I write a lot of poetry. Some is good; some not. But to clarify since you cannot see my face, I am rolling my eyes. Poetry is my personal lens on my environment, a way to take this fractured, cruel, senseless world and, I guess you could say break it up and reassemble it in such a way that it will make sense to me later when I am confused about what it is this world wants from me. You have your own lens, and I encourage you to use it. In a later entry, I'll publish some poetry I have written, usually to convey the crushing pressure I have felt in my life.
.
Now 45 years old, I have made a few conclusions about pressure. Everybody is susceptible to the pressures I have in mind. Below is a list of a few of them. I left out of my list "whether to paint your nails pink or red"; nevertheless, I hope those of you who read my entry for today have already learned or I hope will grow to appreciate it some day --
-- Pressure to be educated, to drop out of school to work on the family farm, to sell drugs or sex or women. Pressure to join a union. To not join a union. Pressure to date women if you're a man, or men if you're a woman. Black if you're black; white if you're white. Yellow if you're yellow. Baptist if you're Baptist, never a Catholic if you're a Jew. Pressure to date anyone for that matter. Or to marry or divorce or live together, or to be celibate. To date medical professionals and avoid professional strippers, or their brothers, professional NASCAR drivers.
Pressure not to wear fur or volunteer at PETA or eat cows that are fed antibiotics. Pressure to clean your plate, to have more dessert, to avoid fast food. Pressure to be thin. Pressure to put on a few pounds. Pressure to exercise.
Pressure to keep the boys away from the new Boy Scout master because he is a [whisper]homosexual, because [whisper] homosexuals do not belong in any Christian-based organization. Because [whisper] homosexuals will molest all the boys or turn them into [whisper] homosexuals…
-- Pressure to be educated, to drop out of school to work on the family farm, to sell drugs or sex or women. Pressure to join a union. To not join a union. Pressure to date women if you're a man, or men if you're a woman. Black if you're black; white if you're white. Yellow if you're yellow. Baptist if you're Baptist, never a Catholic if you're a Jew. Pressure to date anyone for that matter. Or to marry or divorce or live together, or to be celibate. To date medical professionals and avoid professional strippers, or their brothers, professional NASCAR drivers.
Pressure not to wear fur or volunteer at PETA or eat cows that are fed antibiotics. Pressure to clean your plate, to have more dessert, to avoid fast food. Pressure to be thin. Pressure to put on a few pounds. Pressure to exercise.
Pressure to keep the boys away from the new Boy Scout master because he is a [whisper]
.
Hmm, pressure to steady your hand, swallow the lump in your throat and smile gratefully when Father Flaherty picks up your boys because -- say it Loud and Proud -- Men of God would never molest children.
Pressure to pretend you do not notice your husband's late-night visits to the boys' rooms because the last time you confronted him, he gave you quite a shiner -- you had to wear sunglasses to the grocery store and the school for the next week (he gives you black eyes and broken ribs and concussions even when you are too afraid to confront him) -- or because you have nowhere else to go, because no one welcomes you now because you ignored the late-night visits to the boys' rooms, you ignored your friends' concerns, you must have noticed the radically fallen grades, depression, anxiety, sudden angry outbursts, physical complaints, and you did not care enough to put an end to it.
Pressure to have a child you do not want, or an abortion you do not want, because one person says abortion is murder [because the aborted fetus might be the next Mother Theresa or Albert Einstein] and another says someone will only adopt the baby "if the baby is healthy." Pressure not to have children. To have children as a single mother. To wait until you are married to have children. Pressure to convince women, whom you do not know, that abortions are evil. Pressure to argue with women, whom you do not know, about your support of Choice. Or to hide your support of Choice, even though a woman's reproductive choices -- which, for those of you who only half-understand "Pro-Choice", includes choices about life, about virginity, abstinence, partners, safe sex, oral contraceptives, quitting oral contraceptives, tubal ligation, surrogacy, amniocentesis, artificial insemination, abortion, life support, advance directives, assisted suicide -- are based on experiences and emotions and history no other person in the world fully appreciates, truly understands, let alone cares to acknowledge are more important factors than what a stranger says at the county fair while holding up a jar containing a plastic Mardi Gras doll covered in ketchup.
Pressure to picket the abortion clinic where you aborted a fetus, which you don't feel is hypocritical because you are now a "Christian" (read, the pro-Life philosophy was inconvenient for you five years ago). Pressure to bomb an abortion clinic. To shoot an abortion doctor. To support stem cell research, or to seek to have it banned.
Pressure to accept the new transvestite neighbors because -- didn't you see To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar? Pressure to brutally beat and rape a transvestite because you left the bar with her and you need to teach her a lesson for making you feel like a fool you in front of your friends. Pressure to revile transsexuals because they are an abomination of God [remember: Loud and Proud!]
Pressure to take your little sister's Ritalin because you need to study, or you need to drive, or you need to feed your addiction. Pressure to enable the substance abuser(s) in your life because you are used to it anyway and it's one of the few things you are good at. Pressure to overplay your girlfriend's occasional excess drinking to show you care. To shun the substance abusers in your family [because they are a drain on society], to shun the recovering substance abusers at the sober living home down the street, even if one of the recovering substance abusers is a member of your family [because it's only a matter of time before they use again, right?]. Pressure to take drugs yourself, take too many drugs, drink alcohol, to introduce booze and drugs to your friends. Your younger siblings, your cousins. Pressure to drink socially on occasion, or on weekends, or all week long, or from a paper cup at work, or at lunch every day with your boss.
Pressure to accuse drunk drivers not that they are ill but that they are evil because of the potential to negatively impact others. Pressure to be the designated driver. Or to drink anyway and get yourself home -- what friends? Or take the car keys from the drunk customer. or from the guy sitting next to you at the bar.
Pressure to do good in this world, to do bad to this world, to do anything you can to avoid this world or to take advantage it or to flip it off. Pressure to hit another, your spouse, your child, a stranger. Pressure to cut yourself, to kill yourself. To kill another to pay that bastard back for some unforgiveable wrong. To kill everyone in line at Burger Hole because you got fired. To vote to kill another because the state says he should die as a consequence of killing another. Pressure to save someone who needs you or a group that needs you, or to give your life attempting to save another, whether or not he can be saved, to save a cat caught in a tree. [But don't take the car keys from that drunk guy at the bar?]
Pressure to join class actions because in 1973 you bought a newspaper in the lobby of a building in whose basement there was a furnace lined with asbestos tiles that could have endangered your health. [That you are alive and in good health, except for the shadow on your lung from being a three-pack-a-day smoker since your were 17 is beside the point.] Pressure to support lawsuits against auto makers because drivers of their vehicles were injured or killed in crashes while ignoring seatbelt laws. Pressure to pay large settlements to pedestrians crossing the Beltway on foot in rush-hour traffic and were hit by a car.
Pressure to believe this world is always good, there is always hope, there is always justice, there is always art. Believe this would be a better world if all Blacks were lynched or refused an education or denied opportunities for which they are well qualified. Believe Muslims are irrational radicals who do not deserve to control their oil-rich countries because they are not Christians. Believe only Christians are just, are righteous… represent the highest common good. [Oil.]
Pressure to blame Hispanics for taking jobs from Americans, and as such, must be in the country illegally. To believe they do all of the jobs Americans won't do, their citizen children should be denied quality medical care or an education. To believe non-citizen Hispanics should not be allowed to drive. That registered, taxpaying Hispanics should not be allowed to work or own homes. Pressure to accept that registered, taxpaying Hispanics who own homes should be given full rein to do whatever they want without consequences. To report to the authorities any neighbor who happens to be Hispanic because his English isn't very good.
To believe AIDS is God's loud and proud way of punishing gay people.
Pressure, too, to view this world as nothing more than a place to survive poor living conditions until your heart stops beating [or someone stops it for you, or you stop it yourself], a place where bad shit just happens to everyone every day without any reason and will never stop happening, where people naturally hate, people naturally kill, people naturally die. Where you keep your head down at all times and stay indoors as often as possible. Pressure to convince yourself of really stupid shit [exactly the right word] to explain bad events, because there has to be a reason for everything. To feel guilty for surviving. To feel guilty for needing help. Feel guilty for being 70 years old, unable to care for yourself and reliant upon young, self-centered, uncaring strangers who are too busy with their own success to notice you are eating cat food and debris from dumpsters. Pressure to give the old crazy homeless dude a dollar when you cannot pay your electric bill.
Pressure to believe the world has no hope of being better until we kill all the Blacks, all the fat chicks, all the smart chicks, all the geeky men, all stupid people [who'd be left?], all the Jews, all the mentally ill, all the Muslims, all the gays, all the abortion doctors, all the child molesters… until we eradicate marijuana, stem cell research, prostitution, rush-hour traffic, global warming, unscrupulous business men, deadly diseases, advance directives. No hope until we win this war against terror and all foreigners suspected of terrorism. No hope until we give our government full permission to surveil all of us at will so they can redefine "terrorist" to include anyone who has worked in the same office building as a terrorist, or was assigned a seat next to a suspected terrorist on a JetBlue flight a few years back, or disagrees with a government policy, or was legally overheard by the government on a phone call to a Mediterranean grocer in Europe to order some olives and a box of Turkish Delight. No hope until we fence out Mexicans. Not until we close Ellis Island to any immigrant applicants with IQs under 170 who do not have an advanced degree.
Pressure to take the bus, to drive, to join the PTA, to be a vegetarian, to seek professional counseling. Read more. Read less. Read fiction. Never pay full price. See a hypnotist. Sneak. Quit smoking. Sell Girl Scout cookies. Buy Girl Scout cookies whether you want them or not. Pressure to envision a world with limitless resources, a world able to sustain infinite numbers of lifeforms for all eternity, to fear the consequences of global warming, to support drilling for oil in a national wildlife refuge in Alaska because only a small dot on the map would be disturbed and we need more oil.
Pressure to believe success is measured by a mainstream education rather than respect, by the quality of your ass-kissing and degree of head tilt while you are doing it [always to the right, and women and transvestites so inclined, first remove all lipstick]. To mistrust all lawyers because all lawyers are bad [unless you get arrested or need a divorce] and give full faith to all doctors because all doctors are good [ignore the medical-grade drug abuse... except for abortion doctors.] Pressure to say to the reporter who shoved a microphone in your face asking about the murder-suicide of three children and their mother by their unemployed father next door, "I had no idea; they seemed like such a normal family," when you knew Goddamn good and well for a long time that the family had been very distressed, but you did not want to get involved.
Pressure to pretend you do not notice your husband's late-night visits to the boys' rooms because the last time you confronted him, he gave you quite a shiner -- you had to wear sunglasses to the grocery store and the school for the next week (he gives you black eyes and broken ribs and concussions even when you are too afraid to confront him) -- or because you have nowhere else to go, because no one welcomes you now because you ignored the late-night visits to the boys' rooms, you ignored your friends' concerns, you must have noticed the radically fallen grades, depression, anxiety, sudden angry outbursts, physical complaints, and you did not care enough to put an end to it.
Pressure to have a child you do not want, or an abortion you do not want, because one person says abortion is murder [because the aborted fetus might be the next Mother Theresa or Albert Einstein] and another says someone will only adopt the baby "if the baby is healthy." Pressure not to have children. To have children as a single mother. To wait until you are married to have children. Pressure to convince women, whom you do not know, that abortions are evil. Pressure to argue with women, whom you do not know, about your support of Choice. Or to hide your support of Choice, even though a woman's reproductive choices -- which, for those of you who only half-understand "Pro-Choice", includes choices about life, about virginity, abstinence, partners, safe sex, oral contraceptives, quitting oral contraceptives, tubal ligation, surrogacy, amniocentesis, artificial insemination, abortion, life support, advance directives, assisted suicide -- are based on experiences and emotions and history no other person in the world fully appreciates, truly understands, let alone cares to acknowledge are more important factors than what a stranger says at the county fair while holding up a jar containing a plastic Mardi Gras doll covered in ketchup.
Pressure to picket the abortion clinic where you aborted a fetus, which you don't feel is hypocritical because you are now a "Christian" (read, the pro-Life philosophy was inconvenient for you five years ago). Pressure to bomb an abortion clinic. To shoot an abortion doctor. To support stem cell research, or to seek to have it banned.
Pressure to accept the new transvestite neighbors because -- didn't you see To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar? Pressure to brutally beat and rape a transvestite because you left the bar with her and you need to teach her a lesson for making you feel like a fool you in front of your friends. Pressure to revile transsexuals because they are an abomination of God [remember: Loud and Proud!]
Pressure to take your little sister's Ritalin because you need to study, or you need to drive, or you need to feed your addiction. Pressure to enable the substance abuser(s) in your life because you are used to it anyway and it's one of the few things you are good at. Pressure to overplay your girlfriend's occasional excess drinking to show you care. To shun the substance abusers in your family [because they are a drain on society], to shun the recovering substance abusers at the sober living home down the street, even if one of the recovering substance abusers is a member of your family [because it's only a matter of time before they use again, right?]. Pressure to take drugs yourself, take too many drugs, drink alcohol, to introduce booze and drugs to your friends. Your younger siblings, your cousins. Pressure to drink socially on occasion, or on weekends, or all week long, or from a paper cup at work, or at lunch every day with your boss.
Pressure to accuse drunk drivers not that they are ill but that they are evil because of the potential to negatively impact others. Pressure to be the designated driver. Or to drink anyway and get yourself home -- what friends? Or take the car keys from the drunk customer. or from the guy sitting next to you at the bar.
Pressure to do good in this world, to do bad to this world, to do anything you can to avoid this world or to take advantage it or to flip it off. Pressure to hit another, your spouse, your child, a stranger. Pressure to cut yourself, to kill yourself. To kill another to pay that bastard back for some unforgiveable wrong. To kill everyone in line at Burger Hole because you got fired. To vote to kill another because the state says he should die as a consequence of killing another. Pressure to save someone who needs you or a group that needs you, or to give your life attempting to save another, whether or not he can be saved, to save a cat caught in a tree. [But don't take the car keys from that drunk guy at the bar?]
Pressure to join class actions because in 1973 you bought a newspaper in the lobby of a building in whose basement there was a furnace lined with asbestos tiles that could have endangered your health. [That you are alive and in good health, except for the shadow on your lung from being a three-pack-a-day smoker since your were 17 is beside the point.] Pressure to support lawsuits against auto makers because drivers of their vehicles were injured or killed in crashes while ignoring seatbelt laws. Pressure to pay large settlements to pedestrians crossing the Beltway on foot in rush-hour traffic and were hit by a car.
Pressure to believe this world is always good, there is always hope, there is always justice, there is always art. Believe this would be a better world if all Blacks were lynched or refused an education or denied opportunities for which they are well qualified. Believe Muslims are irrational radicals who do not deserve to control their oil-rich countries because they are not Christians. Believe only Christians are just, are righteous… represent the highest common good. [Oil.]
Pressure to blame Hispanics for taking jobs from Americans, and as such, must be in the country illegally. To believe they do all of the jobs Americans won't do, their citizen children should be denied quality medical care or an education. To believe non-citizen Hispanics should not be allowed to drive. That registered, taxpaying Hispanics should not be allowed to work or own homes. Pressure to accept that registered, taxpaying Hispanics who own homes should be given full rein to do whatever they want without consequences. To report to the authorities any neighbor who happens to be Hispanic because his English isn't very good.
To believe AIDS is God's loud and proud way of punishing gay people.
Pressure, too, to view this world as nothing more than a place to survive poor living conditions until your heart stops beating [or someone stops it for you, or you stop it yourself], a place where bad shit just happens to everyone every day without any reason and will never stop happening, where people naturally hate, people naturally kill, people naturally die. Where you keep your head down at all times and stay indoors as often as possible. Pressure to convince yourself of really stupid shit [exactly the right word] to explain bad events, because there has to be a reason for everything. To feel guilty for surviving. To feel guilty for needing help. Feel guilty for being 70 years old, unable to care for yourself and reliant upon young, self-centered, uncaring strangers who are too busy with their own success to notice you are eating cat food and debris from dumpsters. Pressure to give the old crazy homeless dude a dollar when you cannot pay your electric bill.
Pressure to believe the world has no hope of being better until we kill all the Blacks, all the fat chicks, all the smart chicks, all the geeky men, all stupid people [who'd be left?], all the Jews, all the mentally ill, all the Muslims, all the gays, all the abortion doctors, all the child molesters… until we eradicate marijuana, stem cell research, prostitution, rush-hour traffic, global warming, unscrupulous business men, deadly diseases, advance directives. No hope until we win this war against terror and all foreigners suspected of terrorism. No hope until we give our government full permission to surveil all of us at will so they can redefine "terrorist" to include anyone who has worked in the same office building as a terrorist, or was assigned a seat next to a suspected terrorist on a JetBlue flight a few years back, or disagrees with a government policy, or was legally overheard by the government on a phone call to a Mediterranean grocer in Europe to order some olives and a box of Turkish Delight. No hope until we fence out Mexicans. Not until we close Ellis Island to any immigrant applicants with IQs under 170 who do not have an advanced degree.
Pressure to take the bus, to drive, to join the PTA, to be a vegetarian, to seek professional counseling. Read more. Read less. Read fiction. Never pay full price. See a hypnotist. Sneak. Quit smoking. Sell Girl Scout cookies. Buy Girl Scout cookies whether you want them or not. Pressure to envision a world with limitless resources, a world able to sustain infinite numbers of lifeforms for all eternity, to fear the consequences of global warming, to support drilling for oil in a national wildlife refuge in Alaska because only a small dot on the map would be disturbed and we need more oil.
Pressure to believe success is measured by a mainstream education rather than respect, by the quality of your ass-kissing and degree of head tilt while you are doing it [always to the right, and women and transvestites so inclined, first remove all lipstick]. To mistrust all lawyers because all lawyers are bad [unless you get arrested or need a divorce] and give full faith to all doctors because all doctors are good [ignore the medical-grade drug abuse... except for abortion doctors.] Pressure to say to the reporter who shoved a microphone in your face asking about the murder-suicide of three children and their mother by their unemployed father next door, "I had no idea; they seemed like such a normal family," when you knew Goddamn good and well for a long time that the family had been very distressed, but you did not want to get involved.
*****
Now comfortably in my 40s, I have learned this: In the end, no matter who is holding my hand, if anyone, I will die alone. My goal is to define myself as "happy" in that last moment. In order for me to achieve my final goal, I have to accept that the pressures listed above are not pressures at all. They are merely arbitrary shrapnel flying at me from every corner of a fractured, violent, sometimes pointless world ... which I am grateful to know has also provided me with all the beauty, unexpected joys, and deep passions I have ever experienced. Pressure comes from within. My worldview has been shaped by the feelings, ideas and actions of many people who have come and gone from my life, but I will not be defined by force. I am capable of defining myself.
The only evidence of life, after all, is growth -- intellectual growth, spiritual growth, and emotional growth. And I think I'm doing okay so far. I hope you are too. Pressure is poetry.
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