A new adjective, an identifier
The hour hasn’t changed since the last
A new term to learn
A new unwritten rule yet to rule lives
A crisis of identity beyond comprehension
Compounded by the net of lies and misinformation
Disguised as science and allyship
Profiting off the mentality of
Submission, subjugation, and self-flagellation
Never before has language shifted gears so quickly
Obnoxious, narcissistic, virtuous, or whatever
That you wish to name it
This shift shall collapse us and you too
We are reaching an age of language
Ignorance and stereotyping – celebrated under the guise
Of uniqueness and individuality
Truth becomes subjective and each to their own?
Life’s each moment passes with a question
Who’s the next victim and what’s their struggle?
What’s the next law I must abide by?
What words I must condemn and hate?
What opinions and beliefs I must inculcate?
To not hurt, to not offend, to not cause YOU trouble
For the burden you bear each day
Is but naught compared to Hercules
This obsession of adjectives, I do not understand
Words upon words that can mean anything
A slight change to an existing definition
An article, a word, a spelling that but doesn’t change
Any meaning or corrupt the definition
So that you can claim struggles for your own
So that you can be treated with sympathy
Sympathy that you interpret as respect
Respect that you can never earn by who you are
Except by forcing me to do so by law
Each word can now mean anything
Oops! Another adjective has arrived
What is this obsession around adjectives?
Adding words to describe yourself because
You don’t know how else to describe yourself
Or understand yourself in the least
Adding words to categorize yourself as oppressed
The victims who need to be saved
Yet claiming no one can change to stop the oppression
To serve in a circle of “perceived” benefits
Through torture or by force from others
By laws that seem to destroy the very thing
You keep claiming to want to save
Because you couldn’t think beyond the words
Beyond the exoticity of what’s being said
What’s being uttered out of your own mouth
Because the illusion you created for yourself
Will shatter the moment you think one step deeper
Because the entire narrative represses your ability,
Your need, and desire to think for yourself,
To operate as an independent being,
To be aware of your own self,
To be comfortable with the reality of not knowing everything,
To have a lot more of yourself to explore,
To know that in the crisis of identity,
You are not alone in the struggle
Believing that facts are opinions
When they don’t further or fit your narrative
Dig a little deeper, into the world, into yourself
Identity takes a while to form but is never whole
There’s still a lot to explore even when you’re no more
What you feel today and categorize yourself
It neither helps you nor anyone else
Why this obsession for labels?
Why do you suffer violence with speech?
A few missing words, a name of the past
Enough to traumatize you and scar you
Than those who see death and worse before breakfast everyday
Why the obsession to label yourself?
When your attention span won’t last longer than a sentence
You have a description longer than “War and Peace”
With your own words in a constant war
Among each other, destined never to achieve peace
Why do you believe no one understands your life?
Is this an attempt to showcase your inconveniences
Under the guise of oppression?
Yet never be satisfied enough with any change
Because there’s nothing large enough to fill the void
You created within yourself
Why do you put responsibility on everyone else?
Because you are now spotless or clean
That your life is a consequence of someone else’s work
Of someone else’s thoughts and actions?
Or is it because it is easy to live in denial
Than believe you can mold your own life.
Why this obsession with adjectives?
To categorize everything and everyone you see
With identifiers that require a book to fit
For people who can’t go more than a second
Without talking about themselves
Claiming they are trying to be saviors
In a fight that exists only in their head
Why this obsession to categorize?
To put everyone in boxes, trying to educate the others
That your own struggles are unique
That no one else ever felt the way you can possibly feel
That rewards are automatically deserved, not earned
That working isn’t cool enough for you to do it
Yet blame everyone else for the ills you dealt with your own hand
Why this obsession with adjectives?
Because it makes delegation, sorry, evasion of responsibility easy?
Because it is easy to live in denial
Than believe that you can mold your own life.
–Surya Teja
