GrandRising | Reactive Misanthropy

🖋

I did not...

Arrive at misanthropy...

Through hatred.

Interestingly.

I arrived there...

Through intimacy.

Through proximity.

Through observation.

Through experience.

Through allowing human beings...

Close enough...

To know of me.

Close enough...

To hear me.

Close enough...

To witness...

The architecture...

Of who I am.

And eventually...

Close enough...

To discover...

How easily...

Intimacy...

Can be weaponized.

There is a distinction here.

And it matters.

Misanthropy.

And...

Reactive Misanthropy.

Those...

Do not equate.

One may begin...

As a philosophical disposition...

Toward humanity.

The other...

Can emerge...

As consequence.

A reaction.

An orientation developed...

After repeated encounters...

Altered the conditions...

Under which closeness...

Feels possible.

It's Interesting.

Because...

I will always hold true to my core truths.

I still hold the truth of believing...

There is something uniquely divine...

Within every human being.

I still recognize...

Personhood.

Selfhood.

Agency.

Autonomy.

Choice.

The strange...

Extraordinary...

Complexity...

Of being alive.

I have not lost...

My recognition...

Of humanity.

What changed...

Was my willingness...

To grant humanity...

Proximity.

Those...

Do not equate.

Question.

What happens...

When closeness...

Repeatedly becomes...

The very mechanism...

Through which...

Your autonomy...

Is challenged?

When knowing you...

Becomes permission...

To interpret you?

When loving you...

Becomes permission...

To decide for you?

When concern...

Becomes surveillance?

When familiarity...

Becomes entitlement?

When disagreement...

Becomes diagnosis?

When intimacy...

Becomes jurisdiction?

Bruh.

At what point...

Does the human mind...

Learn?

Not...

"Human beings possess no value."

But...

"Human proximity possesses risk."

There...

Is the distinction.

Reactive Misanthropy...

As I experience it...

Is not...

The inability...

To recognize humanity...

In others.

It is what remained...

After humanity...

Repeatedly failed...

To recognize...

Autonomy...

In me.

And perhaps...

That is why...

I became quieter.

Why access...

Became narrower.

Why intimacy...

Became rarer.

Why I stopped believing...

That affection...

Was sufficient reason...

To open a door.

Because...

Affection...

Is not authority.

Concern...

Is not consent.

History...

Is not ownership.

Proximity...

Is not jurisdiction.

Love...

Is not agency...

Over another human being.

Those...

Have never...

Equated.

Yet humans...

Have an unfortunate habit...

Of confusing...

Being close to someone...

With possessing...

Some portion...

Of them.

Their choices.

Their inner truths.

Their relationships.

Their privacy.

Their body.

Their time.

Their identity.

Their future.

Their mind.

Interesting.

Perhaps...

Somewhere along the way...

We confused...

Intimacy...

With access.

And access...

With entitlement.

I don't.

Not anymore.

You can be...

Beautifully human.

Profoundly complex.

Entirely worthy...

Of your own existence.

And still...

Have absolutely...

No entitlement...

To mine.

Those truths...

Can coexist.

My recognition...

Of the divinity...

Within another...

Does not require...

The abandonment...

Of the divinity...

Within myself.

Read that...

Again.

Because...

Recognition.

That refuses...

Another's autonomy...

Isn't recognition.

It is consumption...

Dressed...

In prettier language.

Question.

What happens...

When someone experiences...

Enough of that?

Do they become...

Cold?

Broken?

Unloving?

Unstable?

Or...

Did their relationship...

With proximity...

Simply change?

Interesting.

Humans are often...

Very interested...

In the wall.

Far less interested...

In studying...

What repeatedly...

Approached the gate.

Reactive Misanthropy.

Not hatred...

Without origin.

Not cruelty.

Not superiority.

Not the belief...

That humanity...

Is worthless.

Reaction.

Cause...

And consequence.

The nervous system...

Learns.

Memory...

Learns.

Pattern recognition...

Learns.

And eventually...

The person...

Learns too.

I used to...

Allow closeness...

Far more freely.

Until closeness...

Taught me...

That some humans...

Interpret access...

As authority.

So now...

I recognize...

Without surrendering.

I can care...

Without belonging...

To another.

I can observe...

Without inviting.

I can acknowledge...

Without approaching.

I can recognize...

The extraordinary...

Within humanity...

And still decide...

That humanity...

Does not automatically...

Receive me.

Perhaps...

That is the strangest...

Part of all.

I have never despised...

Humanity.

I know...

What humanity...

Is capable of.

Beautiful things.

Horrific things.

Creation.

Destruction.

Tenderness.

Domination.

Recognition.

Projection.

Stewardship.

Possession.

And I refuse...

To amputate...

Either half...

For the comfort...

Of a prettier philosophy.

Human beings...

Can be divine...

And dangerous.

Those...

Do not contradict.

I view humanity with the humility required to recognize both.

So...

If I seem...

Further away...

Than I once was...

Perhaps...

Distance...

Isn't always...

An absence...

Of love.

Sometimes...

Distance...

Is what remains...

When autonomy...

Finally refuses...

To negotiate...

For its own existence.

I did not...

Stop recognizing...

Humanity.

I stopped believing...

Recognition...

Required...

Access.

Those...

Do not equate.

GrandRising. 🍵