[403] Corner of Scene and Done

I think I'm constantly yearning for something that feels “authentic.”

There's this terrible sort of missing out but at the same time excited feeling I get when I watch documentaries by and about bands. The most famous names today either were influenced by or apart of the literal foundation of all music. The worlds they grew up in I envy, for all the technology and “options” of today.

If you were a punk back in the day, it was you and 30 people you saw all the time. You didn't know about scenes in other places. Your struggle was real, your cause was local. If you were in a band, you might have been in 1 of 15 who started on their own label before there were labels. You got all of your friends together and cut and folded the album holders. You defined looks, language, and dug from the depths of your outcast soul an identity that would grow to be inseparable from the story of humanity and its musical evolution.

Go even farther back and think of the blues or jazz. You rallied around a style for identity. You got so damn good that you couldn't be denied in a climate when everything was trying to fight you. You could be the first, the best, or rely on your signature style or look.

And it feels like right around the time I was born we were already well past the point of no return. We didn't need to go outside because the new and fancy internet was here. What music did me and my friends rally around? Smash Mouth. Let's all get together and form a ska band and rage to Smash Mouth covers!...No thank you.

I think I just want that simplicity of motivation. I want more restrictions. I don't need to hear every rock and punk song. I don't want to print my own fliers from a "music" template. I don't want some guy a Youtube giving me the tools to mimic exactly how Eddie Van Halen laments that he played Eruption. I just need to see a show that blows my mind, get a shitty guitar, and hang out with my friends until we discover how to suck a little less each day. It speaks to my revulsion towards “indi” in general. Indi to me means you got confident in your boredom and ability to play with Protools.

Where does my generation get to be authentic? Where do we get to carve out our identities? The music back then was a rally, not arbitrary “protest song.” I can feel the passion they had just in their descriptions. I can't even remember the last time I met someone with a fire in their belly about anything that mattered. I know 2 people who are crazy enough about their music or journalism. I know a few who are basically satisfied their job lined up with what they studied in college. The vast majority is people getting by with some thing or another that pays the bills.

We're the ones not starting families until late. We're the one who can't afford anything. We're the ones who've had so much information pumped into our heads that it feels like this impersonal mass that has to be summarily dealt with more than understood. Do you think the electronic music scene feels as “authentic” as the grassroots of previous eras? Or is it closer to having a mascot of an E-ridden sorostitute with “PLUR” tattooed to her ass? And can't it be argued half of that scene is just skimming off the hippies?

We're the “techies.” Woo hoo. Bound by our mutual ability to laugh at old people who don't realize we shouldn't be getting paid for “maintaining their company's online presence.” We're the failed Occupy movement. We're the “too unappreciative of what we have to vote” crowd. It's almost cooler for us to have never heard of our parent's music or movies than it is to appreciate why so much of what we have today sucks so much dick. That may be the people a few years younger than me as I feel I have more in common with older generations than I've ever had with people even a few years younger.

We're stuck in cultivating online personalities, not digging in and fighting for who we are or what we like. We're like old rich white people, taking up a craft or a hobby and smiling too big and clinging glasses for all we've accomplished this week by finally uploading all our pictures to Instagram AND facebook. Even found the time to download our Shazam queue!

You don't get to be a guitar legend, an iconic comedian, or groundbreaking anything it feels like. When you flirt with those lines, your entire history can be used against you and the standard for proof will shift under your feet. Louie C.K. is big right? Why? Certainly he's hilarious, certainly his style is what we all do; dryly lament our circumstances while we beat the word “awkward” to death. Who's the best singer in the world? Stupid question right, because Beiber is the biggest brand, Gaga is underrated, and The XX speaks volumes to your utterly stoned mind. Don't you love how their name isn't a name! It's commodities and gossip.

It's why things feel so fetishized. You're independent breakout company who seeks positive values from it's members as it breaks down barriers and hopes to peel back the layers of corruption and waste is actually you paying too much for T-shirts and unnecessarily registering for an LLC after getting a little too much money for Christmas. Your fancy future sounding job title used to just be called “shit kicking secretary” or “runner” if not “boy.” But you have to be working on something right? You have to be achieving, contributing, and growing. If not, how are you going to make other people envy your updates? How else can you feel a marginal amount of pride in anything you've done?

This is why I want to disappear and wander. I think I hack away more and more of my identity or potential usefulness or “purpose” by disappearing behind blogs, books, and arguments I'll never get to have. I think it increasingly soul crushing that when I'm in a mood to be personable and talkative, someone would legitimately call me out as being on coke before they could believe that I might just engage with a crowd in a positive way from a positive mood. That girl really let me down the other night...

Or maybe I just picked such a lofty and complicated goal that I feel adrift. I envy the idea of simplicity, not the missing out on a chance to get spit on by Henry Rollins. Well, that could still happen, but probably won't be with him in a dress in a grimy D.C. basement. Still, I sense a kind of purity about the pre-digital era, and not in some overly romantic sense that's ignorant of the history that happened around burgeoning scenes. I imagine being genuinely afraid of being drafted would put a damper on a Beatles concert, for example. And who the hell could we produce that comes up with such great names!? They're the beat! It's right there in the name! Or The Rolling Stones. Literally, calling themselves rock and roll. Who wouldn't want to kick DJ Numark in the balls this instant?

[xx-8] Prisoner Logs

Prisoner log update 1: My captors make pains to assure us we're safe, but I sense their intentions are less than sincere. After probing and blood tests I can only pray that I don't meet what they're looking for. After holding, they moved me to a cell with 2 other unfortunate souls. I hope they feed us, but I can't bare to think what it may be drugged with. I hope this reaches someone, anyone. I don't want to die alone as no amount of captives they file in behind me will garner any hope.

Prisoner log update 2: The Riot Act. To say she was intimidating is to misunderstand the word. We are told when we eat, sleep, and shit. In the unfortunate event we miss our scheduled time, that's a paddlin'. We choked down what some in the third world would call "lunch" before being ushered back to our cells. We do not have names. I am a number, I have an order, I dare not think otherwise. Forget about home and family, this is the longest road.

Prisoner log update 3: Today will never end. It's weird to think after all the hell we've been through, the talking to us like we're in elementary school is what takes the degradation to a different level. I'm amazed at how this many headless chickens attempt to run such a tight ship. What's on all of that paperwork anyway? If the rest of my incarceration goes this slow...measures may have to be taken. I hear that water boarding is rough, but if I have to choke down another can of root beer I might have to stand under the shower head with a washcloth on my face to put the feeling of wanting to vomit out of my mind.

Prisoner log update 4: I can barely see straight. They kicked in our door at 5 AM and flooded the room with bizarre equipment. I was too exhausted to fight. Now I have more tubes sticking out of me than a water park. I can't tell if I've lost more blood from the tests or from my face from all of my "adjustments." Mom always said my mouth would get me in trouble. One guy thought he'd escape out of a bathroom window; god knows where he went. As a result they've taken to leashing our wrists. My last adjustment came when I asked if I could get him to shake me off when I was done pissing. I thought I overheard them talking of a night raid. Loose lips you scum, I'll be ready for you.

Prisoner log update 5: The S.Os found my weapons cache. They're getting more inventive when it comes to punishment. For the first 6 hours I was propped in front of propagandist media. All the quick cuts to tortured imagery and quotes about respecting and worshiping power out of a Nazi handbook. As if to seer the images in my brain my eyes were forced open to stare at blinding sweat lamps. The increasing pounding in my temple is like a timer reminding me of every moment I'm still here. Apparently even the dungeons can suffer a bad economy and they've decided to cut rations. I'm down to five. baby. carrots...

Prisoner log note to self: Keep an eye on Duffy. He's convinced his hands are a book and doesn't think I know he's staring at me through his fingers.

Prisoner log update 6: I think I can start to see cracks in their armor. They still haven't told us why we're here, but it seems they want us alive. The foreboding quiet has allowed me to quell my thundering mind. Our interactions with our captors are limited; they check vitals and review charts barely batting an eye. This impressive given our conditions being the place that hygiene forgot. I try not to think too much about my past, but no matter how disorienting the isolation and malnourishment make me, it helps plant my feet. Even if they try to erase all that I am, they can't make me forget home. They can't make me forget her. Even if I'd opt out of this struggle, what a sin if I were to extinguish that flame. Such a brittle wick upon which to dance.

Prisoner log update 7: An explosion shook me awake. I could see smoke billowing on the ceiling and guards running past my cell. My only problem was if the place went up in flames, I'd go with it. Despite being an ardent study of Andy Dufresne, my hole digging technique had been sub par. Then I heard a loud click and the smash of the door against the wall. Duffy. His hands were red and it probably wasn't jello. He held them outstretched in front of his face and motioned for me to come with him. At this point, following him wasn't the craziest thing I was willing to do. As we rushed through the halls, I caught glimpses of the guards failed attempts to contain the flames. Like my lady's sweet ass, without the right fire hose, they were too hot to handle. We make it to the outer gate before the phone I scooped up lost

Sent from Guard #892-CKGs Iphone.

Prisoner log update 8: The morning felt like a rebirth. The part they leave out is the wet, sticky afterbirth that comes along with it. After we breached the gate we took off running. It would have been pitch black were it not for the destruction we escaped illuminating the path ahead. I found a charger under a rock when we reached the tree line. Where are we? There were rolling hills of trees in every direction, but our once humble abode looked like an isolated hollowed out space. Luckily, Duffy wasn't going crazy, it was an act that got him removed from his cell for frequent psych evaluations. Keep telling yourself that partner...The plan is to try and hide. We have to risk them coming out to search the woods as slicing a man's throat sounds easier than a bear's. Or hell, getting squeezed by a giant snake in my sleep or something, I don't know the outdoors.

Prisoner log update 9: I don't know what to think. No one has come in or out of the building since it exploded. As night falls we decide to sneak back and see what happen. Surely everyone else couldn't be dead, right? One way or another, we needed provisions, as hiking through the woods was beginning to look like the only option. The smell was overwhelming. Smoldering ashes I tend to enjoy, but so thick were they in my throat I could barely cough. We pressed through the rubble making pains not to step in charred remains. We passed our cells, interrogation room, what appeared to be guards' quarters. Nothing. To not waste this potentially fleeting opportunity we located the kitchen and raided lockers. The only real potential weapon we came across was a butcher's knife. I assured Duffy it would be safe under my newly acquired belt. A final glance before we took off towards the woods. Now, we were prisoners of the wild.

Prisoner log update 10: It was a long night. Duffy's brilliant idea of spinning around in circles and taking off in the direction he stopped was as good plan as any. I remember when all I could say about the woods was that I knew nothing about them. I hate the woods. I wish that bear was here, but he'd likely just scratch and bite me enough to make every step after our encounter that much more annoying. Lugging around this many pounds of canned food isn't a picnic either. Sure, we see plenty of deer and rabbits, but every time I throw the butcher's knife at them it just feels silly. We've been traveling for days, which I take it means we've hit a Narnia-esc wormhole and come out through the other side. I can't get images of the fire out of my mind. Maybe we can burn enough of this wretched place to signal someone? For now, we'll keep hiking and wait till night fall. If whomever may rescue us brings anything more than water, it'll help us avoid even more trouble.

[My interpretation of each day under confinement for my first clinical drug study stay]

[402] Losing: The War of Attrition

I'm sorry.

I instinctively revile at an idea I think is at the heart of most lies. For what is true sorrow?

You may claim hell is other people. You may be lonely. You may know greed that drives you to screaming. You may be bruised from abuses of your mind, body, and time. You may dream of nothing more than a single second of silence.

Evil is nothing. Why do bad things happen to good people? Duh, there is no good and bad. I think we've lost what might have been considered a “social contract.” I find this idea unyieldingly terrifying. It's not that the raping and pillaging will take place in the streets, proud and shining. You may not have even been alive long enough to have noticed a change.

I hope I'm not alone in feeling constantly at odds with myself. It's a habit of constantly seeking to undermine my premises. Sometimes I see a war, and I want to describe that war for all its bloody details. Whether you've massacred the English language or gutted what might have resembled consistency or self-respect, I want to feast on each piece I can tear off. And nothing's more delicious than cannibalizing yourself.

For every good must be a stolen bounty followed by a muted “I'm sorry.” All pride in time spent or through high-society association must blush and giggle “I'm sorry.” All gluttonous indulgence of feeling must submit to the scrupulous mind's “I'm sorry.” Every cliché, every breath beneath each healthy day, and every nod to what's been swept away requires a signature, just here, I'm sorry.

To regard oneself as a victim of circumstance presupposes a sort of attack. Lambasted by a cruel world with imposed crueler expectations. It presupposes a crime, likely carried out without your knowledge and it won't be punished, certainly never popularized. You've been rendered impaired and are subject to compensation. Alas a culprit! Life! Life did this to me! And I'll see my revenge thusly!

What are we constructing? Not what's been built and left for us to play with. What are we building and why? Because I don't know. I build words and paragraphs and semi-detailed models from which to hoist my ideas. I build friendships I can barely define. I build a basin of experiences from which to hurl seemingly endless criticism that only bites really hard when I misappropriate dangerous liquids. But what are we building? Memes? Online marketplaces? Houses for bankers and peddlers of medicines?

I don't know my neighbors. I don't know my representatives. Sometimes, I don't know how to get 5 people I've known for years in the same room together. I see no we. I sense no community. I know of no common cause. I know what's popular. I know what's been “appropriated for a social liberal.” And for the life of me, for all I carry on about actions-in-a-context, I don't know the one I'm working in.

I don't know if “the world needs saving.” I don't know if I'll ever play a significant role in dong so or remain a nominally contributing factor in its inevitable demise. I don't know why I would pick one cause or fight one war over another. I have no personal stake...am I supposed to defer to my personal stake? I have a loose agenda, but who told me to have a goddamn agenda!?

Life asks that you do nothing but come into being and then eventually die. And even dying is being “wrestled with” in an effort to undermine its unsavory implications. For what would the world be without you here to never understand it!? If only the call to action was as clear as the call to the bathroom. Poo or die, just, ignore the part where you die anyway.

I think so many “bad times” are looming. This only stuck, like a dick in a newborn, in my head because it's...So. Damn. Predictable. And avoidable if “we” had any idea of what we wanted to build. Was it definitions? Would those definitions work not only on paper, but in practice, perhaps on words like “trust,” “patience,” or “good?” Who's to say THAT'S even possible in this relentlessly growing context!? When does it begin?

I don't want “us” to fail. I don't want the idea that “us” is even possible to be stuck on the stickiest rings of a spindly spider interweb. I want a shared goal, a mutual investment, and an ongoing conversation that is louder than all the noise from the impending crashes around us. I want it to be as easy to do it good as its been to feel bad. And I can still know absolutely nothing about my context other than I want to keep asking.

When you assume, you make an ass out of you and me. When you have no choice butt to assume, you make disjointed irrelevant juxtaposing not-quite-puns because you're running out of fancy ways to reiterate your running ideas regarding our circumstantial natures and whether it's even possible to do something about it through collective vocalization and practice resorting in mutual and simultaneous manifestations of behaviors that would stand as a form of moral and practical guidance to assure and promote the youth as well as assuage persistent and potentially deadly behaviors sussed from irrational, irresponsible, or immoral behaviors which can be shown to reduce to simple causes and effects only to be judged by whether they further speak towards the prime shared objective collective directive quite independently of the opinions and fears of the least informed or capable. 

[401] Confidential Crisis

People don't want to hear you complain.

Because I'm always re-reading what I write and happened to be watching Jimmy Carter's “Crisis of Confidence” speech, the difference between a “woe is me/I don't care” blog and a “reference all the 'smart shit' I've read recently and graft it onto some personal growth or insight” piece is more striking when it comes to likes or feedback.

I think there's something to be said about “the honesty of experience.” The days where I can sound conceited and angry with the exercised vocabulary and references to things you're never going to look up are just as real as flippant drunk diatribes to seemingly nowhere. What's important to me is that if I'm feeling great writing it in the moment, embarrassed the next day, but then nodding along a week later because I was actually speaking to something I thought was important, then my purpose was served in taking to the page.

To me, “bitching” and “ignorant ranting” or “childish posturing” can still serve a purpose. I think we try to drive a wedge between these behaviors and what it means to be an adult. The problem being, after enough Daily Show episodes or Youtube clips of world leaders at the U.N., you really get the sense of how inherently persistent this unproductive behavior really is. I think as a result, the “most mature” among us try to deny or bury when and why they would act a fool.

I think owning these behaviors helps to build empathy. I think part of our persistent isolation and depression stems from having no grasp or evidence that anyone could be as “weird” as you. I still allow thinking like that to get to me despite calling it out frequently as something I lament about how we conduct ourselves. Very often I don't give my friends the benefit of the doubt. My sense of risk aversion apparently outweighs how unfair that may be.

But what sparks up quicker than a gossip session? Isn't our first and easiest response to complain about something? One would think if you could get enough people bitching about the same things you'd start to flush out solutions, no? Of course I'm perpetually at square one in my inability to get even my friends to add a thumbs up about whatever the topic at hand may be.

I'm concerned there's a more fucked up thing going on in our heads than maybe I've even spoken to yet. My stomach drops for hours when I hear ideas expressed over 30 years ago, by our freaking President no less, that we've only gotten worse at. I said in my last blog that we were a top down society looking for leadership, often regardless of where they were leading us. That idea felt incomplete as I typed it. We're more scapegoaters than looking for leaders. The leaders are symbolic of our personal and collective failings.

So if you're a “real” leader and explicitly state those failings, now you've truly lost them. You couldn't just be a symbol could you? You had to open your stupid mouth and attempt to hold us accountable. As a result a massive rush to the popular and profane. How else do you get Reagan? How much more “real” does it have to get regarding climate change, income inequality, or lingering war and genocide? Is it a coincidence we're in a golden age of TV shows?

Maybe the “real” response to changing things will come when there's a push, or inevitable crash, of peoples' distractions. No President is going to carry us there. No business is going to single-handedly shift how we interact with markets. No research institution or brilliant scientist is going to calculate us away from catastrophic collapse. It won't be until we're forced to complain or have no choice but to react. This idea makes it hard for me to carry some kind of motivated or well-wishing flag.

[400] Theory of Change

Often, a struggle to move something along belays the idea that change is “good and necessary.” Whether you need to evolve your business model to include modern streams of revenue, decide you've had enough of being oppressed, or are simply bored with your current circumstances, a novel take is almost out-of-hand considered a positive or correct course of action.

Think of the idea of being on “the wrong side of history.” This usually applies to racist old people who are so ostensibly wrong about things it's a wonder they had the foresight that led to your existence. What's telling about this idea to me is a very linear conception of ideas. As if certain things are inevitable. The forever saving grace of an empowered and wise society will the death of everything that came before. So many bones we'll be able to stand upon.

I think that while change is inevitable, if not the only “truth,” it happens for very banal and bad reasons. I think that merely regarding something as positive or revolutionary, often because you hadn't heard of it, is dangerous and naïve. I think the underlying psychology of why and when things need to change is a completely ignored part of our conversation.

We're not climbing a mountain. There is no “ultimate-self” or superior conception of human. Every bad thing that's ever existed still does and always will. I think a lot of the times we talk about laws or justice, we pretend that we're sitting on some kind of high horse with this illuminated perspective that's therefore impervious to what prompted injustices in the past.

Think about repealing regulatory laws. Think about the wage gap. Think about an inflated prison system. Think about fucking up the environment. You'll find at the heart of these topics is often a discussion about what's “fair.” Some insider will often argue that the mere peasant on the street couldn't appreciate the nuances of some internal world and therefore the metrics of accountability need to be stretched or ignored. It's literally the same pattern across any kind of gross failing of humanity. Sometimes I hear testimony in Congress that amounts to 2 children crying to mother about who really stole the cookies.

Advocacy and awareness are often touted as the harbingers of the enlightened future. Maybe one day we'll get so good at it we won't even need an entire month to figure out breast cancer is bad. To me, it's a little like saying “well you need a paint brush before you can create like Da Vinci.” It's a very incidental part of the entirety of his person, no? Leaving aside how often I've heard people say “I get it, I still don't care.”

Accountability is an exercise. Keeping things the same can be as necessary and worthwhile as changing them. If you can refrain from believing that you are justified in changing things up because you're bored or are trying to misrepresent some new world of finance, the task of maintaining the ship can still be noble work. There will never be a “new world.” We'll only have shifted into different habits. I have to believe there's some component to this that is operating in “traditional values” types. Something about how they've conducted their lives has clearly left a positive impact and what a shame to watch as the world swirls the bowl, I imagine.

Do you change for the sake of it? Can you recognize when someone's “big life decisions” are a kind of posturing and marketing for some new decadent brand? I think we've ignored our culture changing into one that demonizes the weak and poor. We take it for granted that our institutions will fuck us, that we're stuck yelling in the streets, and that it's best to seek out any form of self-comforting distraction. Thus the new habit of being plugged in all the time to tweets and TV.

Protect what you have. If you can show objectively something about your life or habits that speaks to the whole in objectively good ways, don't let your ideas of it start to degrade because your mind is on high alert for what's new and shiny. Don't let tired arguments like “it's too complicated” win as if the world hasn't habitually teetered on the brink of one disaster to the next. Endless self-help and business books try to remind you to be fearless and actually get off your ass as if a multi-billion dollar empire doesn't arise from your Halo stats.

In protecting though, you have to be aware of why something may need to change. Repealing Glass-Stegal because “well, banks are even more complicated today, so we should let them merge” is flat out stupid and easy to understand why it's stupid. So is “poor people should be put in jail because they're poor or black.” So is, “but I'm happy and smart, why can't everyone just be like me?” The world will carry on like you don't care, like you don't have standards, like you never learned your lesson. Hell, if you manage to do the proverbial “waking up” and simply be the example you know needs to be set, the change becomes the illusion. The good has and will always be there right alongside the bad.

Now you get to start asking what and whether you want for yourself verses other people. You get to ask yourself why you think you're so important. You can still be hyper self-obsessed, but to more defined ends. You'll beget voluntary change or acceptance whilst still being able to appreciate what happens if/when your “new” metrics become corrupted. You pay and play with both sides of the coin.

[399] Wherever I Belong

I want to speculate for a bit.

I wonder if there's a more desperate air taking over. Given that I reserve most of my vitriol for 5 am rants that maybe a handful of people read, I'm going to try and not take it personally how almost everyone I've engaged with over the last few weeks seems, more often than not, angry with me.

I think there's a time frame you can attach to stagnation. Say you move into a new house, excitement brimming, new places to explore. But, maybe 5 or 6 months in a kind of truth starts to creep in. It could be something simple like the reality of your new job or friendships sucking. It could be that for some reason you're starting to look at yourself and think you're getting old, fat, or not getting enough sleep. It could just be that you don't even have anyone to talk to about your ill-defined feelings.

I know there's a kind of perpetual stress when you adhere to a “normal” schedule. When you have a job or want to claim some kind of group, you're always in politics mode. Not only are you investing in your future and you have to remain diligent even in just getting up in the morning, but you have to keep all the little bridges in tact. I wonder if these bridges are getting you anywhere. What are you being accountable to?

I know that I stress out about, maybe more so in previous months than lately, about the kinds of examples I'm setting. Are you just another de facto adult? Does that leave you content? I realize more and more that I was most happy when I was convinced of my own “bullshit” so to speak. The more I thought people gave a shit about how smart I could be or what I could accomplish in business, well, why would one ever want to frown?

So if I drop the pretense, call everything I do as worthwhile as what anyone else is, it's a significantly less reassuring place. I think this means, at least for people like me, that I want to believe in “more.” I think I've simply caught myself asking “why” way more often.

Say I hold no respect for passive aggressive candor. Why am I trying to create a world in which the people I receive it from would likely be the first to prosper? It's not like I have the patience at this point to go and make new friends. If I don't respect naïve conceptions of how or why I do things, why am I appealing for more of those assessments? Am I? Or am I looking to be surprised? I probably just want a surprise.

I don't know man, jobs end and smug happiness is fleeting. The idea that there's some kind of top of a pyramid that you can inhabit is an illusion. And it shouldn't be the first place you run to when you're feeling super insecure or full of resentment.

I honestly think that having dwelled for so long sort of doing nothing and sounding like I'm not grateful for my time and freedom has made people forget about all the other stuff I'm not saying. But being mean doesn't have to accompany the deconstruction, I think. For the time being I should probably just refrain from drinking too heavily.

In any event, maybe it's about an erosion of trust. Things you trusted about yourself, your habits, your friends, your plans. Maybe when time gets too heavy it makes your legs shake and knees buckle. Maybe that process has accelerated so mid 20's can step up and take over for mid-life crises.

I've been debating taking my most pessimistic insights and drawing up predictions to seal into a time capsule. I don't know why little exercises like this make me think I'll feel a kind of relief or elation, but the idea still provokes me. It might be just a form of coping. Anticipating to the best of my estimation where to hammer the finishing nails. I'm probably just butt-hurt about wanting more than people are willing to give. I talk so stupidly much about “understanding.” And given how ridiculously hard this seems to be to achieve, I guess people default to “respecting differences.” I don't respect and I'm unconvinced we're that different.