![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
It was nice to take an LJ sabbatical, but I'm glad to be back. The "strike" was hardly a privation. In fact, it was a boon to Flackbun, who was scritched to within an inch of his fat, bunny life on Thursday with 1,700 words on Et Tu Part VIII. It was also good for my Mario Golf game because I unlocked two courses--Peach's Invitational Tournament and Bowser Badlands--and a new character, Boo. So, my LJ-free day was anything but a forlorn study in solitude, with melancholy gazes shot artfully from rain-swept windows and world-weary sighs that spoke eloquently to my isolation. It was fun and productive, and my eyes were grateful for the rest.
The strike will achieve nothing, but I needed it for myself, needed to know that I was still capable of being roused to action. When I was younger, I thought I could change the world. I had bought into the idealistic notion that one voice could change the world, that one could make a difference. I wrote letters and joined organized protests for things like migrant workers' rights. I waved the flag and sang the national anthem with pride. I was a good little, God-fearing Democrat.
And then I grew up, and along with my fading youth, I sloughed my idealism. I realized that no matter how long I stood there with a sign or how long I clapped my hands or how many letters I wrote, nothing was going to change. I was but one voice, and it was not strong enough. It was a whisper from someone who didn't count.
There are voices magnificent enough to be heard--Martin Luther King, Jr., Ghandi--but I was not one.
So, I went from trying to change the world to just trying not to get screwed, and to make the screwings I took hurt a little less. I guess that's what growing up is at the hard, ugly bottom, the loss of dreams.
I joined the LJ strike not because I believed I could make a difference; I'm too old for fairy tales even if I still write them and wish for them in the middle of the night. I joined because I needed to feel something other than callused indifference.
So I did, and it was fun to indulge in the dreams of youth, but it's back to reality now, back to just keeping my head above water and my bruised asshole away from my corporate overlords.
The strike will achieve nothing, but I needed it for myself, needed to know that I was still capable of being roused to action. When I was younger, I thought I could change the world. I had bought into the idealistic notion that one voice could change the world, that one could make a difference. I wrote letters and joined organized protests for things like migrant workers' rights. I waved the flag and sang the national anthem with pride. I was a good little, God-fearing Democrat.
And then I grew up, and along with my fading youth, I sloughed my idealism. I realized that no matter how long I stood there with a sign or how long I clapped my hands or how many letters I wrote, nothing was going to change. I was but one voice, and it was not strong enough. It was a whisper from someone who didn't count.
There are voices magnificent enough to be heard--Martin Luther King, Jr., Ghandi--but I was not one.
So, I went from trying to change the world to just trying not to get screwed, and to make the screwings I took hurt a little less. I guess that's what growing up is at the hard, ugly bottom, the loss of dreams.
I joined the LJ strike not because I believed I could make a difference; I'm too old for fairy tales even if I still write them and wish for them in the middle of the night. I joined because I needed to feel something other than callused indifference.
So I did, and it was fun to indulge in the dreams of youth, but it's back to reality now, back to just keeping my head above water and my bruised asshole away from my corporate overlords.
Tags: