From “We Become What We Normalize: What We Owe Each Other in Worlds That Demand Our Silence” by David Dark
Little inaccuracies deployed to relieve tension add up into inauthentic environments and unsafe spaces. Patti Smith, like other poets and prophets, is practiced in the work of not relieving tension but instead dwelling within it, holding space and seeing what might come of not trying to explain it away. This is the art of creative noncompliance. For Smith, “this thing,” these things, are on. She’s going to play human and see what happens – no matter what. With her singular voice, she holds and conjures a space in which everyone is invited to artfulness, to new, unexpected, and impromptu forms of play. By being so consistently and relentlessly her most creative self, she invites us to use our voices too.
People, it turns out, have the moral power to wrest a vibe, a scene, a neighborhood, a city back from the abusive strategies of reactive and poised-to-please people. What’s more, with persistence and long pauses, with the right story, song, analogy, or joke, a reactive person can become a responsive person. As one who occasionally freaks out at intersections, I undertake this transformation many times a day. Without artfulness, well, I’ll be damned. Transformative possibilities are my only hope. With any luck, I’ll remain awake and alive to them in the days remaining to me. Is this thing on?