Joy is a Battlefield

Whooaoaoaoaaoooooa.... WE ARE (young?)

Last night, I had the incredible privilege of speaking to JoAnne Turner about my insistence on promoting aspec joy. Her insightful questions about my choice to highlight this helped me to understand something about my own practice of joy; I think joy is a battle. I think joy is a war. I think joy is the prize we win when we refuse to accept the hate and despair that other people try to force on us for being authentic.

That sounds a little melodramatic, maybe.

At least, that’s what my Dad would say.

Shut up, Dad’s Voice; I love you, but this is MY Substack, okay?

I have never really subscribed to the idea that “it gets better.” I have never believed that “things will work out.” Those feel too passive to me, and I’ve never found that passive hope has served me well.

Shit gets done if you do it. You want something? Go get it. Can’t find it? Find someone who has it and see if they’ll share. They won’t? Leave them behind and keep looking for your own portion. When you find it, share it as much as you can without giving all of it up.

I believe that we have to seek out, find, and fight for joy, and that doing so for ourselves and others can be the most powerful thing in the world.

People frequently misuse the concept of “finding joy” in absolutely nauseating ways. The narrative of “if you just decide to be happy, you’ll feel better” can fuck right off. The whole “you don’t need medication, you just need a positive outlook” thing literally kills people.

I mean sure, cool, if just “being happy” works for you, I’m honestly delighted for you, but that’s not how things work for me.

Joy is not an attitude or a change of perspective. It’s a knock-down, drag out KO against societal expectations and the world’s insistence on trying to keep you from being whole.

It’s in the little things, sometimes. For example, I use the word “amatopunk” instead of the term “non- amatonormative.” Those two terms mean the exact same thing, but calling myself amatopunk feels fun and subversive, while explaining “non-amatonormative” can feel awkward and exhausting. I’m not just “weird,” I’m “freaking awesome” because of the things that make me feel whole. It’s a tiny tweak, but it keeps me remembering who I am and why that matters. It keeps me thinking about how wonderful it is to love the way I do.

Okay, Arielle; so you hype yourself up with semantics to feel better about not liking sex. Good for you, I guess?

Shut up, voice in my head; I’m working towards a point, here.

Let’s look for a second at the concept of “cringe.” What the hell is that? It’s the idea that someone should be embarrassed simply for talking or acting in a way that other people find confusing or uninteresting. It’s the idea that we should be ashamed of enjoying things that are “niche” or even “cliche.”

Truthfully, the concept of “cringe” is one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever heard, and it’s a common, fully-embraced concept in our culture that we have to actively fight in order to hang on to joy.

Of course, it gets even worse than that. I certainly don’t have to tell you that most of us, to some degree or another, are fighting active hatred. The world is telling us that our being different, our being authentic, our being real, our being a couple of beautiful standard deviations from the norm is disgusting, toxic, dangerous. We’re the monsters living in the haunted house that Old Man Jenkins warns the kids not to go into.

We’re fighting that, too. We’re fighting it like hell.

So yeah, joy doesn’t always come naturally, and it’s not a question of just imagining a better world and keeping your chin up.

We have to keep reminding ourselves how absolutely badass and fantastic we are, and we have to specifically seek out community that encourages us to feel that way. We have to reject and defend against the people who insist on using cringe and hatred against us to fuel their own egos.

And we have to do that every goddamn day. Sometimes, it’s exhausting … but I’m finding that it’s worth it.

I’ve put so much effort into finding and protecting my people that it’s kind of become my main focus on life. That’s where I find my aspec joy. I look around at the wonderful community I have, the amazing people I know, and I feel so completely and purely myself. It’s hard not to be thrilled.

And that shit is HARD to find.

I’m a lucky lady; when I decided to finally write down my joy and turn it into a play, I found that a lot of my wonderful friends were really excited to share in my joy rather than to diminish it. We need to be doing that for other people, too. We need to be looking for joy not only in ourselves, but in other people. We need to be reading the stories, appreciating the art, and generally promoting the work of other people in our aspec and arospec community. We need to be reminding them how worthy and how wonderful they are, LIKE WE MEAN it, because we should, and we do, and if we don’t then there’s something big we’re missing.

NB: PLEASE UPLIFT AND SUPPORT THE WORK OF BLACK CREATORS, FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS GOOD AND GAY ON THIS GREEN EARTH. I can only imagine how hard it must be to find joy when the world around you is being racist as fuck. We can help with this by not only being less racist but by actively finding joy and community in the work of Black aspec and arospec humans. And don’t just share this post; just that on its own is half-assed crap advocacy. Go read some of the amazing Black creators that I follow and share THEIR posts, too!

I am sitting here right now, reveling my ability to be myself and to express who I am to a community of like-minded and supportive individuals. You can give that experience to the people around you by treating them like they deserve the joy you’re craving and seeking for yourself. We’re not gonna win this war on our own, team. Safety and baddassery in numbers.

Honest to goodness community is punk as fuck.

And so, my spectacular, powerful darling, are you. Don’t forget it.