yikes never done thread (mute me now) but i've been talking to people and listening here and feeling it alllll then last night my poet/activist/musician friend set me straight on art and capitalism and notions of success, maybe one or two of you would like to hear

obv how at odds capitalism and art are (see also Makenna Goodman's: THE SHAME) and yet how easily we (I, I, I) can get wrapped up in that goddamn need for a dumb patriarchal pat on the head.

(social media obv depends on the proverbial pat)

cue the publishing industry. like, bravo if you are impervious, but i imagine most, at some point, have fallen prey to it, bought into some aspect of the argument that feeds the acute desire for this kind of external validation.

guilty, guilty, guilty.

omg have i sought daddy (i.e. industry) approval

and been crushed by rejection/withholding of love/denied approval, which i've equated with unequivocal failure.

but how fucked up is it to put self worth and validation in daddy hands? that one is contingent upon the other?

and i know so many have already figured this shit out but the gatekeeper system is beyond fucked, right, duh.

write your words. make your art. say what you want to say. seek deep honest connections and readers. but we don't need the patriarchal pat. what we need: work that will continue to destabilize that toxic model. that's all. love you all.