I had to stop building the room before I could name the door

A new Saf Ro Substack post about survival, freedom, and the rooms we mistake for the world.

I was working on an interactive piece, but I had to stop.

I realized I was asking people to enter the house before I had clearly named the door.

So I backed up and wrote the front door first. The post is called Four Walls Is Not a World. It is about the rooms we learn to survive in.

The rooms that teach us acceptable answers. The rooms that invite us in because they need what we can provide, then get uncomfortable when we ask if there is a chair for us too.

The line I keep coming back to is this:

“They do not starve you. That would wake you. They feed you just enough to keep the door looking like a wall.”

That is the thing I am trying to name. The difference between survival and freedom. The difference between being useful in the room and being fed at the table. The difference between making peace with the wall and realizing the door was painted the same color.

Read THIS if you have ever been useful in a room that did not intend to feed you.

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I had to stop building the room before I could name the door