they/them

on sus bammas, solo missions, and self care.

In a previous missive, I wrote about belonging and insecurity. This feels like it’s a necessary companion, especially as conversations about “thems” and “theys” have been surfacing in different spaces—and no, fool, I’m not talking about pronouns. I’m talking about the shadowed and the hidden: the figures we imagine, the forces we project, and the very real people who may plot against us. In either case, what we end up wrestling with are manifestations—intangible forces we wrestle with, often forgetting how much power we hold over “they/them”.

who is they?

the mysterious and unidentified them?

they said.
they think.
they feel…

Life is a solo mission. Yes, we can be surrounded by family, community, our first, second, and third loves. Yes, we can be in partnership—collaborative, empathetic, deeply connected to those around us. We can do for others, and we can work with others, but at its base, life demands that we—whether the collective we or the intimate we—are destined to travel our own roads.

When we are ill, our bodies are our own. Though others can shower us with love, care, and affection, within vessels that betray us, we are left to battle the affliction alone. we can absorb the hope and love, be encouraged, feed off good vibes—but inside our brains, our feelings, our responses to that energy are still mitigated through our own pain, our own thought processes, our own doubts, our own willingness to heal… or not.

When we are good, celebratory, we can bring the friends and fam along. We can share our fortunes, our good news, our happiness, and love. still, again, we are alone—just as alone as those on the receiving end of our radiating energy. Once the party is over, whether you go home, do the 7 am walk of shame, the stir beneath the covers, or the three minutes to the awaiting car share, you still make those journeys alone.

I’m not pooping on parties. I’m just saying that far too many times, within our own insecurities, we worry too much and grant unfettered agency to the opinions—whether based in fact, our own intuitions, or “the vibes”—of others. to them. the unnamed they. Even if they have names—the cabal of naysayers or stink-eye givers—unless empowered to do so, they have no bearing on your response to them.

You, respectfully, don’t owe them shit.

This is your road. alone. This is your journey.

Unless you’re a twin—and even then, somebody gotta make the move first out the womb—when the hour is nigh, and you’re laid to rest, you in that box or urn off the solo mission across the river Styx, two coins to pay the ferryman. Not to be macabre, but to put it in context: from birth to the end of one's life in this physical plane of existence, we travel individually, tasked with finding community and gathering, yet with the full understanding that, even then, you are still your own person.

Your personhood and self—minus ego, superego, and any other psychological state—are still running this race dolo, in a mass of other runners. Even folks with DID manifest one personality at a time. one.

At one time in my life, I spent way too much time worrying about who was saying what, how people felt about me—in the room, out of the room, from afar. It had me adjusting my personhood to fit the room, code-switching when the switch wasn’t necessary. My “self” was malleable, manipulable by them, the mysterious them—whether real or conjured by my own imagination. I had imbued them with power, handed them the reins, passing the yoke over to my insecurities, jumping through hoops of my own design.

The turn was two-fold.

One: I got tired of the hoop-jumping—exhausted from trying to fit an unseen mold of perfected character that my subconscious and consciousness had created, one I could never neatly fold myself into, and because I couldn’t fit, I became further depressed. I wasn’t good enough for the mold, and if I wasn’t good enough for them, I wasn’t good enough for me. So the narrative I wrote for myself was that I was unworthy: of love, care, good shit, and so forth. Bottom was hit, and in that nothingness, I had questions like…

What the fuck, young?

Why and how am I not enough?

I started assessing myself. My image of self. What made me so “bad”? Why was I so unworthy, unlovable, unsteady? Those questions required deeper interrogation and time, and until I could answer those questions with both absolute honesty and unconditional acceptance, I was destined to keep running the hamster wheel—folding myself to fit that unattainable mold I’d created.

In that time between unknowing and knowing, I reached a space of understanding: the things I could change, I needed to change—or shut the fuck up about. The things I had no control over, I had to accept and be okay with. That acceptance led to accepting myself as I was, and once I accepted myself, it didn’t matter who else felt how or whatever. The hamster wheel was mine. The path was mine. No one else could help me fit that unattainable shape of the mold. No one else could make the internal or external changes. No one else could accept me for me.

Which set me on the path to: fuck ’em.

fuck ’em is a great space for me personally.

All I have is my integrity and character—my internal morals, folkways, and code, absolutely informed by how I was socialized and raised, and ultimately defined by this new criterion of valuing myself with all my flaws, finally understanding that the path that I had to forge was my own to create and that the roadmap to the desired destination was largely informed by the god of my own understanding and the universe encomapssing this plane of existence, and in fuck ’em, lies freedom.

Now we’re not going to conflate this with sloughing off care for others—we’re not ignoring injustice, human rights, or empathy. fuck ’em means fuck those voices. fuck the mysterious they. It’s about wresting your freedom back from your own insecurities around what people may or may not think about you. They don’t control you. They can’t make you do anything. You allow the mysterious chorus of voices to dictate your responses to whatever energy you feel or create. That urge to change, retreat, or feel a way—is the call coming from inside the house, champ.

I’m not saying there aren’t people who wish you ill, who work to cause issues, to make you uncomfortable; they exist. But unless they have direct control over you—fuck ’em and their ill vibes. That’s the thing about frequencies and energy: you can deflect both.

Other people’s bags are not yours, no matter how close they try to place them to your person. Think of that energy like carry-on luggage at the airport. If somebody sets a bag in your personal space, your first reaction is an immediate side-eye. If they dipped without that bag, the immediate concern—whose bag is this? If abandoned, that jont gets relocated, and the gate agent gets a word and you might call the feds fresh off rip. Yet here we are, letting folks sit their shit at our feet, then we’re picking it up, rolling it with us as we move, letting the weight of a bag we don’t own make us adjust who we are.

fuck up outta here.

nah. moe.

Put that bag back where you found it.

There’s audacity and agency in this solo journey, and we have to learn to lean into both—without being delusional or foolhardy. Walk with the understanding that we control our reactions and our energy. That we can be audacious in belief and decision, trusting in our gifts and callings, irrespective of the naysayers, and exercise the agency we gift ourselves by pouring into ourselves—accepting helpful energy and leaving other people’s hangups at the gate.

easy
k

about:
KOKAYI
Artist | Author | Speaker | Producer | Preeminent Improvisational Vocalist, GRAMMY-nominated musician, and multidisciplinary fine artist, is a Guggenheim Fellow for Music Composition (the first emcee to have achieved this distinction). Host of the Interledger Foundation’s Future/Money podcast. Author of You Are Ketchup: and Other Fly Music Tales, creator of HUBRI$ and Blackness and the Infinite Potential Well, whose artistry and work reflect a rich tapestry of life experiences shaped by DC and the cultural innovations of the Black diaspora—an enduring legacy that continues to shape the world, often without the proper recognition. Here for all the panel discussions, podcast yakkin’, DJ gigs, and keynote addresses, should you need me, holla.

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