I‘ve opined once or twice on the observance made publicly today, which a bit of recent reading I’ve done tells me was only fully institutionalized in the late 1960s, despite less-formal observances in and by the United States prior to it. I’m minded that such is younger than my parents (and, if memory serves, even some of my cousins), and it’s not a hell of a lot older than my wife. She’s not (at the time I write this; who knows when you’re reading it?) an old woman, to be sure, so something less than a decade her senior is not, to my mind, especially ancient or to be revered on account of its age alone. (Indeed, there’re many things younger more deserving of laud and honor.) And my feelings on the matter have not changed overly much from a year ago or from four years ago (again, as I write this); I don’t think I’ve been obscure about them, truly.

The thing is, I’m not opposed to taking time off, as such. (I might not want to take a specific day off, and it may well be the case that I don’t do as well as I might with other days off, but that’s me and not necessarily a guide for others.) I’m not opposed to a formalization of time off, even if it is the case that those most likely to be in need of an extra paid day off are among the least likely to receive such a thing (something else about which I’ve opined at times in this webspace). I’m not opposed to the commemoration of historical events, although I am opposed to the lionzation of things that ought not to be lionized even as they ought well to be remembered across years. This year, given the timing and the work that I do as my day-job, I’m a bit more vexed by the specific observance than might be the case in other years, but I readily admit that so much is a personal concern, and while I value my personal circumstances, I know that few others will do so or should be expected to do so.

Again, I know I give more thought to this kind of thing than many people do. I give more thought to it than many people would think is good. They may be right who have told me, time and again over years, that I need to loosen up and lighten up about things. (Of course, it’s only the things about which they are loose and light that they think it’s okay for me to be so; the things I don’t care much about seem to occasion annoyance or more that I do not ascribe them the same importance…and there’re several observances that fall into that category, certainly.) But I cannot be the person I am and not do as I do, and there are enough people who show me they’re fond of who I am that I’m not entirely eager to change much of it. Some, sure, but not a whole lot, and certainly not at this point.

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A day has come again that I’ve marked before (here and here in this webspace), and I confess that it’s somewhat snuck up on me. Twenty-three years on–and, for me, three degrees, a marriage, fatherhood, and a number of jobs and relocations–I recognize, when I think about it, the lasting harm that has been done and that continues to be done because what happened while I was sitting for a percussion techniques class in support of a dream long since set aside and in the minutes afterward happened. But I do not think on it often, which is almost certainly less than it deserves, and I had not been thinking about it until I looked at my calendar and saw a gray notation with a simple description.

Still not going to put up a picture for this.

I’m not sure whether or not I should offer an apology for it.

I acknowledge that I am in a position of privilege regarding the events of 11 September 2001 and the continuing effects therefrom. I didn’t lose anyone I know in the attacks or in the illnesses that have befallen those who first responded to them. I didn’t lose anyone I know in the decades of armed conflict that followed (and that continue, if with perhaps less intensity and certainly less media attention, even as I write this). I’ve known people who have been affected, certainly, and by more than simply living in the pervasive surveillance environment that emerged with perceived justification in the wake of the attacks and the jingoism inhaled with seemingly every breath, even if less and less of it is exhaled anymore, but the direct effects on me and on most of mine have been…minimal, I think. So much is not true for all, as I well understand, and I am not making mock of the losses that have been suffered; I am, however, explicitly disclaiming suffering such losses, myself, and noting my gratitude that I have thus far been exempted from them.

I have, at times, thought that my responsibility is therefore to mark the event, to take time on its anniversary to pause and reflect and remember what was lost. Something was taken from me on that day, even though I lost neither goods nor people; something was taken from us all, and it is difficult even for those who can, unfortunately, enumerate their losses to actually put into words what that something is. Futures have been foreclosed that might have been faced to better effect than the future of then in which we live now, but that’s true of all events. And while it is tempting to think that things were better before, it is a challenge to find a useful measure by which to make such an assessment (although it may well be that my reaching for such a thing is, itself, a result of the event; it is certainly a result of things enfolding that event and which yet linger in other places than my mind, but that discussion is definitely for another day). Might-have-beens are fictions, and while I believe in the value of fiction, I know I am not as adept in its creation as such things deserve to have their makers be.

I remain…uncertain how to regard this day. Even amid it, even if I take the time to pause and hear again the intonations of the thousands of names whose owners were lost that day, there is work I have to do–because for me, for many others, though not for all, life continues as it has continued. I can only hope that what I do helps to make it better.

I’m not putting up the ad today, either, though it might well be the most US thing I could do. It just doesn’t feel right at the moment.

It would appear to be a time of year once again that I mark, year after year after year after year. In general, my sympathies and inclinations regarding the topic of work have not changed, even if my professional situation has varied across that time and to this. After all, I am once again management, even as I do maintain a small income stream from freelancing (and you could help with that; I write for hire, with no AI plagiarism or hallucinations involved), having changed jobs since last time I waxed verbose on the subject of labor and the US holiday that acknowledges it (in that most distinctly US of ways: sales and reliance on low-paid work that is decidedly not low-skilled when done well). I do not have a large crew working under me, and I do what I can for that crew, although I am somewhat limited by circumstance and structure in what that “can” extends to, but that does not mean I am unaware of the surrounding situations and circumstances, nor yet that I am unsympathetic to them.

I continue to acknowledge the need for work and the nobility of the same, and I continue to believe that it ought to be compensated in such a way as to ensure that those who are diligent about it need not worry that they will lack the resources needed to continue to do that work. I know that not all are in the situations I occupy, that they do not have the same levels of investment or interest in the endeavors I do, and I do not expect them to act as if they have them when they do not. I have refused to, certainly, and I think correctly; I can hardly hold others in scorn for doing what I believe is right for me to do.

I do not buy into the narrative that “nobody wants to work anymore,” at least not in those terms. I do not think it is the case that a higher percentage of people do not want to work now than did previously; having the training that I do, it seems to me that people remain the people they have been in a great many parts of their lived, and it defies reason that they would be different in regards to regard for work when they clearly are not in so many other ways. I do think that it is the case that many believe there is little point to working when they do not see the benefits to themselves of doing the work, and I do think that many are applying to themselves and the saleable commodity of their labor the same logic I’ve seen applied to many things, that it’s better to receive no income from a given asset or resource than to sell it for less than they want to get for it.

If working won’t pay the bills, why go to the trouble of it any more than renting a storefront for less than the tax due on it? And how many of those who complain of “excessive salary demands” are content to let spaces sit empty on main streets in towns like the one where I live or the one where I grew up? Why is the reasoning any worse for the one than for the other?

If it is the case that the response to “You don’t like the job?” is either “Start your own business” or “Train up for a better one,” why would there be so much griping about taking the time to do either or both of those things–which will necessarily mean there’s less available labor to answer any given help wanted ad?

(This leaves aside the issue of the number of help wanted ads that are lies in one form or another. They’re out there, and in greater numbers than should be–which isn’t hard, since the number as “should be” is zero. But that’s going to require more discussion than I’m willing to engage in at the moment and in this little bit of webspace.)

It’s a fine thing and a good thing to set aside a day to honor what deserves to be honored, and honest labor, individually or in association, deserves to be honored. It is a finer thing and a better one, though, to act throughout the rest of the year as if the thing deserving honor is actually honored. In many things, such an ideal is not achieved, but that it is not in many things does not mean it is right for any of them.

As ever, many need to do better than they do. I do not exempt myself from this, certainly; there is likely more I could do, even within the constraints under which I operate. I do not necessarily recognize them, and I would likely balk at some of them; like many people, I am somewhat greedy, somewhat grasping, and somewhat inclined to see to my own comforts over the needs of others. I am human, after all, despite the protestations of some folks I have known. (If nothing else, some bloodwork I had done has proven it.) But I am able, at least, to recognize that I am and have been in the wrong, and I am able to take at least some steps to work towards being in the right–not for the acclaim of doing so, but because that work needs to be done.

This is the day to note the value of work, isn’t it?

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It’s not exactly a secret that I opine on holidays and other observances that occur on my regular posting schedule (as well as the occasional event that takes place off of it). So it shouldn’t be a surprise that I’d comment on Juneteenth this year, since the federal holiday takes place on one of the days I would normally post; as such an observance, and one apt to have me close my day-job for the day (I did), it’s the kind of thing that invites remarks from me. But I’m…somewhat hesitant to say much about it (though not completely so, clearly, as the very existence of this post denotes). Not that that should be a surprise, either, given what the holiday represents and who and what I am.

(Please note that I am not in any way saying the observance should not happen or does not deserve to happen. It should, and it does.)

As is fairly common knowledge, or as damned well should be, Juneteenth commemorates the Emancipation Proclamation reaching Texas in force, the perceived end of institutionalized chattel slavery in the United States. On paper, it denotes the formal end of a long section of the history of the country, the formal end of a great wrong that had been perpetrated on generations of people. In truth, slavery continues, as the prison-labor complex shows, and the legacies of slavery continue even aside from the overt reality of it, as far too many things show to recount here and to recount in any place without being subsumed by tears long before the tale is told. So there’s some fraughtness to the observance right there.

More personally, I have to question the extent to which I have any right to mark the day. I close my day-job because the federal government is closed, and many or most banks follow suit; since I work in tax preparation and bookkeeping, both of which rely in large part on both of those, there’s not a lot of point in my spending the money involved in having the office open. That’s a piss-poor reason to do more to mark the day than that, though, even if it deserves a lot more marking that I can offer it.

No, my unease is a result, at least in part, of my recognition that I benefit from the legacies of the systems that were supposedly unmade on the first Juneteenth. I doubt that my family enslaved others (but I am not entirely certain), and I am pretty sure that at least one of my forebears fought for the Union (there’s some physical evidence suggesting such), but that does not mean I don’t enjoy benefits of a system that was built and predicated upon the treatment of people as livestock. What opportunities have not been foreclosed to me because I have the familial heritage I have and not those I don’t, I cannot really say, although I do know there are dangers I do not face because I look the way I do and live where I do. What experiences I have been able to have because others have reacted to the injustices perpetrated upon them, I have a few vague ideas, but I have not had to consider them more closely than I have because I occupy the positions I do.

I have benefited, but I have not had to pay. And there’s not really a way for me to give back those benefits; I cannot undo what has been done, whether for good or for ill (and it has too often and for too many people been ill). Too, there are limits to what I can do to improve matters, moving forward, which I recognize, even as I recognize that my pointing them out and not doing much of anything to address them makes me complicit in some ills, in many ills–but not even pointing them out makes me complicit in yet others.

I’m not trying to excuse myself, to exempt myself from discomfort. I should be uncomfortable, about this and about a lot of other things. I should also let that discomfort spur me to make things better than they are, and not just in the small ways I already do. Whether I am not so much of a coward that I will actually do something, though…

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Once again, I find myself in mind of the day’s observance; I’ve tended to be so, as demonstrated here, here, here, and here. Once again, I’ve got a spin-off of a show years into syndication to air. Once again, I reflect upon the circumstances of the world in which I live and which gave rise to me. And once again, I question things, knowing that the world that is is not the world that ought to be and that we are not much if any closer to it than we have been even so recently as a year ago.

It’s a broad “we,” to be sure. I know that no few will seek to exempt themselves from it, claiming that the lives they live are exactly those that ought to be lived–and that, indeed, the lives of all who live are what they deserve. I know there are many who look about and see that things are good, or that they are at least moving in ways that tend toward the good. I know there are many who hope for more of the same, who think that what is being done should be done and in greater measure than has yet been done. They have their reasons, I am sure. They think them good, or good enough, I am equally sure.

I wish I could be so convinced about anything.

But I doubt. I question. I grapple with ideas, finding that they do not sit so well with me as they seem to for others (even as I acknowledge that I see my own struggles more than I see those of others, having no real way to hide them from myself, while others can hide theirs from others’ eyes). Each holiday, each observance, each commemoration finds me in such mind, wondering about the whys and wondering what it is in me that makes me wonder about such things, what lack in me makes for so uneasy a time of accepting what so many others seem to take without question or comment other than the rote repetitions the rites seem to require.

It is said that those who fell in uniformed service did so to secure the freedom I have to think upon such things and to voice those thoughts, and that I and everybody else ought to be grateful for the same. I am not arguing the point. I do question, however, if those who can no longer speak for themselves would be pleased to have their voices invoked, though I know I will not have an answer that I can, myself, report after its achievement.

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While it is the case that I’ve posted to this webspace on Valentine’s Day before (here, here, and here), I’ve not yet given a post to the observance, as such. It seems a rare thing; I often post about holidays on holidays, about observances on observances, so to have missed one…it’s a rarity. And it’s something I need to correct.

There is no shortage of commentary on the event, of course, and no small amount of it critical, often pointedly so. As with so much in the world, it is and has been made crassly commercial, and I confess that I am not immune to its presentation as such; I know where and when I grew up, and I know that one of the accepted and encouraged ways of demonstrating affection for a person is spending money on that person, often on some consumable that will not last / will need to be replaced in short order. I also know that some of those for whom I care are similarly steeped in such ways, such that, even if they know intellectually that affection and expenditure do not necessarily correlate, their feelings would be hurt if I didn’t do at least a little something for them.

I care about them. I don’t want to hurt their feelings. (Find fault with me for it if you must, but if you must, I must assert unpleasantries about those who act with disregard towards those they claim to value.) So I do what I do.

So much said, though, I don’t think it’s wrong to set aside a day to celebrate romantic love. (Yes, I know there’s a lot of cultural focus on such things already; “Why do you need a day for something that’s praised all year?” is a question worth asking, to be sure. There are issues with setting anything as a norm, of course.) I also don’t think it’s wrong to set aside days to celebrate other forms of love, and there are many other such. The love I feel for my wife is not the same as the love I feel for my daughter is not the same as the love I feel for my mother is not the same as the love I feel for my brother is not the same as the love I feel for what of The Work that is still mine to do, et cetera. But “love” is a bad word, not just because it’s a four-letter one, but because the translation’s so…squishy; there’s too much that it covers for it to be as useful as it really could be.

And there’s less of it out in the world than it would be useful to have. But that’s another matter entirely.

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