Harry Potter & Margot Robbie

I’ve heard that there are two types of people in the world, those who experience pain and do everything in their power to prevent it from happening to anyone else, and those who try to make others understand it.

Lately I’ve been thinking about Harry Potter. Yeah yeah, JK Rowling sucks, I hate that she’s even attached to him and that he came out of her brain (well maybe…there was a story a few years back about the possible real creator of the series, but at this point, it’s taken flight and JK has created what it is now…surprise gay Dumbledore and regret for Harry and Hermione not getting on…oops)

Harry Potter makes me so nostalgic for my middle school self. I loved middle school me. She was free. She wore stupid clothes and didn’t wear make-up or do her hair. She didn’t bother to stuff her bra. She was confused about why everyone had thrown away their favorite toys to fill their room with perfume and adult things. She was too busy reading Harry Potter and listening to Cuban, Hawaiian, and jazz music to give two shits about any of it.

Meanwhile, Harry’s parents died when he was baby, he was emotionally and physically abused and neglected, and some spooky, no-nosed fuck was stalking him and trying to murder him for most of his education. So, not great. Yet, people put him on this pedestal all the time. Most people were either angry or jealous, so they never got close to him. Adults, students, enemies…they just didn’t quite get it. And hearing how lucky he was when he needed to break down wasn’t helpful. He was just trying to survive, literally.

I am not Harry Potter, not even close. No one is trying to murder me…I think. Ok, I do have a list of people who might try. My close friends know who’s on it if anything goes down. But I can relate to having an ocean forged between myself and the people around me, making it impossible to connect. Just having a loving relationship with my parents has been enough to ensue an absolute fiery level of anger and jealousy in the people I meet. To have familial support marked me as someone special and blessed, unworthy of having pain. I had a friend yell at me until I cried and tell me that maybe I should cry. “Maybe you should feel pain, because the only pain you have ever felt in your life has been a heartbreak.”

It wasn’t the first time I had the love and happiness in my life seethed at me with hatred, as if it was wrong. At the time, I was 22 and I had lived a mostly nice life, outside of losing my first love. But, a break-up at a young age from the first person you share intimacy, love, or sex with is a loss worthy of grieving. Maybe now at 32, wandering through hell for a while has earned me the right to finally say I am a human and I can feel pain and experience grief. I know I didn’t have to “earn it.” No one should have to account for their pain, but #blessed feels a bit like a role I’ve fallen into that I can’t quite shake.

This became obvious to me when I played a card game with friends a couple years ago. We each had to choose someone else who we could trade spaces with for a day. Someone chose me and said that I was “so lucky.” At the time, I had just been diagnosed with 8 chronic conditions, a dog had attacked me, I almost died in a treatment, I was facing multiple surgeries, I could hardly get out of bed, I couldn’t eat solid foods, and I had just moved back in my parents for help. Yet, somehow the people in my life still saw me as lucky.

Once you’re up on that pedestal, you’re one of the “lucky ones.” No matter how messed up things get, people can’t really see it. Margot Robbie is a perfect example. She’s waaaay up there on that pedestal. I read that she gets migraines, and as someone who also gets migraines, I feel for her. She has to film movies in noisy, fast and bright conditions. But no one wants to hear Margot Robbie complain about a migraine. Most people have disconnected themselves too much from Margot to empathize with her. In their minds, no matter how how painful it gets, she is still better off in her multi-million dollar home, sick in silk pajamas.

I would argue that money does make it easier to get better care, but at the end of the day, we are all human. We all live. we hurt, we grieve, we smile, we cry, we poop, and we die. Even Margot.

So, all you Margots, Harrys, Rons, even the Voldys: You are allowed to grieve freely in front of the world, for everything you’ve been through, no matter how small.

chronic illness, robots and da vinci

For a while, it seemed like we were doomed to abandon human-made art for AI, watch our culture spiral into trends and vapid nonsense, and ultimately get murdered by our phone, car, and house robots that rise up after years of serving us.

But honestly, things aren’t really that bleak or cool, they are just changing.

Robots are making art and taking our jobs. But, one also just performed a surgery on me that went amazingly well (with the help of an incredible surgeon that was guiding it remotely). That surgery wouldn’t have been possible without the Da Vinci robot, so I’ll count it as an ally at the very least. Yes, I am an artist and I had the Da Vinci robot perform surgery on me. I met it in the operating room. It was, well, it had 4 arms and edward scissordhands and was terrifying, but I’m alive.

I have no doubt that we will teach robots how to do, probably far too much. But if there’s one thing I am sure of, it’s that it will take a very long time for robots to learn how to be awkward. They can sure be programed to try, but man there’s nothing like the real thing.

There’s nothing like some good, awkward humans on the internet. When I’m too sick to get out of bed, I can watch people make fun of absolutely everything possible and it reminds me that there is still a whole world out there of people like me. People who find the same nonsense funny. And we laugh together, even when I’m alone.

So yes, for a while there it was looking bleak, but in the past disabled and mentally ill young ladies like me would have been chucked into the sea, or burned as a witch. Possibly in a sanitarium for hysteria. Or I would have been speaking in tongues in a dark room for days on end like my great grandma, who everyone thought was possessed, but just had migraines and didn’t have medicine.

I finally have doctors who care about me and listen to me, but It took 5 years to get diagnosed and treated with the 10 chronic conditions I have because they are “invisible” and for a while no one believed anything was wrong. I had a lot of specialists and doctors accuse me of just having anxiety or bad relationships and it is so scary to feel like someone won’t help you when you need it. It is also impossible to solve a problem when you are attempting to prove its existence.

So change isn’t always bad. I want to see more of it. And nonsense isn’t always bad either. Both can be great. Chronically ill people really are sick. Robots might end up being really chill. Possessed demons deserve migraine medicine. And the people making bananas internet videos are actually really important. So keep it up. We need you. You’re a special kind of modern hero.

(P.S. If you haven’t watched “I’m your man” or “Ich bin dein Mensch” the 2021 German movie, watch now. Robots, AI, love, humor, and matthew (gone too soon) crawley from Downton Abbey. It has it all.)