrounding it. But you know, what better way for the afters to take place than to fucking demolish?
SPEAKER_00If only we lived in the same city and we could we could do live recording at a pub or something and just go off.
SPEAKER_02Honestly. Inshallah one day soon come. Um, but thank you so much for listening. We got a bit, I had to like bring the jokes back in because I got a bit emotional.
SPEAKER_00Oh no, we we were we were sending some tins over in this camp, don't you worry?
SPEAKER_02Get a bit emotional, so I had to stop that real quick.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely not, not on my watch.
SPEAKER_02Um we will be getting into uh commitment and its relationship to love out of time, and so stay tuned for that. This was a fucking whammy of an episode.