Freedom to Be Negative = Freedom to Love

This might be a controversial take, but you know how they say that "what's up must come down", or "without sadness there would be no happiness"? Yes, that over-stated advice your grandmother would likely give you when you have a bad day? I think they're half-right.

If you saw my last post, it wasn't that positive. That's not to say that it was rude to anybody, and I'd like to think that I was punching up, not down. (I mean who could consider ranting about Meta to be punching down, right? Those poor, poor billionaires could never recover from this nobody ranting about them...) But there's a reason:

If you've been on Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Meta, or LinkedIn lately, having any complaints of any kind are a no-go. How can we be sincere, articulate people if we have to be thankful to employers who lay us off or give an Amazon product a 5 star review in order to get your refund for an awful purchase, just to be healthy people with healthy prospects and pocketbooks?

You can't.

This is why I like Spacehey. It's a place where we can be a little bit more of ourselves. Partly because anonymity is welcome here. We have privacy to do and say what we want, as long as we treat each other kindly. We have the freedom not to conform to some corporate aesthetic. We don't have to scroll through endless AI dribble. This platform isn't a worldwide networking site for conglomerates yet, therefore they aren't yet conducting background searches yet or verifying your passivity here yet. We are in a not-quite-empty void full of interesting people engaging for the fun of it. In essence, we are free to speak here.

I noticed that it's often people who want to say the most outlandish, unkind things who complain about freedom of speech, but what about the freedom to complain a little bit and remain a mostly peppy person? Or the freedom to run your mouth about something unjust without it biting you in your @$$? (See, I still censor curses compulsively! Yikes!) I for one remember that at my happiest, I always had time to get a little vent-sesh in with my best friends. But in this recommendation, review, and rating culture, that's not acceptable anymore is it?

But the economy is changing for us young people. We may not even see a future where jobs are available to most of us with AI, gig work, and machinery replacing every industry under the sun. Not to be pessimistic but... I reserve my right to be a little pessimistic. And still, life is worth living. Loved ones are worth loving. And if nothing is guaranteed anymore why should we even have to care what we put out in the world?

If this seems unstructured, it's because it isn't. I have (most of) a literature degree. I've done professional writing. I've made slogans. I'm tired. I'm 23 and feel a little haggard from the rules and restriction. Written anarchy is simply an excercize to get the pen moving. I don't want to apologize for being imperfect anymore, and I get angry that it's "wrong to be angry". It's one thing that nobody wants to listen to a miserable wretch- I get that; I really do. But it's the fear that we have to fully express ourselves. We need to express ourselves to fully feel and understand ourselves and our lives.

We need to embrace our least marketable selves to hold onto the humanity we got.

We need to voice our deepest feelings to even know what they are.

Half-optimistic rant over.