Thursday, December 9, 2021

A Note On My Absence

Brandon Turbeville
November 20, 2021

It’s been nearly two years since I’ve written anything. I haven’t written any op-ed pieces. I've composed no new poetry and I’ve engaged in no journalism whatsoever. I may have penned a social media status during that time but even that, in this moment, I’m not sure about. There was a time when I wrote all day. I would publish multiple articles a day, work diligently on my books, and write poetry into the morning. For years, it was my daily ritual and I would labor at it into the late hours of the night, even after a full day's work at my day job. But for the last two years? Nothing. I simply disappeared from the alternative media.

So, I feel like I am unable to successfully return to the craft of writing without at least addressing my absence to my readers.

I've always been amazed that so many people religiously read the articles I've written over the years. But what began as a necessity to make my voice heard at at time when I believed there were no other voices, ended in exactly the same circumstance as it started. For that, I suppose, I owe my readers an apology. The last two years have needed voices more than ever and, during that time, mine was silent.

The funny thing is I haven’t had any desire to write anything, at least not until recently. So how did someone whose whole identity was wrapped up in the written word, simply stop writing? For me, there was a confluence of circumstances.

First, my last few articles were written at the beginning of the alleged “pandemic.” Amidst the new hysteria, I found myself having come full circle in both my professional and personal life. When I first became politically aware, it was a result of 9/11, the truth surrounding that event, and the shredding of Constitutional liberties administered by a ruling class that had longed planned to drive the final nail into the coffin of the United States as we know it. At the time, I felt, as did many others, caught between a totalitarian oligarchy and a terrified hysterical public. Speaking out against the war, the burning of the Bill of rights, and the black clad police state mostly resulted in my own surveillance from the Deep State and, most unfortunately, a hue and cry from the American public. Rather, that was in the beginning.