neoliberal is whatever i say it is

the reemergence of conservative traits in nominally liberal people and areas of sentiment usually stems back to a well-intentioned idea, doesn't it?

like looking at a nonbinary person and wondering:

what is it you're trying to hide?
what is it you're trying to show?

what do you want me to see?

i need to know where you started so that i can project, to myself, where it is you're trying to end up. in case you're not doing a very good job of that, right in front of my face. in case i feel insecure about how good or bad of a job you are doing, because to just...not acknowledge whatever it is you've got going on would be rude, right? in some fashion or other.

and, too, the constant commodification, by somewhat less well-intentioned people, of sensational and sensitive moments in our lives, usually via the broadcast of such events via social media, can lead to us believing, without even participating in such behavior ourselves, that if we are not suffering in silence, we are not suffering at all. that as soon as we broach the topic, and breach the surface of the water, we are not healed of our burdens but absolved of them. the yoke is not easy but in fact nonexistent; we've blown through its spiderweb silk sillusion.

if you look to someone else for a solution, you are not well-adjusted. if you even so much as appear to be doing such a thing! if you look to anything but professional help, given that you are an adult who can and should acknowledge that what you are dealing with - what you are - is a professional problem, you are not well-adjusted. but, if you are artful in your complaints, in your laments, in your venting, you can appear simply to be grousing about the general and vague aura of the issue. not the issue itself. never the issue itself.

because then, why, of course, you are the issue itself.