the more alienated I feel.

I woke this morning with an array of seemingly disparate thoughts. Yet, they were mostly spurred from a rambling conversation with friends, last night.

First, the dream snippet I woke up remembering:

"I always wanted to be a death farmer."
Pained, horrified, confused and concerned faces reflected back at her.
"It's not what it seems. I want you to harvest the bounty of your dreams."

I'll have to sit with that awhile to sort out all that this means to me. However, I do somehow recognize that it is connected to this long conversation.

The meat of the conversation began when the three of us, sitting in a second-floor living room, on a quiet Sunday evening, noted a police car pulling someone over. The presumption was that the driver didn't fully stop at the stop sign. There were not other cars on the road, at the time.

We had very differing responses. Mine was "ugh. cops harassing someone, again." One of my friends' response was, "good. that's unsafe driving practice." (These are not quotes, as I can't recall the exact words. They are capturing the gist of our differing perspectives.) The other person in the room had a response, the underlying message of which was unclear to me.

What ensued was a somewhat rambling conversation about risk, having concern for whether other people weigh risks to our satisfaction, whether authoritarianism is a good thing and myriad related explorations. This even meandered into the topic of romantic relations, whether we want them, why we find them challenging to pursue and self-assessment of our attractiveness to others in that regard. (Not physical attraction, but relational attraction.)

This morning that conversation had me thinking of the ways in which I feel alienated from the society in which I live. The ways in which I feel cut off from relating to people. In short, that which leaves me feeling lonely. I am lonely because of who I am. How I process life. My very being is not a fit for the world into which I was born. I can't even relate to some of my closest friends.

I started to list the ways in which I feel alienated. The list was getting so long, I felt that I could write a book. Here's how it began:

Some things about me that alienate me from the society I live in (and, therefore, limit the relational connections in my life):

I see that capitalism is cruel and unsustainable. It requires exploitation of many for some to benefit.

I see that social systems do not have to be defined in economic terms. That we would be better served to have a human-wide referendum on establishing how we want to treat each other and finding ways to work together to meet the basic needs of all. With established social operating principles, it would't matter what we call the economic system. Exchanges of goods and services for the purposes of pursuing lives would simply need to pass the test of meeting the principles or we wouldn't find them acceptable.

I know that this vision I have is not something that could actuate in a short period of time. It would take a critical mass of people to commit to a long-term (generations) path of resetting our cultural norms. We would need to establish transition plans. We would need to come up with ways to prevent backsliding into the hyper-competitive oppressive species we have become. But, the fact is that we fostered this in ourselves and we can foster a different manifestation. We must decide that we will, though. Every expression of "that's too hard" or "this is just the way it is" is actually an expression of "I'm okay with the way we are and believe this is how it should be." I'd like us to be honest about that.

I am anti-authoritarian and believe the use of power over someone to manage their behavior is destructive to the emotional well-being of people and society. It is the root of all forms of oppression. Any capitulation to sanctioning the use of power because "given what we have" or "right now this is the quickest way to...." is feeding the monster that is oppression. I know that we must resist authoritarianism if we are to find justice and sustainability.

I know that the US has never been a truly democratic state. Most people don't seem to want to face that fact. Not facing that fact means having a distorted understanding of democracy, autonomy and consent. This impacts every single thing about how we relate to one another. It is not a benign intellectual theory.

Much of what is deemed romantic in our culture is offensive to my sensibilities. From oppressive gender roles to a lack of mutual respect and boundaries of consent, I am repulsed by what we deem romantic.

The whole way we present and discuss gender is anathema to me. Skirts are not feminine. Anyone can wear a skirt. It's just a piece of fabric. Same goes for any piece of clothing or thing applied to the body. Being empathic isn't feminine. Being warrior-like isn't masculine. These are all social constructs used to limit our self-expression.

Life is not meant to be risk-free. It is understandable that, in the pursuit of life, we might consider risks and do our best to mitigate them. We cannot remove them. Every step, every breath comes with risk. I prefer to see people taking risks for the chance of some life experience they long to have than to be concerned about the possibility that they will fail, even if failure means death. So, yes, go climb that mountain if that's what you feel called to do. Climb it without safety equipment if that's what you feel called to do. I will manage my own anxieties about that. I will manage my own mourning should the worst possibility become reality. I still want you to dream and pursue those dreams in the way that suits you. Your life isn't about me. It's 100% yours to do with as you will.

Even as I know that companionship can be a great emotional and physical benefit in life, I would never seek to acquire a relationship or keep one just because I might feel lonely otherwise. I may want companionship and I may really enjoy companionship, but if the other is not amenable, I don't take it personally nor would I try to do anything to convince them to be in relationship with me. That goes for family, friends, coworkers and lovers.

I do not believe in God or gods. I am not a theist. The whole concept simply doesn't resonate for me, except as metaphorical storytelling to help us understand ourselves and process the experience of life. If others believe in these things, I cannot judge that, as I have not lived their experiences. I cannot know how differently this whole life thing can be experienced. I trust that they are true to themselves. I am perfectly comfortable with their religiosity as long as it is personal and is not wielded at me. As long as I am not deemed offensive for not having the same beliefs or adhering to the whatever rules their beliefs suggest to them about life.

I see sexuality as a sensual aspect of life which can be experienced in infinite ways. Reproduction is just one possible aspect of sexual interaction, it is not the whole of sexuality. Therefore, sexuality does not have to be about gender. I have no fixed ideas regarding whom sexual attraction can happen with. I'm fascinated that some people find that they can only feel sexual attraction with a particular gender or body type. Still, I have no need to have an opinion on how sexuality manifests for anyone else. I would hope we would all just let each other be.

I don't see monogamous partnerships as essential to a content and sustainable life. I see no reason whatsoever that one must have a partnership, at all, if one doesn't feel compelled to that. I also see no reason whatsoever that love can only be shared exclusively by two people. The feeling I share with one person does not negate the feeling I share with another. What I have experienced with a person is it's own thing. It is unchanged by anything else. It seems to me that we overlay a lot of personal neurosis onto these interactions and then have unspoken but presumed parameters that we apply to them. "If we had sex, it means you will only have sex with me because it negates the meaning of this sex to have sex with someone else at another time." That seems to be a common approach to sexual relations, for instance. This is anathema to me. I can't even find a way to reconcile this having any truth in it. And, so, I don't hold relationships the way other people apparently do.

I was describing last night that I could imagine having a home where each person has their own private space. There is also a "together" room. When you want to be with someone for more intimate interactions, you go to this room rather than your private room. They were laughing at me. They were moved from laughing to "we can't even process this" when I said I don't imagine that it has to be just two people who live in that domicile, utilizing that room. That it might be two people sometimes or more than two at other times. This is a very happy image for me.

They were kind of laughing because they wanted to know how one arranged together time. "Would you schedule sex?" I'm not sure why it would be considered any less spontaneous to have a designated space. My point was that it made mutual consent a very active part of the process. For me, so much of the way we all operate is skirting around mutual consent because we fear we won't get what we want. Not getting what we want has been deemed more problematic than eroding the dynamic of consent. This erosion pervades everything about the way we go about our social dynamics. It's how we get to oppression.

I could go on, but I'll stop here. I can hold all these principles and still have the full complement of emotions from personal contentment to loneliness to fulfillment to resentment. I don't feel depressed. I don't feel self-loathing. It was suggested to me last night, that by making these assessments, I am lacking self-love. I disagree. I love myself enough to be comfortable assessing that this is my experience. I am who am I am. I don't dislike who I am. I am not seeking to be different. Yes, I can be sad and lonely, at times. I'm also content and full of joy. This seems pretty healthy, to me. I'm okay with this full range of emotions.

I'm not sure why I'm posting this here, except that, in some vague way, I'm processing how all of this informs my political leanings. And I've joined a new political community which is forming here. I'm at a point in life where I'd like to have those political connections include an understanding of how my inner workings relate to my political workings. That is I need to feel connected as a person, not just a political actor.

I'd like to know the people around me as people. It helps to see how we are approaching things differently and where the social resolutions that can meet a "we can both live with this" standard can be found.

"We can live with this" is what I find is the most important kind of community decision-making we can do. We are most likely to find everyone able to function in a way which suits them if we simply seek social guidelines that meet the criteria "I can live with this" rather than "I think it should be this way." We can't help each other find that common "I can live with this" resolution unless we are willing to get to know each other more deeply.