I have long been asking friends of mine, several of them, many of whom were eager and happy to help out with my art project (including men, even though the art project is T-shirt printing, which I have, as some of you may know, have been doing a few years now)- for old T-shirts that they do not use anymore. I ask them for blank, old t-shirts that are no longer wearable t them and they don't mind getting rid of. I don’t need T-shirts because I have clothes of my own. I can still fit into the clothes I wore at 13 and 14.
I refuse to accept myself as anything of an ‘artist’ or to describe myself as ‘creative’ (I don’t like labels- original, I know- and I additionally think human beings are fluid and always changing and adapting, on both superficial, observable physiological and behavioural levels but also on deeper, undetectable levels. Our surroundings and the environments with which we interact consistently alter the architecture of our neuroanatomical structures, promote synapse growth, form new neural pathways and, of course, cause cell degeneration, and that is a considerable force behind the chances we make cognitively and emotionally. The brain isn't everything- at least that's what I believe. Sure, it is the most complex thing in the universe that we, as human beings using brains as our tools, can ever try to understand and probably never will in its entirety, but I think that the experiential and psychological changes that we undergo through our lives are not purely the result of amendments to the neural substrates of our behaviours and emotions. Anyway, I've massively regressed). It does not only seem strange to reduce a person to a list of character traits because it’s just that- reductionist- but it’s also frightening to me, and surely damaging to any individual who decides upon labels and wears them for too long, because people can go around for their whole lives saying they’re a this and a that and they’ve got this list of qualities, and surely that would hinder them from getting the opportunity to grow into and become and act like and think like all of the people they’ve decided they aren’t). And the most awful situations arise when you meet someone who is happy to tell you all about themselves, label themselves in numerous ways, and then fail to show any of their aforementioned attributes. Then there are the other terrible cases- those who smother you with their labels until you don't have a choice but to say yes, yes, yes, until you realise all they are doing is smothering you with little care for the person they are smothering or anything else but their labels. I've met very few people so bad, thankfully. Over the past few weeks, I have come face to face with actual human cruelty. Deliberate cruelty, which I think is the only thing that is unforgivable. But I have been told by a lot of people I’m creative. I once was told by my good friend Charlie I was the most creative person he knows, when I dropped into a conversation that I considered him the funniest person I know. I am/was flattered but I still don’t think I’ll ever call myself creative. Not until I’ve created something substantial or important. In fact, I won’t go around telling people I know who I am and this is what it is like. Recent events have been pretty troubling, but I am sticking by my life philosophy-or one of them- that has kept me from turning bitter and cynical about the state of the world and the human race. The black echo theory- my flatmate of days gone by and myself- coined this term to describe a phenomenon collectively affecting all peoples in all societies, and we probably all have words for it and all know of it but it operates mostly beneath the level of awareness. In short, when someone hurts you, if you don’t either forgive them, get closure or settle without it, or just put down the load of resentment you are left carrying (the longer you walk with it, the heavier it gets), then this blackness- this dark feeling passed onto you by someone you know or a stranger or anyone- can start to release itself from you and pass itself onto others. Or you pass it on in ways you don't notice- below the level of awareness, this bitterness leaks out in, made manifest in your interactions with the world around you as what is eating you inside makes you hungry to start taking small parts of other people's joy perhaps, to feel a little better. Breaking hearts because yours was broken. The bullied become bullies. The abused become abusers. I'm thinking of a specific person now, someone who was once abused in a marriage, and somehow has become a vicious, intimidating bully. I am not saying abuse is forgivable. No abuse of anyone is forgivable if it is intentional. But if you can't forgive or forget it, you have to find a way to move on without those two luxuries. So you have to accept there will be no closure. No apology. Life isn't fair. Those who hurt us are the exceptions to the rule- I have to believe this and I do. I do not see the worst in people. I see the good first, I see even the potential good when there isn't any obvious good to see. I wait for the good. When there is bad, I give chances for things to be made good. Eventually, though, I run out of chances to give. This happened fairly recently. The aforementioned person- I am not expecting them to have forgiven their abuse. Of course that is not humanly possible. They were once a victim, but it seems that instead of accepting that their victimisation happened and that the world can be cruel but that there is a future ahead filled with people to love and filled with reasons to see so much wonder that that horror of the past can almost be obscured, this person took on the identity of the victim. They made this their whole life. They turned their tragedy into their identity, which I think perhaps a lot of people do, and again, I am not judging this. I understand the concept of searching for an identity to fit into if you feel hollow or hurt or confused or unsure about what your purpose is or who you are meant to be, who you can be, should be. I saw people in my group, as I mentioned in my last post, take on the 'BPD' identity role. Birthday parties with only BPD guests, conversation topics restricted to BPD-related content. I understand that is how people cope, but it frightens me, personally. The idea of letting my personality disorder become the entirety of what my self is made up of is terrifying. The idea of making myself a perpetual victim due to a situation in which I was victimised and yes, was a victim, is even more horrifying. Because that is letting the monsters win. When I was the victim, I had no power. I felt like an enormous part of what I knew of the world and myself and how to be and how to grow was lost. I was helpless, and for a long time didn't ask for help. But I am not a victim. If I were to spend my life framing my identity as the victim, I would still be powerless. There is one thing that couldn't be taken away from me, and that's my hope and love of people. I will not extrapolate from one or a few bad encounters to the rest of the people in the world. That is dangerous because it would mean I'd be going out expecting to encounter the bad, and this would be the black echo. Someone else would then cross my path, and the grudge I'd be holding might cause me to mistreat them or make them my victim, and then they would be the victim, and then do the same to others, and it goes on. This person has let the monsters win and take away her ability to be free- not just from the past, but free at all. She victimises others and I know the black echo so I won't let her echoes seep into me and begin to reverberate from me. I will stop the echo. But it scares me to see the black echo so clearly exemplified a year or so since the theory was conceptualised.
Anyway, the message of this post is that forgiveness may not be possible. I was sad to figure that out when I realised I couldn't forgive until I understood. And I don't understand the mind of the person who made me a victim at 17 and I don't understand the mind of the intentionally cruel. I therefore can't forgive, and I never forget because if you forget you don't learn from your experiences. But I don't need closure. I don't want it, even. I am happy with where I am and I am becoming happier with the person I believe I am becoming. I am not a victim. I am sorry for those who attack others to make themselves feel better, but it is the saddest thing of all that the attack can have happened decades ago and yet there is no letting go. Walking around with that much hate inside you, I am actually not surprised about the bullying behaviour. I don't even mind being a punchbag if it helps them release some of that hate, especially if it can somehow prevent their black echo from spreading too far and to too many others.
Back to the T-shirts, someone didn't read the entire message I texted saying blank old ones but generously gave me some new ones. When they started to bully, I decided to to the art project anyway. So in the image above, I sport one of the tops with the one word I would like to pass on: Love.
