We've all got problems

It's been pointed out to me recently that I've spent very little time playing the compromise games that characterise much employment. I have suffered in many ways, both heightened and of lesser significance, but I don't know what it means to have to conceal my sexuality from el jefe.

Every so often, someone will also urge me to enter the workforce despite my protestations. My "disability" being invisible, I often look a lot healthier than I am. People don't realise that I am constantly anxious. My practiced calm fools them all. I don't even mind admitting something akin to Generalised Anxiety Disorder on top of all my other mental health problems. Hey, how many people even read this blog? If you're reading, you're probably familiar enough with me to understand how I could be a ball of nerves underneath all that cool-as-cucumber. And I welcome your familiarity.

Questions of being medically incapable to join the modern labour force aside, I have two conflicting wishes: a) to subject myself to as few forms of domination as possible, and b) to give myself enough economic independence so as to relocate to a different part of the world.

I have intermittent commitment to writing a book. But I'm not quite there yet. I need -- not a room of my own but -- an apartment of my own. One where I have peace of mind through solitude, and the emotional space to set up shop. With my current arrangement, I am guaranteed to tear my hair out if I start a writing project longer than a blog post that I complete in one sitting.

Writerly Imagination

It used to be that I did too much writing and not enough reading; now I've turned the tables. I don't trust my literary voice. I concern myself with niggling self-doubt which pauses my progress effectively. What now?

When I first started blogging on the now defunct Orble, I wrote five times a week. Now I'm exceeding my own expectations if I write five times a month. 

Interesting things do happen - it's not that I have a shortage of material. Yesterday Mehreen Faruqi was sworn into the Senate, reminding me that there are a dearth of diverse women and queer people out there to draw inspiration from, as the news reel conducts its censoring out of the kind of people who really matter (to me). My catalogue of straight, wide, middle or high class, cis men grows, while the people forced to be smarter than the status quo compete amongst each other for the crumbs the media throws their way. 

This time last year I was three weeks away from travels, but 2018 leaves me uninspired. I've been on holiday before, and it's wonderful - up to the point when I come back with no funds, and my dream of relocating seems even further out of reach. 

I'm romantically inspired by a gorgeous genius, however I may be able to spend more time with them by saving further and spending a longer time period overseas when the time arrives. If I spend that time in one city, I could call it a temporary relocation and have it actually work to that effect. It may not be permanent, but it would teach me about independence and responsibility. 

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Right now I'm reading The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood, The Hate Race by Maxine Beneba Clarke, and What A Life Can Be by Carolyn Dobbias. I've noticed I've been able to reflect further on my thought processes, with the help of the books I follow up and down the screen. Perhaps continuing my current schedule of reading is fine, and adding the element of writing (plucking it out of all the spare time I allow for) is not so intimidating a priority. We'll see.

In the meantime, I'm struggling.