Spartacus

It was written I should be loyal to the nightmare of my choice.
~ Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

If I had the luxury of choosing my own nightmare I’d be:

• mega rich and torn between leaving my vast wealth to human rights orgs or tree planting/environmental do gooders. I can only choose one. HOW do I decide?!
  

• thin as hell and able to eat whatever I want. My meal and snack choices have increased by 1000%! WHAT should I eat? Do I start my day with a full English breakfast (but sub in vegan versions of the bacon and sausage and black beans versus baked)? Do I have loaded veggie nachos for elevensies? An entire carrot cake for lunch? Spanakopita and saag paneer for tea? Lasagna and Neapolitans for din-din? Decisions, decisions.
  

• living on a planet without cats. Elaboration as to why this is a nightmare is unnecessary.
  

When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.
~ Edmund Burke, Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents

This presupposes that bad and good are 2-dimensional things which is mondo ridiculous. Look at Liz Cheney—she’s not in any way a cartoon villain and yet she voted the Trump/Fascist party line 92.9% of the time. Likewise, perennial presidential candidate Bernie “women’s issues are a distraction” Sanders talks a decent populist game but he voted the Trump line 16.1% of the time and is otherwise distinctly problematic.

There is no thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives.
~ Audre Lorde

This reminds me of John Scalzi’s post, Straight White Male: The Lowest Difficulty Setting There Is. It’s about a roleplaying computer game which illustrates how privilege works.

You can lose playing on the lowest difficulty setting. The lowest difficulty setting is still the easiest setting to win on. The player who plays on the “Gay Minority Female” setting? Hardcore.

Go read the rest—it’s funny, insightful and just altogether fabulous.

No person, trying to take responsibility for her or his identity, should have to be so alone. There must be those among whom we can sit down and weep, and still be counted as warriors.
~ Adrienne Rich, Sources

The majority of us are warriors in a couple aspects (or more) of our lives. My main battleground is my health. Given that neurofibromatosis type 2 is so rare, I would’ve expected to be the lone soldier on my life's field. In fact, I was alone in the arena for a long time. I’m deeply grateful for my fellow warrior's company though I’m, of course, sad that they’ve got to fight this shit too.

It feels good, solid, that I have loved ones who really, totally grok this epic struggle—the funny bits as well as the more plentiful, bitingly bleak bits.