writeexp

[writeexp]

About A Depressed Woodcutter

Think of yourself cutting firewood for winter, and you're doing okay. Now imagine one year the amount of good trees is low, you get like a tenth of usable material for the amount of work you put in, they're very damaged and soggy. You have barely enough to survive the winter. You would start feeling the weight of the situation, the pressure and the unjustness, but you know they're trees, it's not anyone's fault. Sure you can yell at the gods for handing you a short straw and angrily pray for drier wood, but that's not going to change much. You'd feel depressed and robbed.

Now imagine that but the firewood is no longer firewood , and the reason you're receiving a lot less than you put in is because of some person with their last name on the building you work in.

You'd constantly feel that something is not right, the amount of work you're putting in should be giving you much more wood, but it's not. If you start expressing your dissatisfaction and confusion, they give you medication, if you start demanding more, they 'let you go'. Of course depressed people exist, you saw them, they do need medication, but you start realising that your chemical imbalance is not bad luck, but that it has a cause.

The wood ruiner has a name now, it's on the building you have no ties to anymore, and you have just the right amount of firewood.

#fiction #writing #essay #capitalism #anti capitalism #marxism #social justice #depression #workplace #against grind culture #tw: violent thoughts

[writeexp]

The lie that the default is good

For whom? In pop culture and media, it’s almost always the bad guy trying to change something about society/the world. The real protagonist, the one who moves things forward in a story as defined by the Greeks, is someone who is actively fought against, and their loss is something to be celebrated. Never is the ‘’good guy’’ fighting for a better world, only a world as it was before, the default world we presumably live in currently, or something similar enough to it. Examples of this are movies like Lion King, in which a prince returns to his ravaged homeland to depose of the tyrannical king, who destroyed and enslaved the subjects of the kingdom. Now, in this scenario, Scar really is a bad guy, but Simba is not moving the society forward, just geting it back to where it’s once been.

One counterexample may come to mind, namely the dystopian novel. In dystopian fiction, the main characters ARE fighting for a better world against an oppressive government/ruler/organisation after all. It’s looking to be read maybe as a critique of the modern world, a condemnation of the things Powers That Be do. However, the world they bring about, IF they succeed, is often no different than our own, so they too can be read as a story about fighting a bad guy/group that brought change to the society some time in the past, and it was Evil, and should be fought against. 

In this way we vilify the people who want change, often framing them as the bad guy in the story/article/news report. People that are able to get their voices heard(pay for the content) enjoy their current privilege and can relate to the ‘hero’ of the story that’s fighting to reset the world to ‘normal’, and it’s those people who seek such stories, reaffirming the validity of their position in the ‘good ending’

#prose #my prose #essay #social justice #short essay #social science #academia #fiction #flash fiction #media analysis #media #analysis #sociology #socialism #capitalism #mark fisher #philosophy tube #pop culture #blm

[writeexp]

A prehistoric tribe reacts to a meteor

'Greetings, chief Klam' said the woman dressed in bones.

'Greetings, shaman Klem' said the man with a mammoths bone on his hip. He continued 'say, you wouldn't know anything about the sign that has appeared in the sky, would you?'

'Do you take me for a charlatan, a mistaken baboon? I know all about the Sky-Fathers tears, and why he sheds them!'

'I have been told by the Elder Tree that is blood coming out that will make a new tribe.'

'Perhaps, but you do not know the Elder tongue as well as I do, and it told me that it's actually a new Sun forming, and our days will last twice as long'

'Wait, didn't you tell me that it's Sky-Fathers tears?'

'No no, take a look, it's getting bigger now, how could a tear be getting bigger?'

'By the spirits, shaman Klem, you're right! Is it a gift?'

'Most definitely, it's an omen that our tribe will wi------

#flash fiction #flash #fiction #short #story #prose #spilled prose #humor #sad #funny #tragic #tragedy #tale #challenge #writing #dark #dark academia #academia #lit #literature

[writeexp]

The Dancing Lights Bar stands on the corner

Windows large and a wooden adorner

Framed by the stone and clay of the city

That only occasionally looks at it with pity

#poetry #poem #poems on tumblr #song #sad poem #classic #new #slam poem #prose #my poem #oc #oc tag #nature #original #The Dancing Lights Bar #dark academia #academia #light academia #literature #romance #romanticism

[writeexp]

Four miles above

And two thousand leagues deep

Sleeps my only love

For her love I can only weep

Oh Ferryman, Oh Troll

How can I find her, I ask.

Don't turn around, don't let yourself see

Lest I stab you in the back

Lest I take your eye

#poetry #poem #poems on tumblr #song #sad poem #classic #new #slam poem #prose #my poem #oc #oc tag