RMiddleton

I live inside my mind. I view my number one task as survival. Before I can do anything else well I must sustain myself. What am I? A consciousness in a body. But I think more accurate to say a conscious body. My senses supply information that I interpret using emotion, aided by memory.

I am sitting in the sun enjoying a recording of a violin concerto by Saint-Saëns as I write this. Why so I like the sound of this music? And the nearby splashing water that I can hear? Why do I dislike the sounds of loud motors, and shouting, and most human broadcasts?

I try to keep the election far from my mind. I'm a white man. If I wanted I could pass as straight. I fantasize myself organizing a meeting in which I, crying no doubt, say to a group of Trump voters: “I think of you as evil people. And I am scared of you. Why am I wrong to feel this way?” The responses that I imagine would be defensive, righteous indignation, and filled with factual errors they all learned from intentionally lying sources. And they would be demonstrating their own emotions in response.

If I think anything like this I just get stuck. It's been this way for decades. It's why “good whites” cannot reach our relatives, neighbors, and coworkers.

I can't get stuck. To go on I focus on the Saint-Saëns, followed by They Might Be Giants, and everything else I'm checking out from the library to keep my spirit afloat. James Baldwin. Poetry. Abolitionist history. A film about fascist Italy. Aretha Franklin.

I'm changing me. Change the world? Maybe tomorrow...