#i keep thinking about the essay i read by ilan benjamin. daniel pearl's cousin #who has lived so much more life and seen so much more and experienced so much more than i have (but who hasn't?) #(my isolation and frozen state at a much younger age is assuredly part of what has added to this shock and naivete for me) #anyway he listed the allyship he's worked for and believed in and the heartbreak he has willingly forgiven #and the humanity and rights for which he stands. and then he said #“when you killed my idealism i had no forgiveness left” #it's silly but it's lived like a splinter in my head and keeps (bizarrely) making me think of that scene from moulin rouge #when he says: thank you for curing me of my ridiculous obsession with love. #the thing that makes that tragic isn't his misplaced anger at her but rather the shattering of his idealism. he is in many ways an innocent #an artist who believes in truth and beauty and freedom and above all things love. who suddenly understands that's not how the world works#love can't save you. you can work so hard and try and be so compassionate and forgiving #eventually you have to see how the world is built and your idealism is not real and is not enough #that's what the past weeks taught me. because of the jubilation and justification and hatred and reveling in the pain everywhere #and disguising that as righteous. and pretending it's helping people who deserve help (it isn't. it won't) #and knifing people who have done absolutely nothing in the heart simply for being who and what they are#spreading screeds from another era as if we've been transported through time. and not caring what it does to friends or anyone suffering#and not caring that it's making things more dangerous and volatile because you don't really love the side you claim to support#as much as you hate the other. that's unforgivable. thank you for curing me of my ridiculous obsession with love#i don't know what to do. there's nothing i can do
the referenced essay:
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