the rasterization of it all
Foreword - This is written something like one of my spiraling paranoid obsessive thought loops. I've never /really/ written one before. My inside thoughts have been trapped behind the wall I'd been told about so often that I built without even realizing it. I've never been able to reproduce the exact words that could potentially come out of my head onto the page because literally everything I ever said had to be filtered to purity and remembered with perfect clarity. I sit there for hours formulating the perfect sentences to convey as much of the information as I can, editing them with more information as the first batch sizzles. Over time, I've gotten a LOT better at doing that right when I get a burst of creativity, or a deadline, but not when I'm having a depressive spiral. I have never journaled. But I don't want to just let those thoughts that continue to sit in my head consume me and only me, there's literally nothing I can do to affect them, so I may as well turn them into art that I can point at and be proud of. It's free to do it. And it'll help people understand me. Maybe it's just easier to work with the information bouncing around in here if I come at it with the perspective of an alien in orbit taking notes on humanity in the form of a letter.
Mom, if YOU'RE reading this, probably actually don't read this one unless you really really really want to know exactly what's wrong with me. If someone sent it to you, they probably think you could handle it. Or if you are suddenly overcome with the morbid curiosity to find out. This piece is, after all is said and done, a one way dialogue with you a-la Pink Floyd's Mother.
I've literally always been a punk, and I think you knew that, in some capacity. We literally worked together for YEARS. And now, while I may have spent longer in the mines with your sister, I still treasure the time I spent at home the most, because I was safe there. Not entirely safe, no one ever is; it's always been my safety and security causing the anxiety, biting at my fingers. I'll always be your baby angel. My paranoia abates, and these things must be known.
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To the Mothership,
Things weren't always like this on Earth, and they don't have to stay this way. From orbit, I have watched as humanity continually proves to me that they cannot be trusted to bloom into a truly viable civilization any time soon. Not like fixing that is my decision to ultimately make, I guess, but it's true nonetheless and I refuse to stop talking about it. We can't just instantly fix something that's been broken so many times without truly acknowledging each and every bit of damage. The human social system is completely nuts. It's a blurry, grainy menagerie of a collection of societies far past their primes, grasping at their glory days like Ozymandias. Cracks in the warped mirror of history have left their realm rasterized, compressed, a distorted ghost of its previous forms. History is full of barbarism committed in the name of many gods and powerful humans. The present day is full of barbarism committed in the name of many gods and powerful humans. The cycle will not end without our input and final say in the matter. What was, is, and will forever be, without it. This Earth and its countries WILL exhaust its natural resources posthaste, launching everything into the sky in one final spectacular celebration of infinite greed, and thereafter its peoples will have no legacy to speak of in spite of their hopelessly toiling away forever, grasping for more, more, and yet more. Unless, something changes. I had seen it written hundreds of times, been warned against it thousands of times. So I wrote in opposition, in everything I said or did in the past, for my art that was intended to be consumed for pleasure. And I never recorded the truth. Truths cloaked in fantasy, if ever. I'd bring it up and put it down and say just enough to not get in trouble. It is now time to make a thesis, to put my foot down, instead of putting the problems down, again, before they break on the fracture point, again, dissolving this construct of society into barbarism. Again.
I really don't want to have to beat around the bush anymore. I'm transgender. The signs were always there for most everyone to see and simply refused. Ask Dad about prom night, the wall I had built that night became insurmountable. No words exchanged on the worst night of my life. I latched onto Pink Floyd because of it. I've been a grown ass lesbian for almost a decade now. And recently, I don't feel safe leaving the Orbiter at ALL.
The reparations that were made and glorified when you were children haven't functioned like the beautiful art of reuse via kintsugi; the system is more deeply broken than that. It's a stratified muscle that's been worn so thin from overuse and lack of care that they've forgotten what it feels like to relax for a while, allow it to heal properly, and then continue using it only as often as needed. As a neutral observer, this period of peace has not really felt all that peaceful. Their muscles of war have been stretched so tight, the snapback has never felt closer. As soon as I began my role as Transceiver, the year I woke up and recognized pain and the desire to be different, 2008, the world began to trend towards evil. There's something foul here eroding the very fabric of art as culturally important to people, and turning the purpose of life, instead, right back into the rat race for crumbs, scramble till you make it! And they won't even take care of the ones that get sick without cursing their futures or surviving loved ones! I get to watch it happen in real time. It is disheartening. In its own way, it's beautiful, by our species' standards, the phenomenon to avoid taking care of others who are hurting or dying is something incomprehensible, like the infinitely spreading tendrils of some deep cosmic horror. There are ways out of this mess that people cannot see, because members of societies all over the world have been blinded by propaganda against their fellows. We are all the same species. Is this not what we were taught, all of us? How can we suddenly be okay with the violence, forever, happening in the names of incorporeal beings? Humans, whose values to society were inflated by their popularity? They literally could just all work together and make it better, and I don't think I'm naïve for thinking that.
I'm out there for an hour or less at a time just passively absorbing what's going on, and even that feels like it's way too much for me. An hour. Tops. Granted, I am an empath by nature, the weakest mental genotype, wired to react to these psychological attacks by retreating into the safety of our mind palaces and recuperating. No one who has ever been born on Earth has been biologically prepared to handle this much information - new, burgeoning, social and economic information that affects all peoples and needs to be known about for what we thought life was to be able to continue as normal; how could someone not know these things are happening, or willingly cause them to happen - at once. An era of information, and nobody seems to know anything. I could hibernate another thousand years and they still would not be ready for phase 2. I am completely and utterly paralyzed with inaction. A rat in the trap.
Suzanne Collins wrote that series of books about what happens next if things aren't stripped to the bone and redone before the same actors of evil that tore your parent's world apart sink their teeth in again. And people all over seem to be pretty into the idea of making things better for everyone, recently. Because if we don't, that's what we'll get.
Now, no, this doesn't mean we've given up on Earth entirely, those of us still ambulatory out here in the Sol system. But I've changed my goals, my priorities, back to what they were. The jobs I was given couldn't break me into the mold. I always wanted to be a Helper, like Finn from Adventure Time. But I'm a system not made for this system. And I can't do the brainiac thing, either, the only thing I'm good for is keeping extensive records of many different types of things in my head, I've been useless since before I was born for anything other than writing fantasy novels with lore that only an insane person with thousands of hours at their disposal could create. Ever since I learned what a goblin was - and watched Lord of the Rings. I will not be able to find a pragmatically sustainable amount of success down any normal routes. The one still living with you won't be able to either. I promise, I've been pushing as hard as I can. We're Ferns, not normal, not reliable, not always helpful, certainly not always perfect, but we're still here and we still want to try, even if Dad hates me for being a girl for some reason. There's gotta be something I can do in this world that will fulfill me and mine, even if it's from the Orbiter; everyone has something, right?
Love you, Mom.
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