To some males in the sceneā
You might be what the Emperor Augustus would have called āmurderers of your own posterity.ā At least one time, I was not the murderer of my own posterity. Because I reproduced. I was married and had a child. I participated in the creation of human life. Iām not expecting a medal for this. But: Do you realize that there are cumshots right now waiting in your nutsack to become children, and you diverted them to some other cause? Congratulations, youāre a murderer of your own posterity. Think about that.
But Jesse, you say, the worldās coming to an end. The earth will be an uninhabitable hellscape of apocalyptic proportions by 2050, and I donāt want to bring a child into that. Also I am a Petri dish crawling with personality flaws, mental illnesses, bad habits, drug abuse, and just generally unfavorable traits and I wouldnāt want to plague another human life with that. In addition, parenthood may be nothing more than a narcissistic wish to create little mirrors of ourselves.
Alright. I can only counter that by saying that I think thereās value in having children, even now. Even as the world comes crumbling down there is a narrow window for love and family and just the recognitionĀ that, no matter how vulnerable to philosophical attack, thereās something more to be had from life and itās in other people, who you love. And maybe I say that because I see a kind of blocked, perverse energy in some people in my field of vision, in some men, and I thinkāin spite of the fact that it would choke the surface of the planet with extra human lives and would contribute in some small way to a Malthusian overpopulation crisisāat least that energy would be channeled into something healthier if they thought about somebody else.
Maybe Iāve been hypnotized by the pro-natalist cultural programming in human life. Ok letās take child-bearing out of it, because that is a bridge too far for some of you. By the way, this is not some right-wing trad return thing where I am really mad more people arenāt living the straight square life of God and babies. I am an unfocused yet fierce critic of the married square life, and I think Iāve talked about that elsewhere. What about just true creativity? You have the opportunityāitās right in front of youāto engage in meaningful conversation and debate about the arts, literature, politics, and youāre too warped and immature to see that. Thereās more to life than playing video games and jerking off into a sock. Thereās constructive erotic energy that is put into making art and then thereās whatever youāre doing.
Specifically, and Iāll just say it, we seem to be floundering into a post-Eris sausage party on Misery Loves Company. The vibe just doesnāt seem to attract women. Maybe it doesnāt need to. But I see the value of being on a group zoom call with some women participants. This is scattered unscientific observation but there seem to be more women in the āpoetry sectorā if you want to use that kind of nomenclature. Not that there arenāt male poets, obviously there are, but thereās a feminine energy threaded through this small view of the poetry horizon that I have. Iād like to go there a little more often, I think, to a place not so marked by a deficit of estrogen somehow. Iām talking about it like itās some mystical unknown forest over the hill where men dare not go because thatās where the threatening 100-foot tall women stomp around. I do think spending time with female poets would involve understanding, in some cases, a different set of priorities and political values and in some unfortunate cases, a paranoia. Where I am now, thereās often a kind of offbeat hostile male politics, that is not at all macho, but an adverse, bleachy environment with a little too much pH perhaps, a bit of a know-it-all college frat house vibe (but the frat house has whole anterooms full of immature, psychically stunted virgins or, frankly, gay people with feet at various degrees out of the closet, who are on their own quests, respect) and maybe this is what drives some women away. I donāt know. Iād like to change the coordinates though.