Blessings in bad advice

on bad advice and returning to yourself in the new year

I started going to therapy regularly with a therapist I like, who didn’t immediately traumatize me and most importantly, one I feel can truly help me, about a month ago. Once-a-week sessions, so I guess that’s what’s considered the more intense kind of therapy. We uncracked something recently that I want to reflect on continuously, something that will influence the way that I show up in my writing and my work. It’s a piece of advice that has felt shallow and irritating my entire life, the basic concept of “be yourself and do the work to do the things you want to do”. I know that this therapist is effective because of things like that. I’ve thought many many times in my life that I need to be myself and do the work. I thought I understood what it meant and how I was meant to show up, but I haven’t internalized that in the ways that serve me.
I’ve internalized “being myself and doing the work” as setting myself on this never-ending path of self-improvement, of skill building, of financial growth, of career success through the things I like to do like writing, making art, and connecting with other people. Sounds fine, right? But I fucked myself up cause I forgot that being myself and doing the work are things that are influenced heavily by my environment and circumstances. I started to warp into someone I was not in pursuit of what I thought “doing the work” was (and I don’t beat myself up for this because I was told by many people that the things I did were the right things to do). “Be yourself” is good advice, but it should come with instructions or else it fucking sucks. What the fuck does it even mean? Who is myself? How do I ‘be’ that if I am myself? I am being myself all the time, am I not? If only it were that simple.

i made this piece in 2022.

“Myself” is an amalgamation of everything I’ve ever seen, done, experienced, learned, felt, and created, an amalgamation of everyone I have ever conversed with, kissed under stars, held hands with, shared music with, loved, hurt and been hurt by. It’s not simple to distill everything ‘myself’ into a behavior, a practice, an embodiment. It is not impossible, but it is far from simple or easy. All this to say, I fucked up a little by not letting myself explore what it means to be myself in my art before I began hyper-focusing on “doing the work” to the point where “myself” became so attached to “the work” that it sincerely has felt like my imagination has died, or has been stuffed behind a 6inch thick reinforced steel wall with the worlds most complex vault lock on it. This talk with my therapist recently has revealed to me that although I have been so resilient in the face of capitalism, it has still affected who I am and how I move through this world. I’ve internalized that I don’t deserve to experience joy in my work, that I don’t deserve peace and catharsis. That artistic exploration and explosiveness is for people who have worked hard for stability. Bourgeois decadence.

This has created a feedback loop where I don’t imagine because I do not rest because I must always be “doing the work”. The funny part is that in my focus on doing the work, I have snuffed out my whimsy. I look back at the things I’ve written in the past year and wince. In 2022 when I first started releasing my writing publicly, I talked a lot about how the only things I had ever been paid for were pieces where I talked about my hardships as a Black trans person, a sex worker, a fat person, or some other marginalization I exist within. I talked about how much I hated that and wanted to take control of my narrative differently. I’ve lost that in the sauce of ‘doing the work’. So focused on doing the work that I haven’t done much of any work that I feel brings me any sort of lasting joy. Don’t get me wrong – I don’t do everything I do to experience joy or to have fun. Quite the opposite. I almost sort of avoid fun because I’ve been in survival mode for so long, ‘having fun’ is one of the major things in this life that I am sincerely insecure about doing.

My therapist told me it takes practice to learn how to play. That’s where I’m at right now. I forgot how to play. I love the work I've done in the spaces I’ve been a part of for the last couple of years. I love that I’ve contributed so much integral work to theorizing on antitransmasculinity, exorsexism, intersexism, and some specific functions of antiblackness. But what does it mean that when I look at my body of work, most of it is deeply personal, deeply emotional, and deeply about the oppression I have suffered and watched others around me both suffer from and perpetuate? I didn’t start writing to be a Queer Theorist ™ – I started writing because I have a voice, I have things to say, I have a perspective that is important and valuable and that deserves to exist in the world. Most of all I’m tired of seeing words that feel like mine everywhere I look. “Do the work”, they say, and it’s true. You have to start doing the work so you do not end up haunted by the words you wish you would have said and the stories you wish you would have told. It will feel like bits and pieces of your soul are being stolen, bastardized, made shallow, and forgetful. You will see yourself everywhere in the worst ways. Hollow facsimiles of your insides.

I’ve been writing for as long as I could hold a pencil on my own. I used to fill up notebooks with stories of other worlds, of this one if I were different, of the future if she didn’t exist, of the conversations I wish I could have had with people I’ve never known. I don’t know if any of the writing was good, and I don’t care. I want that back, and I’m gonna get it back. I have spent a lot of time deconditioning myself when it comes to matters of identity and personhood, but little unraveling the messages that capitalism has ingrained into me, of messages that have been taught to me by people who have been shown capitalism is a game they could start to win at if they did the right things. I’m never gonna be that person, and trying to be that person actively created a sort of black hole of creativity in my mind where I started to believe that there was a formula to ‘work’ and success when you’re someone who exists in the dimensions I do as a fat, Black, intersex, trans, queer, kinky, sex working, visibly disabled covid-aware writer who refuses to kowtow, who refuses to allow others to control my narrative, who refuses taxonomy and classification both interpersonally and professionally.

I am never gonna be seen as having “done the work” in the ways that others who have been rewarded by capitalism are. And that’s okay with me. What I’m after now is making sure to keep my soul, to chase my whimsy, to be heard, to leave things behind I feel proud of, to connect with others through things that we love and admire, to build something bigger than myself, to create in the way that feeds me instead of depletes me. It’s hilarious that the longest period of writer's block in my life came from people telling me to keep my head down and just ‘do the work’. Funny I didn’t realize how shit that advice was from the start. You can write all you want but if everything you finish mirrors the exact sentiments of the writer you’ve been telling yourself you do not want to be, what good is that work? Compromising your insides and still not receiving the rewards of capitalism because you are not the type of person who wins at this game. You are the kind of person who lets themselves be heard, who creates art that connects with other people and makes them feel seen for the first time, to create art that gives people permission to exist, to break rules, to reject and resist the empire, to forge an identity entirely independent of this fake fucking society we have established. That’s the kind of person I want to be and following THAT pursuit in my writing is how I actually will end up ‘doing the work’.

I don’t know if success is gonna come for me because I feel renewed, because I know that I’ve begun the process of thawing out parts of me I have put on ice for far too long and that will result in a lot more regular art, regular words, regular feelings. I don’t know if this is how I find what I’m looking for, which is healing, stability, connection with the world, and helping other people. But I know that I’m ready to do it. To meet the page head-on. To write about the beautiful things. Please, do not think this means my work will become sanitized, a dream world where everything is perfect and nobody ever dies. I still have a ton of work I want to do when it comes to every serious topic I’ve written or spoken about before. I’m just gonna do things a different way now. I know that my perspective, my knowledge, my experiences, and my personhood are valuable. I know that I deserve life, rest, joy, and fun. I have to give as much energy to my pursuit of those things as I do to fighting injustice, or I will fade away and all that will be left is ‘doing the work’, and I will disappear.

Anyways – nice to meet you. I’m Salem Void. I’m Black, intersex, trans, fat, disabled, a sex worker, an activist, an artist, a writer, a bear, and a lover. I’m scared and paranoid a lot. I have deep, complex trauma that manifests as avoidant behaviors and extremely high anxiety. I want to be a writer. I want to meet more disabled trans sex workers. I want to write things that people go to for comfort. I want to write things that make people see things in a new way. I want to write things that feel like a warm hug. I want to find new ways to work and create together. I want to write things that give people nightmares. I want to keep us all safe. I want to write things that make people crave the warmth of another human body. I want to write things that make people crave the cold of an artificial body. I want to keep having a voice and to keep sharpening that voice.

a screenshot from the wiki on “oceanic feeling” - that’s what im after this year and beyond. i want this oceanic feeling back. i used to have it. i can again.

I think the greatest gift I’ve been given was given to me in the last month of therapy. I figured out that ‘be yourself’ is bad advice, but it isn’t so shit once you figure out who you are, and that doesn’t mean figuring out what you want to do with your life – it means figuring out what you care about, and then caring about it until you fucking croak. I know what I care about, therefore I know who I am. I know what I’m gonna spend the rest of my life doing: loving. I know I’m gonna spend the rest of my life exploring myself and changing. I know I might not recognize myself 10 years from now. And how beautiful is that? I know who I am and now I can do the fucking work. Finally. It's so fucked up that some of us have to be re-taught how to experience pleasure and joy. It’s fucked up how long it took me to realize my access to my joy had been ground down and taken from me in the first place.

So, this essay might feel disjointed and weird and a little rambly and like it jumps from topic to topic and I do apologize since it might be jarring since my writing is usually pretty structured. Embracing a more free style of writing is a part of getting back to my bliss, back to creating consistently, back to making things that I’ll be proud to leave behind, things I really could have used when I was younger. It’s funny this feels so major when I’m not announcing anything or changing anything – I’m simply returning to myself in a way I was not aware I needed to until I accepted that I’m allowed to pursue more than just survival, that I am allowed to pursue and to fight for my joy. Thanks for being on this journey for me, for whatever reason you are. I’m excited to get more of my words out in the world. Whatever that means, whatever comes from it. I’m ready, I'm prepared. I know how to be myself and do the work forreal now.

a photo of bear taken the day this essay was published, bear stands in front of a peace pagoda, a buddhist temple promoting world peace and the end of war.