Okay, so some cis folks are feeling ... stuff. I don't know, I'm not cis, so you'll have to tell me. But stuff. In relation to a Wonkette commenter named Phantom Stranger blowing off steam about the nonspecific everything having to do with cissexism in this moment.
There's a quote from Kahlil Gibran, a middle eastern Arab Christian, which says something like:
You are born owing nothing to anyone, and everything to everyone.
The idea -- a difficult one -- is about balancing personal responsibility with larger duty. No, as an individual cis person you don't owe me or Phantom or anyone else some specific make good for all the cissexist crap in the world. You. as an individual owe nothing to any one other individual.
But we as humans can't get by without each other. I write. I don't farm. I share ideas, emotions, hopefully inspiration. I don't grow potatoes or soy beans or Oreo fruit. I need others to survive, and I owe them, the nebulous everyone, a decent world in which they can thrive.
Phantom is in the feels right now: Go with them, if you dare. It's not bad to ask for clarification and it's not bad to share your own feelings as a cis person if you are one. No one is calling you the sinner responsible for this or that wound to Phantom's heart, or to mine.
We are not better than you. We owe the world to you as well. We want you to flourish and feel joy. We want you to nourish your bodies and feed your minds. We want you to feel the crisp discomfort that arrives as you outgrow your current skin. And if, at times, we feel our own crisis and call attention to it, remember that you do not owe it to any one of us to meet us in that valley of despair.
If you can't get there today, that's fine. If you can't get there this week, that's fine. If you just don't get trans issues and you're never able to hold the hand of a gender outsider whose fist has grown bloody from pounding on a firmly closed door, you still are loved. You still are valued. You still are owed the world.
Be there for the trans people in your lives, if you can. But if you can't, do what you are able, when you are able, for the people you are able to aid.
You owe nothing to any one of us, much as you might wish to pay a debt when you hear the desperation of one person's cry.
The desire to pay that debt, to be free of others' pain, that's a false vision of what it means to be human in this world. You can't ever pay the debt. As long as we share this life, we owe each other the world.
You owe everyone the world, which can feel overwhelming, but is not. For our meditations on Gibran's words teach us that we are part of the everyone who is owed life, and health, and flourishing.
If you can't help another today. That's fine. If you can't even listen to someone else today without costing yourself more than the other receives, turn your ears, close your eyes. Taking care of yourself is part of paying the debt we each owe to this world.
So listen, if you can. But if you can't, it's no failing. Not merely because there's always tomorrow, but much more importantly because as long as you live, there is a you to concern yourself with.
I am a farmer, I do grow stuff and I need writers and dancers musicians and actors and other artists because I want to know more about the world than my tiny cis male farmer experience can ever provide. So thank you for writing, I owe you one.
Your writing is just heartbreakingly beautiful. Thank you.