Remember how Billy Corgan sang, ‘Despite all my rage, I am still just a rat in a cage’? Ever since I first heard that song back in the single digits, I’ve thought about that line an abnormal amount. I identified with it on a core level. But I never understood why.
My aging wisdom tells me now that it’s because we are the benefactors of our own demise, meticulously engineering our own downfall in this glorious era of over-consumption. It’s like a train headed straight for derailment I can’t seem to jump off of. The cages are the social structures, institutions, and corporations—and all their man-made distractions—keeping us glassy-eyed and in line. At least we’ll have shiny, cool shit in the end, eh? We’ll be like pharaohs buried with the same techno-leashes that once connected us to everything while simultaneously disconnecting us from our essence.
Little waking nightmares. Think of anything else. Think of how mountain-cornflowers smelled when you were a tangle-haired five-year-old playing pretend in the garden. Remember the bare-footed girl in the cotton dress dancing atop the soft umber of the Earth. Remember what it felt like to be real.
Snap back to reality and tell yourself that unless there’s a global revolution, there’s very little we can do on a macro-level to stop any of this now. All this talk about forging an ‘ethical existence’ as if every choice we make in this system doesn’t inevitably fuel some form of harm. It feels pointless sometimes.
And don’t forget: our humanity is secondary to our productivity. Our worth is not inherent, but a direct reflection of where we stand in the production line. We’re so used to being confined that we’ve become complicit in it, so long as all that aforementioned shiny shit is capturing our attention and we’re fighting each other for survival in small, almost unrecognizable ways.
I feel like a hypocrite all the time—filled with cognitive dissonance, yet so disconnected from this reality at the same time. My only saving grace is that I dream with my eyes open, and I always have.
Just be happy enough with it. Why aren’t you? What’s wrong? Aren’t you grateful? You’re beautiful and you’re smart and you have a nice house and you have people who love you. Just don’t look for more.
Ah, the dread of it all. This is nothing out of the norm for me… I suppose I’ve always felt this way. But I hate that my children have to bear witness to the end stages of this mess when they didn’t ask for it. Every natural thing has been commodified—tethered to some dollar amount. The air, the trees, the lands we walk on. And we did this to ourselves. Truly dystopian.
I feel like I can’t raise my children the way I want to—and again, that’s probably the way most people feel, but this hits me on a deep level because being a mother is an inherent part of my purpose. And if I’m not living up to my full maternal potential—if that’s even a thing—what does that say about my ability to self-actualize? The worst part is that I have it better than most, so I feel an immense sense of guilt for even voicing my complaints.
I send my son to an outdoor school so he can breathe healthy air before it becomes a memory. I teach my teenage daughter to embrace her feminine power before it gets wielded against her. I spend unrushed mornings holding my baby daughter before the world gets its hands on her too.
But if nothing matters anymore, and we’re in a state of anomie, can’t I just do whatever I want? Sometimes I wish that I was courageous enough to try.
I can feel it happening though—the slow and steady emancipation from this cage—even if metaphorically so. I see the cracks widening ever so slowly, I see the gaps between the bars, and through them the light seeps in.
I will be kindness. I will be love. I will be the fire and the life and the tenderness I so desperately seek. I’ll do it locked and chained and tethered, and all in time, I will find a way to be free. I just need to find the key.