Toss the Self-Protective Narrative. {poetry}
~ Artwork:
Girl in Mirror, c.1963, Roy Lichtenstein ~
By Evan Okun.
Life is too complex to be understood.
As toddlers, we frolic in a world of questions, content unfolding into the mystery. By adolescence, we compulsively attach worded concepts to everything we see, even people — for instance, ‘popular kid’. Though labels can be useful, they often discourage us from engaging with the world in front of us.
Consider, for example, a chair. Every molecule in a chair was made inside a star (a huge sun). The star then exploded, shooting its guts across the universe. In fact, each chair likely hosts the ‘guts’ of multiple stars. These molecules have taken many different forms before this chair — tree, soil, etc., and will continue to do so after the chair is gone.
How, then, can we sit at our desk at work and feel bored?
By adulthood, we have saran wrapped our surroundings in concepts — sterilized life’s wonder with worded explanations.
We not only conceptualize the objects around us, we obsessively try and ‘define’ ourselves. We expend a huge amount of energy threading certain events into a storyline of ‘who we are’ — an inaccurate label that we feel lost without.
This self-protecting narrative is never satisfactory. In Greek mythology, Sisyphus was forced to roll a massive boulder up a steep hill. Before reaching the top, the boulder would slip from his grasp and slide back down, forcing him to begin again.
In our pursuit of self-definition, we feel compelled to hoist our ‘story lines’ onto a pedestal.
The identities we project onto others provide support beams. I used to insist that fraternity brothers are ignorant, binge drinkers, and ungrateful for their privileged status. This framed me as being: brilliant, only-drunk-at-the-right-time, and critical of my privilege.
Humans develop concepts to help them use life to their advantage. A chair is for sitting — we know this, so we will not try to plug our iPods into our chairs and listen to music. We project ‘concepts’ onto people so as to use them as well.
The following poem investigates the way we use others to feel beautiful/secure, and questions how socially normative labels perpetuate systems of oppression:
A bus load of firstgraders grew into business suits and gray hair. Upon retirement, they returned to said bus, and once again spat spitballs and slipped gum in each other’s hair. This time around, they did so without laughing.
Six juvenile inmates were accidentally assigned the same ID. This forced the lunch lady to call them by their names.
A truckload of soldiers blew up.
A plane full of passengers sneezed.
The Deek Brother broke down crying.
The Beta Bro, who hated when I called him that, told a girl I like he’d rather be caught dead than at a Poetry Slam.
When the custodian overheard that the student body thought him invisible, he went on an impromptu vacation.
Upper East Side residents demand that their first and last names be printed on each cup of Starbucks coffee.
A handful of lunch ladies wore multicolored hairnets so they would not be mistaken for spoons.
The townie does not exist.
The 32-year-old cop beat a prepubescent protestor to make his father proud.
The newest resident of Edna’s home for the Elderly wished his parents were still alive.
After buying a ticket to her first concert, the 11-year-old wondered at which point she became the audience.
In 11th grade, I wondered how many parties it took to make me a popular kid.
Six juvenile inmates were accidentally assigned the same ID.
The McDonald’s cashier would not rather live your life.
The manicure specialist had a bad habit of biting her nails.
My dad’s parents would not talk to him.
The man who scanned my boarding pass asked how to pronounce my last name.
I do not know the middle name of any teacher I have ever had.
The 4th grade teacher sat down to dinner with her parents and whined when her little brother refused to do the dishes.
The townie does not exist.
After returning from Thanksgiving break, I asked everyone how their summer was.
Six juvenile inmates were accidentally assigned the same ID.
On the subway home from my concert, I got nervous. There was no longer an audience to imagine me flawless. So I staged a performance for the other passengers on the train. They did not look up — but continued to read and blink, then get off at their respective stops.
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*****
Evan Okun is employed by Circles & Ciphers, a Chicago-based restorative justice group that works with court-involved youth through hip hop. He recently graduated from Wesleyan University (CT), where he majored in Sociology, received a Certificate in Education, and completed the PreMed track. In his last three years at Wesleyan, Evan volunteered in the music therapy department of the Connecticut Juvenile Training School, a nearby juvenile detention center, where he designed and implemented a class that examined literary technique and societal inequality through modern day hip hop songs. In the summer after he graduated, he served as a full-time employee of this facility, continuing his work with the music therapy department. Evan has published two hip hop albums, competed in the national collegiate spoken word poetry tournament, and runs a variety of writing workshops for youth ages ten to twenty.
*****
Read more: An exercise of letting go: a place of intense emotion — take me there now.
{Rebelle Society Vol. I Available Now.}
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