I've been feeling and unfeeling my feelings for a very long time.
I often feel submerged. I feel submerged all the time.
Drowning and emerging within myself feels so....
Relentless.
That is the word I would use to describe 2020. Relentless. Merriam Webster defines Relentless as:
Showing or promising no abatement of severity, intensity, strength, or pace : UNRELENTING.
Merriam Webster, this feels too literal. Very matter-of-fact. You make Unrelenting feel more like Fast and Furious. Like men in cars with their foot on the gas. It is a true definition, but an insufficient one. I like Google's better:
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| Source: Google |
Oppressively constant; incessant. Really hits the nail on the head. Incessant literally means "without stopping." Definitions often lack the feeling that a word evokes. Incessant is an especially violent, harsh, and annoying form of consistency. Incessant. A word with an illusive beginning: "In." So casual, but so un-telling of what is to come. In, what? Those"s"s in the middle slither like snakes. That authoritative "t," like a cross, provides a very pointy ending.
I think of the potential of my mind in that way. Simple (maybe even dull) on the surface (in a quotidien kind of way). Hidden beneath the mundane is its true vigorous, erratic motion. Even deeper, it is sharp and extremely specific. This is why the erudite of society advocate for "sharpening the mind." But like a waterfall -- like the adjective, incessant -- my mind still leads to some other place. The mind itself is not the destination, or else we'd all be chasing our tails.
Incessant. Relentless. Words where "t"s and "s"s make themselves known. Kind of like my family name: Tobias. To be, as I.
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| Source: behindthename.com |
Do not get confused, though. I've come to understand that I am not really a relentless person. Not in the fast and vigorous way that 2020 has been relentless. In fact, I'm quite inconsistent. I despise routine, sameness, and repetition. If I could do everything for the first time, I would. I think of a friend who, with the discipline of a buddha, sits down every day to hone his craft. This is a relentless man. But it's with a warm ferocity that his flame burns slowly and quietly of admiration for his future self. He pushes onward. I cannot help but be inspired. The amount of respect that I have for people with discipline like this is almost painful. It makes me feel so...wildly out of control.
That is what I have felt! Unhinged. My mind and my actions all running amuck without any sense of direction, like some old ass wheelbarrow squeaking all through town. Sometimes control is relentless: incessant, like a hammer on a one-man job. But then, so is the wilderness, which needs no analogy and no anecdote because it is the analogy. The wilderness is the story. No, I am not incessant at all. Sometimes I feel like I give up too easily. I do not like to force a "yes" out of a "no." I've always been very offended by people who tell others not to take "no" for an answer. Like, what does that even look like? People say "no" because they really mean it (or because they are afraid, but that is a different stream of thought, so stay with me).
I haven't been able to truly define myself in a succinct way. I mean, I'm 23. I don't expect to. I have, however, come to some basic understanding that while I have wanted to be relentless (i.e., fast, focused, and forceful) it is just not me. It feels violent and intrusive. Oppressive. I know relentless people, both those who are relentless in the way they uplift through passion and love, and others who are unrelenting in the tyranny of their own fear and self-hatred. The Times -- and what a time it is -- these days have been both.
I used to think that revolution had to be violent. I'm a Fanonian after all. Honestly, though, I don't really have it in me to grab a torch and burn down my racist neighbor's house. (I do, in fact, have a racist neighbor, this isn't for imagery.) I don't really think that's where my skillset lies, you know what I mean? (If you share my humor, you probably laughed at that like I did.) I do know, I get real good at thinking about stuff. So I think that I'll think about stuff some more until I have enough to really say. They say talking about an issue isn't enough. But I promise you: my speech is action. My desire to share is relentless.
For some of us, we wield our swords in our mouths and in joints of our fingers. Others are soldiers and we rarely know their names unless they are public martyrs like Jesus, George Floyd, or Breonna Taylor. Do you think if Angela Davis or even fucking Frantz Fanon, (both of whom talked that shit and took to the streets), were to be killed in battle before their words proliferated, that we would have them as monoliths today to start our own liberation movements?? I believe action is important no matter who you are or who you are meant to be. But it all depends; is your body your weapon or is your mind? I was never the type to really through hands, but like Dave Chapelle says, "I can gab with the best of them."
