A short Vent about the challenges of doing new things in an old things world when I'm supposed to be feeling gratitude

I'm a pretty chill person, to be honest. I get up in the morning and I meditate to make space in my brain. I use my breath to clean my heart of anger, and to sit down and feel my hurts so that they don't engulf me, one stolen moment at a time. 

 But this Thanksgiving 2021, I was bereft of calm and gratitude. Of course, my always thoughts go to my family, my beloveds, the gorgeous home we get to live in, our relative safety. I'm learning more and more to acknowledge and insert awareness of my priviledges as a cog in a fairly unjust capitalistic empire that is squeezing people here and around the world for more of their life energy to give me good holiday food and christmas gifts. 

 I get that my life is a gift, and I get that my reality is enchanted, and in many ways, enchanted at the expense of others. I am grateful to have what I need, and I work to shift what doesn't need to belong to me into the buckets of others. 

 But we can't stop at staying grateful for some things when we have crumbs in other areas. When it comes to white supremacy culture, we can't stop and be complacent with meager representation and practically zero voice. While I am safe and loved in my home life, I am also going through a blindingly difficult crisis of loneliness in my career. 

 The job that I have always dreamt of, my first dream really, teaching theatre, has become an unsavory sustenance that I can no longer eat nor serve hot nor cold. I actually said the words last night for the first time; "...theatre is dying," I said. And I meant it. 

 In this current form of theatre making as an industry and as an educational endeavor, expression is held captive more than nurtured. Expression is not welcomed to the gathering centered on... Well, the gathering centered on Expression.

 We were told this industry would let us bring all of ourselves into the room, but in fact expression was relegated to white people who knew how to handle the guns and gatekeep the door.

 As our world reckons with the obvious corruption of our legal system, one that would allow a white boy to get away with killing Black folks for sport; and as the film industry reckons with the needless death of a talented camera operator due to a culture of ignoring the needs of the people who do the work, I'm over here in Baltimore realizing that my life's work in decolonizing theatre has purpose. 

Reason for celebration? No! I'm pissed! Because now that I know what constitutes my work, I DON'T know if I have the strength, the patience, and lets be honest, the RESOURCES, to help others experience it. 

For me to get others to experience what my work does, I'm gonna have to either outlast, out-yell, or out-sell, or ALL THREE!, every last white man in my field that still thinks this cancel culture shit is ridiculous.

Do I have that kind of staying power? 

(Its a rhetorical question.)