Platform the Treasonists
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A man stood up on the wooden platform in the middle of the town square.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “I stand before you today willing to risk everything.
“I speak on behalf of the outcasts: Humiliation, envy, jealousy, fury, lust, apathy, disgust, hopelessness and all of the other feelings we've locked away for so long.”
“You can't give those traitors the stand,” the people said. “They will take advantage of the publicity and seek to overtake us all.”
The man disagreed.
“Failure to let them speak,” he said, “is the only way to ensure that we ARE overtaken. Not by the emotions themselves, but the manifestations of repressing them. Some are driven to drink. Some to drugs. Others to sex. Gambling. Excessive work. Shopping. Depression. Compulsive distraction of all forms.
"Feel your feelings! I say. Feel them all the way to your bones.
"Our bodies are not a band of merry trumpets. They are symphonies, and the lightest note of the flute is as important as the most somber, heart-wrenching tune of the cello. And when one of our band members is denied work, he conspires to burn down the entire orchestra.
Artwork: GENESIS by Hans Valor
"Stop saying to yourself, I said I wasn't going to cry. CRY. and when you do, do it all the way, for your heart's singing will stir in the corridors of each soul listening.
"When you feel resentful, jealous, humiliated, listen to the music, and bring yourself into it.
"For what does humiliation seek but to humble you?
"Envy but to shine light on our desires?
"Fury but to sing the song of a boundary broken?
"Jealousy but to spot cracks in the fortress wall of a relationship?
"Fear but to expose risk, real or imagined?
"Grief to reveal the love of that which we've lost?
"Platform these rebellious ones, unsatisfied with what is, always seeking change.
"Freedom of feeling for all!"