Self Censorship and Verbal Constipation

I have been lacking in motivation to write anything for a while, not only blog entries but letters to friends, statements of intent, job inquiries or even a private articulation of my own thoughts on the world. Normally overflowing with words, my mind has been dammed up.

As I was driving down Figueroa the other day away from the library, I found my thoughts returning to the time of my repatriation after two years of study in the U.K. One of the major things I noticed in myself upon my return was a deficit in a certain type self-censorship which would allow me to function more smoothly in this society. It isn't just the containment and non-expression of certain thoughts, it is the cutting off of those thoughts before they are even able to properly form. (Now that I have regained this ability, how hard it is for me to articulate what was then so strikingly present in my daily existence!)

I feel that in many ways the parameters for certain pursuits are so much more highly prescribed in our society than in Britain. Fachs, or categories, for singers are much more flexible in Britain. There is much more individuality in dress. A greater variety of weights, shapes, sizes and ethnicities are presented as beautiful by the popular media in Britain. More lifestyles are considered mainstream. I feel that American society is constructed to convey a continual judgmentalism against almost everyone and almost everything to make them feel inferior or insecure. Whether it is to sell products or to stifle thought, the effect produces a certain numbness, a certain detachment and self-censorship to avoid those negative consequences. "I will be happy/accepted/lovable when I can loose that last 10 pounds/buy that new TV/secure that new post. "

Perhaps it is that my own self-censorship has kicked in and is rapidly out of control. How many times do I wear something dull that I do not enjoy in an attempt to fit in? How many things have I bought recently in an attempt not to look like I don't need those extra jobs I've been applying for? How many times do I stifle the expression of my own opinions about my country that I love so because I am afraid of being put on the no fly list and having my activities inconvenienced? (Would you believe that in London, I was a moderate!)

For New Year's, I made only one resolution: to work to be more honest, and to be more honest with myself if honesty with others is not practical. Behind this wall of verbal constipation lie my true reasons for not writing to my friends overseas. I miss the open, honest and mentally present ways that we shared our lives, and I fear that I have lost the capacity within myself to be that honest and open person. I fear that they will see what a shallow thinking American I've become in an attempt to ease my daily life in this image factory of L.A.

That wall also conceals worries about my country that I was so ready to return to. Forever the armchair political analyst, I see our collective course towards the future as hopeless and insane. Obama is only a nicer face and a slight slackening of the pace of our societal march towards the same doom as before. I read. I think. I collect information. I see that the many of the ways of life of my friends in the midwest are drawing to a close as viable options for survival. I believe that my own way is only a few steps behind theirs because of my currently geographical location. In my mind the only hope for true change is a word that I do not wish to articulate. Here is the self censorship!

I am a pacifist. I don't believe in war. I seek to let go of the violence which exists within myself. I believe in God, and I strive to be a christian in the most elemental form of the word, someone who follows the teaching of Jesus. But I fear our country cannot begin to again serve its people without the most fundamental of changes. Thanks to our Supreme Court, corporations now seem to have more rights than individual human beings, and the madness of society will expand into this new frontier. This march of despotism, of slavery to corporate masters, of the looting of society for the benefit of the few continues, and it will not stop through any of the channels legally open to citizens.

When I was visiting my place of origin in the midwest, I spoke about the problems of our country with the father of one of my oldest friends. He emigrated from Egypt in the mid-1970's as a Coptic Orthodox Christian searching for a better life for himself and his descendants. He once served in the Egyptian Army by removing dead bodies from a battlefield during the Six Days War. He seems to harbor a distrust of muslims, but he does not believe in war. In our conversation he used the word for the only solution as he sees it, the word that I can hardly type even now. Revolution.