[413] From Ear to Ear

I kind of hope this is the last time I ever have to talk about this. It strikes me that I've only ever really danced around or made weird jokes instead of digging in. I've just gone through another round of watching fucked up immediate and accidental death videos as well as a few beheadings.

When I say another round, I don't mean to suggest it's like a hobby. As with many things that garner my attention, these videos made it to the front page of reddit in a forum where someone explicitly asked for them. I think there's more of a “general fascination” with something so fucked up and foreign to our daily reality than people having secret killer fantasies and getting off or something. Nonetheless, I'm sensing a ton of things that also need to be said, at least by me.

First, the mess of comments. Someone will point out that “we all could be like them.” It's a version of this that usually follows a discussion of WWII and the Holocaust. Then there's the gung-ho types who are positively sure the “answer,” as perverse as that feels to type at the moment, is to meet violence with violence. I think what strikes me the most, is that no one speaks to how afraid they would be. What seems like the real driving force for what makes these videos so jarring barely gets a nod.

At some level, everything we engage with is a kind of illusion. You can only focus on a spot the size of your thumb on your outstretched arm. Your eyes black out every time they change direction. You can stir all form of emotions from characters, real or animated. You buy into ideas about education or government that fulfill a kind of need for structure and purpose where the kind of depravity in these videos essentially disappears. To some extent, the videos act as an illusion, keeping the violence “over there.”

Part of me feels like I should be, or am, really fucked up that I could watch this shit and then switch back to Bunheads once I get done writing this. To hear someone's final “Oh God!” as a building crashes down on top of them. To see the blood gushing from a man's face after he shoots himself in the head. To watch 100 people burn alive. But I feel my “entertainment” has been helping me cope with things like this my entire life. Worse than that though, I feel like death isn't the worst thing some of these people could be experiencing.

I think there's kind of a “dream” end goal. To die in a bed in your sleep, right? Old as shit, basically egging it on, after you've achieved your numerous goals and know you have a few grandkids. Not mid speech with your eyes rolling to the back of your head. Not because a waitress accidentally sets you on fire or a brick falls off a truck Final Destination style and instantly kills your wife after hurling through your windshield.

Maybe reality is too scary. Maybe it really is just way too much of a random shit show to justify anything less than the measures we have in place to play along like we'll all get the solemn and dignified death bed scene. I speak to ridiculing fear very often. Granted, I'm usually poking fun at your inability to do little things like ask someone out or change your shitty job, but to your body, to your mind, fear is fear. “Irrational” fear still has consequences.

Take recent news. Have you ever been a cop who's been afraid? They aren't supermen after all. I'm certainly not saying anything less than a rabid liberal would about gun violence, police training, or poor black kids, but I also know on average cops die sooner than most people just from stress. To look at the moment, or 6, he fires in that vacuum is to sort of absolve the overall culture and context. Justified? Answer reduces to opinion. Understandable? Predictable? Alterable? Questions that encompass more than what you think of the cop as a person.

I'm drifting a little too far.

I look at these videos and I don't think to myself “this is evil,” and obviously not for the accident ones. To me, the essence of evil lies. That's not an incomplete thought. It's to look at something like this and to deny the world that created it. Evil is patient. It lies in wait. It unfolds in every look the other direction. In every “I could never!” It's when you refuse to learn. Horrible shit happens for insanely foreseeable reasons. And every time you absolve yourself of a little or a lot of the responsibility for creation, you ensure the shit will keep coming.

I've expressed a number of times that you need to feel it. And, I'm beginning to think that's wrong. Because I feel it, barely, but what makes me concerned or guilty or sick is attempting to own it. And because no one can make you, I don't see “the world” becoming a better place. How many people want to be responsible for this random, violent, and terrifying chaos? I haven't talked myself out of the prospect, but fuck me for the amount of unbelievable shit I'd be getting myself into. Help?

[412] In Defense of Being Smartish

Let me say I feel weird that I would even have to take up this kind of charge. I won't be trying to argue about how smart I am nor attack some general idea of stupidity. I'm mostly confused about what I've experienced and am worried about the consequences.

Reddit is amazing to me. It resembles a schizophrenic. That is, I can't ever tell when it's trying to be "real" or is an increasingly queer fantasy world. I'm not looking to nit-pick subreddits. You can be confounded by just what you get on the front page without scrolling.

It seems that if you say something "too smart," in that it takes on a level of detail and references, you're quickly down voted as pretentious or possibly linked to /r/iamverysmart. Mind you, no one bothers to qualify it as correct or not first, but if it comes across as from a kind of perspective that can't be accessed easily, you're immediately written off.

I read a lot of books. Immediately, I understand even saying that has put people off. As if reading has now given me special authority or actions of consequence. I hesitate to go through years of comments and bickering to support that insight. The problem with reading is that my mind goes to a lot of new places. As a result, I frequently write.

It may or may not be a secret that the more you engage in this reading and writing thing, you may start to talk less than colloquially. If you read about governments, your language may be dosed with that of political theorists and culture warriors. If you genuinely spend a lot of time with math or physics, you're not automatically a doosh by uttering the words "quantum mechanics" (I suspect I'm giving this crowd too much room, but the point remains.)

Some days I can find something I agree with that gets thousands of upvotes. A week earlier I may have extrapolated on and gotten in an excellent discussion about that very same thing, and it might get 2 votes. Other times I can carry on like the proverbial angsty teenager about some tiny topic underneath the umbrella of music, and get 18 votes. I know there's timing and "tl;dr" comments abound, but amidst this random chaos, reddit attempts this claim at an identity.

And, to me, it's the way-too pseudo self-awareness and "irony" that pollutes everything reddit touches. It's where "humor" becomes a cop out or formula. It's where "intellectualism" is the purview of /r/askscience or /r/askhistorians. I think this "hive mind" with so many bees not actually thinking the same thing destroys trust in information. It destroys willingness and capacity to sit with complicated things for long periods of time until they can be talked about collectively.

I think it acts in the same way ceaseless advertising does. It becomes normal to respond with sarcastic .gifs or from behind your fake degree in psychology or sociology. The meager rewards of gold or upvotes even less tangible than the stickers you may have received in grade school. I think I would hear an immediate revulsion "we're just dicking around on the internet!" sentiment at this point. Noted, don't care, not what I'm talking about.

I have a pretty non-optimistic view of not only my country, but our collective future, and our general understanding of...nearly anything...at this point. You know when you talk to an insanely smart teacher and they can't help but reference or frame things in ways you probably have to read a few books to appreciate? It sort of seeps out of them this secret world of time spent learning? Now, with nearly everyone I engage with personally or online, I sense no seepage. Most invitations to read something or share an experience are met as though it was an attack. By wanting a conversation or taking the time to unravel new thoughts, I'm often criticized as if I've done something wrong.

It's as if when you can't fit in to the kind of defensive, lazy, take-it-for-granted "this is how we do," you have no place here. It's exceedingly reminiscent of the computers and computing dorm I lived in in college. This spiteful pride in "whatever you'd call this hobby" and by coming here you play by the rules or gtfo.

I think people are lacking identity. I think they're lacking knowledge. I think these aren't just anecdotal reflections of me battling the loudest assholes on the internet. I think the reason their voices sound so loud is because "the rest of us," however that's quantified, are failing by playing their game and not calling it out for what it is. Bullshit childish laziness and prideful ignorance. I don't know if it's simple demographics, [deliberate] lack of leadership, or a deeper reflection of how people view their lives outside of a computer screen, but it worries me.

Why must everything be reduced to a caricature?

[411] Made Me Who I Am Today

The little things.

I'm going to start writing in a different mode. Too often I seem to take on an air as if I can actually do something about all that I shit upon. The problem, I still want to talk about things, but not come off as if I'm being prescriptive. It's too grating and weird for someone to think that I'm doling out advice when I'm as trapped in a basement as the next person. More striking, my only advice to get out of  the proverbial basement if and when I do would be “hit me up for money.”

One of the staples of living “happy” or “content” is to be able to focus on the little things. Focus on your family. Pick your favorite charity. Study something that speaks to your inner light and motivation. The accumulation of enough little things is supposed to lead to a kind of idealized future. At least this is how it seems to be sold to me. One way or another, no matter what prompts me to write or pisses me off, the argument is made to consider if not almost worship the little things.

I want to try and describe my understanding of naivety. Because I think it is a very powerful tool. When you're naïve you just get to “do.” You'll always be unaware of something, that's just being human. But naivety is the shield that protects the reasons you do something. If you don't know any better, then you have no reason to suspect why or how you should change. It's a platform. A springboard if you will, that launches whatever your agenda or beliefs onto the world.

One of the reasons “I'm so sad all the time,” so to speak, is that I've become aware of too many things that I'll likely never be able to fix. I also feel that knowing what I know means it's unjust and unfair to carry on as if I'm happier about our shared state of affairs than I really am. My “angry” perspective litters every conversation I have about “people” or “governments.” My analyzing of conversations or arguments means that I know how stupid a conversation is going to get before we've had it. I even know that in trying to navigate or head off the stupidity, I'll create even more!

So much of how we navigate the world boils down to power. Power is fluid. Power exists at all scales. Let me try to lay out a scenario that pollutes the majority of my conversations.

First, it's assumed that statements are simple. “We live in a democracy.”

Immediately, if you live in the US, you know it's not that simple. Nor really true. If it was true, it might be described as a “non-functioning democracy.” But, if you were the one asserting this line, you already have a stock of ammunition that would comprise your argument. You'll also find a way to explain this stock that assumes I don't know what a democracy is, nor am living in the reality of my failed one.

Take one round of ammunition and say “the power is with the people.” This alone disregards scale. Ballot initiatives may work, your school board may get thrown for a loop, and hats off for delaying a pipeline, but there's a deeper wound in your system. There's a filter before you get a chance to voice your opinion. Whether it's the candidate you follow, or the rights you're campaigning for. They have to be made to fit a script you get to read later.

In this same round of ammunition you get to hide behind the word “people.” Because who is people? People who aren't given a chance to vote? People who have been misled by propaganda? People *like you* with your informed substantial views that every reasonable person could come to accept? When you ask these questions, you turn it into something of a non-concept. Give me a number. Give me an initiative. Tell me the story of why a group may think one way or another. Then I'll start telling you about the nature of their “power.”

I look at consequences. If you're one of the king's subjects who can be beheaded at any time, every time you look menacingly at your pitchfork and remind yourself that the people outnumber the king, there's an entire world of power and consequences you are disregarding. And it seems so obvious so as it doesn't need to be stated, but I promise, it needs to be stated.

You can win a million little victories, and you'll still see your world burn. Whether you've been persuaded the world beyond your struggle doesn't matter, you take it for granted things will get better, or you ignore that it's even there, the consequences will still play out the same. And that's all I'm ever concerned with.

It's why I'm concerned when you don't feel as bad as I do. When you relay everything in terms of opinions. When you don't own your indifference! If we need to go down, at least own it! With any “luck,” or, with the right amount of money, I'll one day just be able to count. Just count and give a number to those consequences I harp endlessly about. You won't know what I think, you'll feel my 7 on a scale of 1 to 10!

I want to show, not unlike how Lawrence Lessig has, how small of a number can make you feel and think small. 10 Senators. 3 million dollars. 2 years. 50 phone calls. 30 thousand votes. 2 degrees Celsius. If I can just reduce you to a number, you'll finally feel like nothing. Variables in an equation where the screaming opinions can be silenced. God, what a dreamworld.

[410] War On Everything

There never seems to be a kind of peacetime. A time when you can relax and plan for the future. A time things feel stable or it's possible to get your hopes up. It's one battle to the next. It doesn't matter if you're tired, who was hurt along the way, or how much was sacrificed. Just keep fighting. You have to be lucky enough to draw motivation or pride in doing so, or all you can do is get tired.

It's the kind of tired that old gangsters talk about after too many of their friends have been shot for bumping up against the wrong person. It's the tired that causes a person in finance to kill themselves when something goes wrong or they're up for potential prosecution. (like that ever happens) It's the tired that takes a beaten brow and sore feet and makes them testify to the amount of sleep you need the moment your ass hits the couch. You're thrust into this fight. You're expected to pick up your weapon of choice and cut through those that would deny you or beat back those that would consume you.

And you need to take pride in it. You need to give yourself reasons. You need to defend your ideas about your ability, your purpose, your drive, your family, or your very destiny. Whether that destiny lies in a humble solitude enjoying the music of the birds as you devour literature or rockets you to the frenzied heights of Wall Street killing lest ye be killed every minute, there's a tone, a voice that has to quietly but persistently reassure you that this is okay, this is righteous, this is you.

I think we sacrifice that voice. To me, it feels so LOUD how trapped I am. It feels like no matter which friend I inquire about, no institution I'd like to trust, nor any new information I may stumble across allows for a reason to think in anything but desperate terms. And I feel exhausted. I feel defeated. It's like being beaten of everything besides "professional uncertainty." There's always hope in what you don't know!

I know how people do it. I know they ignore, deny, and pretend. I know they do it because they need to fit. They need to function. The world has to have some semblance of order or predictability. It just has to! Nobody means to sound like an insensitive sociopath. They don't mean to carry on like nothing else matters. But what choice do they have!? There's not enough time! The market has decided I'm to have an inadequate job and insufficient resources to recognize the world beyond my circumstances. It's a trap! And I couldn't have known, and I can't get out. Stop blaming me!

And they're right. And it's simple. And it's sad. Your mess is greed's fault. Your disintegrating future was trounced by pride. You were handed poisoned Legos and told to build to your heart's content and never mind all the coughing. And what a pretty castle! It's got gadgets, entertainment, and the finest garments. It's cost effective. It suits someone of your tastes and caliber.

Not all crashes come with a boom and a mess. They can start with a crack. They can fall in a forest where ears are unavailable. The invisible hand slaps more faces than you'll meet in a lifetime. But it will just be another blow against another soul in their own every day war. It's not your job to bother. It's not your place to question.

[409] Jive Turkey Talk

I keep thinking about the inadequacy of language. It speaks to why I'm stuck writing even as I figure things out. I've attempted to talk about myself and “feelings” or lack thereof. I can go on about politics or “isms.” I've tried to nail down relationships or how people feel towards “spirituality.” It just all feels exceedingly inaccurate. Or if not inaccurate, very incomplete.

I read an interesting thought process on language. Pre-language, if you were in danger, it might be a grunt from your fellow homo-whatever. That's all you needed. “Run you stupid cunt a tiger is about to munch on your ass” was leagues away. I think there's a kind of pull to relate to things that way. The most complicated issues we want to sum-up and say things like “Wall Street is evil,” “I love you,” or “not my problem.”

I can empathize with this, but I can't respect it. We're not baseline animals. We've taken up the charge, explicitly or implicitly, of being a collective that learns and passes on more than genes. If you need to just stay alive, you can find people who will grunt at you. If you're going to push your mind and maybe exist for something beyond yourself, you need to ceaselessly explore where it's taking you.

But talking is hard. I learn practically every day that there's like a force field in some peoples' heads about what you can talk about and when. You can make an analogy and someone can take two words from it and write paragraphs in response to their misunderstanding. You can start hurling accusations about the intent and capacity of the person you're talking to. You can defer to what you genuinely believe are sources of authority and smugly laugh at the other side's inability to accept your “facts.”

I think this is a kind of hidden back door to “consciousness raising.” Now everyone gets an opinion. And you can rest assured almost none of them are going to attempt taking in all of the information to make it a worthwhile one. The world, even if only through reddit, can ridicule America and it's treatment of poor black kids, dick headed ones or otherwise, and our backwards ideas about guns. None of whatever that ensuing meme picture conversation or judgment is going to save the next one or be what convinces police they don't have to shoot at any black person that moves.

“The masses” is an idea I'm increasingly convinced hurts discourse dramatically. The masses always exist as an opinion I only hear through a computer screen. It's just beyond my circle of friends. It's hidden behind “likes” and “upvotes” as if I know the person saying something stupid was being sarcastic or trolling or that the people upvoting aren't dyslexic or armchair anarchists. By invoking the masses you wield this connotative sword  that apparently trumps all inquiry into different dynamics of power. Do you blame rioters, or the step-dad? The North, or Lincoln? People who drive cars, or the people who subsidize oil? Ignorant poor homeowners, or the 11 people at midnight who fix rates and secure bonuses?

And blaming them all sure sounds righteous, but I as a “the masses” can't stop driving tomorrow, I'm not having his opinion nationally broadcast, don't sign checks, and likely couldn't fix my bow tie on a stock market floor.

This is why I'm such a fan of doing. When I didn't want to work a regular job, I opened my own. I can hear every opinion in the world about how I did it or what I accomplished, and the wind of their words didn't move the kiosk an inch or will drive the van around town. Real leaders and influencers are doing and the consequences of such make your opinion mute. Not that you can't talk, or feel good about it, but you're losing the ability to be humbled. Though, there's as many potential leaders as there are people.

I seek a way to lead with data. I want to crunch numbers and use them in service to ideals. It's why I look for those ideals in writing and then spend money on things I think will eventually get me there. Because I haven't done much lately, I'm feeling the burn of getting bogged down in inadequate language. So naturally, I needed to talk about it.

[408] Public Service Announcement Addendum

True to form, I go about talking and manage to fly all over the page without finding precise enough language. I stated that I wanted the PSA to be about what I'm not saying and then tried to describe something hard to define with an inadequate example. So I'll try to do better.

I didn’t mean to say that my situation revolves around a problem with being superficial. I get that with pleasantries we are all “perfect liars” in our capacity to carry on with a group of strangers. I didn’t mean to suggest that you are supposed to feel some sort of deep or meaningful connection that elevates them to a kind of long term investment or friend. The problem is not about being personable or disarming in and of themselves. The problem is not about the other peoples’ misconceptions or hurt feelings.

I felt it too redundant and obvious to carry on as if relationships don’t mean different things to different people. Am I not the poster child for talking about utility? I wasn’t seeking reassurance that what I have or create is “more valid” or at least “as valid” as someone who resolves their decision making in feelings.

I frequently remind people I’m only as good as what I do for them. To tell me I care about my friends almost feels like a challenge not to. My default contrarian “fuck you” as it were. Attempts to tell me where I’m coming from before you take what I say and try to unpack it or ask a question sit very poorly with me. This is not the same thing as not wanting feedback, but I’m writing to get at what I mean, so I don’t lose my mind, not to be “inferred” about and certainly not to be “reassured.” I know it’s coming from a good place, but it’s more confusing than anything else. I’m happy to own my incomplete idea or miserable sounding tone.

The problem feels more “general.” It feels more “blah.” It’s a state of mind, a consequence of personal philosophy or maybe inadequate access to expound upon a better one. I wanted to talk about the consequences of being aware of it permeating everything I do and say. It’s only ever “good” or “bad” to the extent I get comfortable with the varying consequences.

Whether life is arbitrary or not, I attempt to make sure “I’m” not being arbitrary. That’s in service to the “sociopath” part of “relative sociopath.” The times I look into the nihilistic abyss and only take away the adages of an angsty teenager, unnecessarily boisterous drunkard, or of an impersonal shoulder shrug. When I’ve gone out to “have a good time” because I took your advice and didn’t just fuck off in my basement like I wanted. Because I wanted. Because the string of my decisions and circumstances leading me there are “more correct” than doing otherwise.

The part of me that does that is the alienation by choice. The part of me that’s provoked people to cry, follow me into “battle,” or feel comfortable with what I’ve exuded as my presence is the alienation by internal condition. People don’t do what I do or sound like me. When they do, they’re Byron.

And it’s not like I think I’m talking about an impossibly foreign concept and that people don’t get it, but it’s like a huge pair of tits. My back has felt pain too, but I’ll never really know your struggle. Just like people know what it is to be “cold,” or mean, or delightfully superficial in their fitting into cultural lives, but I feel burdened by a capacity and proclivity towards those things that gives people a chance for an “emotionally unencumbered scapegoat.” If you hate your mom, I got mine to file for a restraining order. If you’re polite, I’ve already screamed fuck way too loud around all the children and fellow restaurant goers, several times. If you want something burned down, I have half the things we need in my trunk.

I think my utility, in that sense, is giving license, because I take mine. Do that enough or in an irresponsible way and someone’s going to start noticing the body count. It’s a toll taken on your psyche, relationships, and “potential accomplishments” depending on whose turn it is to define what those mean to you.

[407] Public Service Announcement

I want this blog to be about what I'm not saying.

I'm going to harp on a constant theme. Let's run with the idea that I'm a “relative sociopath.” This does not mean I don't care about people. This does not mean I can't experience emotion. This does not mean I am indifferent to your circumstances.

I need to just explain what I did tonight that makes me, sort of, fuck everything up. Tonight I made people like me. I was endearing. I was “smart.” I made the young gentlemen around me feel as if what I said could give them a reason to get off their depression medication and believe in something again.

I know what you hope for. I know how to talk to the disenfranchised well-wishing person who thinks the world can change. I don't know how much I believe in what I'm saying and what I”m doing for their belief in what I'm saying.

In all seriousness, it's really hard to explain where I'm coming from.

I do things. And really, that's how they register.

I don't mean to be a liar or anything when I say that I like you. I don't mean to feel like what we talk about almost certainly becomes cliché and superficial. But I'm wrong.

I will never escape my “distance” from how I relate to people. Whether it manifests as awkward, cold, or capitulating, I can't stop watching. I want “real” feelings and connections. I want to believe in something “more.” But I can't.

I'd say this makes me sad, but it would be another lie. Please understand that you are of a particular sort in remaining my friend.  

[406] Cry Baby

I think I'm over responsibility. That sounds weird and very incomplete. But when I reflect on how being or feeling responsible for things affects my disposition and circumstances, I'm struggling to figure out why I ever thought it was a good thing.

Certainly my environment didn't teach it to me. I could point to ten situations at random and depict a scapegoat parade. I see people feel guilty and sorry for themselves, sure. Everyone's aware of how hard they tried or values their contribution. It's not that they're aggressive, you made me defend myself! It's not their oversight, I trusted you to get it right! They can't recognize a chance to help, it's not even my job!

I get played like a fool. And if it walks and quacks like a fool...

I was the 16 year old who was all gung-ho about entrepreneurship who was still sold on a pyramid scheme by a fellow Target employee. Not that I'd heard of pyramid schemes at this point, but “someone like me” should still have avoided blowing that $50 on signing up, no?

When I was running the party house, I've already complained about being responsible for “everything" there, in that if it's broken I'm likely paying for it, if you forgot to lock your door, it's my fault for not locking your door, or if you smoke out my kitchen and leave a bong pineapple massacre on the counter, of course I'll be in shortly to pick it up.

You're definitely on your own in business. Good luck figuring out legalese in a contract finding money with your excellent credit history and collateral just out of college. Can't afford a lawyer? Fool, these laws weren't designed to protect you or keep you in business.

I stress, I'm seeking to make a point, not belabor a pity party. Asking for responsibility begets you way more than you bargain for.

The worst part is not getting fucked. I already expect all the stupid shit to be stupid shit regardless of whether or not I'm the one engaging with it. The worst part is when other people believe in you and help you. Because now you're letting them down. Now you look like a persistent crazy person who's playing on sympathies or has just managed to become a really good bullshitter. And I am a really good bullshitter. Do I expect the people who help me to make the distinction?

Yeah, signing up for a pyramid scheme is stupid unless you explicitly seek to exploit the naivety and inexperience that got me. But you know who took the catalog to work with him to help me start hocking some energy drink? My dad.

Sure, running a business is expensive and a pain in the ass and you'll get fucked for years before you get lucky and fuck with something that breaks through. You know what makes it less hard? When someone dips into their savings to help you, like my dad did.

He helped me stock the party house with the furniture and everything we'd need to get by. It's been friends who helped me put together the kiosk, clean up after fuck head stoners, or make 15 garbage runs when all the shit left in the house was placed at “my” feet.

I don't feel like I matter to anything anymore. I'm not saying there aren't people who don't care about me or who I can't rely on. I've just been reduced to “shining” at house parties or stumbling into one distraction or fuck up that rarely makes for a noble or interesting story.

I haven't been able to live up to the examples set by my dad and grandma. I've never had their patience, their genuine concern, their “faith.” And because it feels like they're the kind of people who would take care of the whole world, I got infected with that idea and have done what with it?

[405] Deliver Me

History can be a little too illuminating. 

Perhaps the utility of “remaining in the present” allows you the fresh naivety to remain energetic and motivated to pursue the future. Once you learn how your context has been created, you’re faced with a decision. Either you can readdress who you are, what your goals were, and to what degree this information will inform your decisions, or you can ignore it can carry on with your day. This is one of my constant well-worn “battles.”

You can’t blame the idea. For any school of thought, playing on a kind of feigned humility can allow you to introduce a new idea with a trivial amount of scrutiny. Maybe you’re in a field that no one around you knows about. Maybe you’ve been proven right about something in the past and have already greased accepting wheels. But often in the abstract and ever-more-room for ambiguity of ideas, for the longest time you may never conceive of it as good or bad.

This is how you easily and quickly control ignorance. Take any hard line ideological thinking, impose it in an area that has no idea what you’re talking about, and analogize what you’re selling to all forms of righteousness and prosperity. Inevitably, you’ll sow seeds of doubt against any system currently in place. You can polish your authority with Institutions who not only garner donations, but develop a lore and reputation. You can make deep pocketed friends who would pay you to keep saying what you’re saying even if you didn’t believe it fundamentally.

When I learn what my country has done around the world, I just feel stuck. The same ignorance that we played, and continue to play on, we’re somehow blind to the irony as a population. It’s not just a short memory, it’s a non-existing one. The things that I learn at 26 should have been cannon in any history class I took. They should have been drilled into me, perhaps even as they were happening, so I could really know the implications of laissez-faire beyond the point it would earn me on a definitions list. I should know about leaders who created socialist dreamscapes where economies grew and people were provided for. It’s beyond words to think a sounding chamber on Fox could pollute a word like “socialism” and an exceedingly large portion of the population would follow.

Do I want to end up on a kill list? Do I want to be detained and stripped of my rights because of on-the-spot made up rules? I already recognize what we have in place as servitude to multi-national corporations. I already call my leaders terrorists and war criminals. I consider the bars of my cage made from the softest velvet. Why does it often feel like forgetting what I know through some blow to the head feel more realistic and rewarding than fighting?

My spirit is broken. I have all the time in the world. Resources people couldn’t even dream of a few years ago. Even with the world as shitty as I could describe it I’m fed, typing this on an extraneous computer, and plan to sleep through most of the day tomorrow. I lose my will when I think about what’s happened to other people; when they’ve been tortured, when they’ve been slaughtered en masse, when they’re written off as collateral damage in our pursuit of profit and terror. These are horrible things in and of themselves. Now grasp that it’s national policy! Now watch how it’s evolved for 30 years.

The “good guys” aren’t winning. Every successful model I see seems to be rooted in something terrible first or is on such a small scale that the rest of world isn’t going to bother to listen. It’s little leaps in technology here and there, a win for food or human rights there, a spattering of conflict resolution that at least stifled bombs for another year or so. It feels like there’s an underlying failure that is perpetually winning. A human characteristic or habit that refuses to let sense and accountability in. It’s certainly some amalgam of greed, fear, and ignorance I’m sure.

But those aren’t deep enough. It’s deliberately advocating for the free-market for 70 years after you’ve watched it implode entire countries, like Milton Friedman. It’s speaking proudly of overthrowing democratically elected governments like ex CIA from the 60’s and 70’s. It’s pompously asking me for proof of climate change while you chant “build it” and “drill baby drill.” It’s not just ignorance. It’s pride.

It’s just an idea, after all, to be proud of yourself. How do you manage to do anything if you don’t take pride in your work? Am I not proud of my vitriol for the dumb and destructive? Is my high horse well groomed and polished so I can attract my own acolytes and we can start our own NEW SCHOOL and show these backwater killers who’s boss?

But I don’t feel it. I’m not proud to be human. I’m not happy to discuss most things with most people. I’m disgusted and sad. And not in a needing Tony Robbins to tell me to believe in myself kind of way. It’s like I don’t deserve the kingdom I already have. Why do I get to be healthy when my country pretends it’s okay “for the market to decide” who lives and dies? Why do I get to lament my “I’m cutting out sugar” diet when slaves are eating bread crumbs and gruel-adjacent foods? Why do I get to feel hopeless when I’ve never wanted to jump off of an Iphone factory roof?

I’m mostly disgusted that people don’t express ideas like this every day. I’ve said for years, when you can’t do anything, you can talk. And we don’t. We don’t hold ourselves accountable. It’s an uncomfortable silence if someone says something “too real.” If I have 9 hours to power through a book every day that you can’t find in a month’s worth of a 9-5, you can still talk on your lunch breaks. You can still pause and reflect. You can share the news article that made you sad because it’s a sadness that needs to be felt. It’s a guilt that needs to be imposed.

I think one of the stupidest things I’ve ever been told is that we’re not supposed to look out for each other. It came from reddit. This person was emphatic that as long as they carried on well-enough that it wasn’t their responsibility nor concern all the terrible shit that goes on around them. As if consequences don’t carry. As if they’re not likely a living embodiment of a kind of victim. Because to me, to be that kind of person is to have felt the kind of abuse that has crushed my spirit. Only now talking has become a fate worse than writing off the death of your fellow man.

[404] Succeedingly Average

I want to reflect on the idea of “average.”

As you take in increasing amounts of information, the feeling that it is or isn’t living up to a level of expectation grows ever more nagging. All of a sudden, an “interesting” or “cool enough” example you came across becomes the gold standard. After your attention and internal monologue has been beaten to death by the superficial, verbose, or flat out pathetic, taking on a pretentious air is something of a defense mechanism.

I’ve been reading blogs. I posted that I would evaluate and give feedback from anyone who chose to share their site. You will find no swifter lesson in the “law of average” than in doing this exercise. My problem has less to do with people sucking or picking exceedingly boring, convoluted, or random topics to squeeze into their poorly formatted and .gif laden blog, but that I doubt they plan to get better and wonder if they recognize what my criticisms are speaking to.

Take the idea of a cliché. Clichés are bred from overuse and experience. So if I call your “women are equal too!” post a cliché, are you as familiar with every avenue that uses the exact same words to fight the exact same fight? I must doubt it.

What’s not cliché is to go into your own mind and experience. You know, that often “off limits” realm where what you really thought is too embarrassing or taboo for random fucks on the internet. It’s also the only interesting thing you have to offer. You’re not “quirky,” “nerdy,” or “the right kind of asshole” enough to stick out with those descriptions alone. And your sarcastic skater/gay/spouse/boss isn’t going to tickle me the same shade of pink they do you.

This also feels like the symptom of the massive “in general fuck this shit” problem I have with life. I think what you see is this kind of superficial average across all levels. It’s why a few anecdotes of amazing doctors will never erase a general distrust and fear of hospitals. It’s the same reasons teachers will be defaulted to “bitchy authoritarians” instead of lauded arbiters of humanity’s future. It’s the shock you feel when someone picks up a phone on a customer service line and pretends “empathy” was ever a word we bothered inventing.

I think it speaks to why I like to make a show of being “bad.” I think the consequences of being an average asshole are undersold. I think the concessions we make to speak politely and the hesitation we feel to react as strongly as needed to real problems will be a huge influence as to why we don’t last.

Take a “big picture” kind of analogy. The rule is entropy. Things will break much easier than they can be built. If you’re average, you’re literally only getting worse with each passing moment. Take a moment to be extra skeptical of the person who’s terribly comfortable with their lot in life. At all levels, you can quickly become dramatically worse.

More to the point though, think about what you’re building. You’ve only got so much energy and how it gets used will inform you for the rest of your life. If you create and are applauded for your mediocrity, that’s the story that gets told. That’s the story you’ll internalize and the highest you’ll be able to aspire to. I try to be loud about when I’m sucking because I don’t want you to think I believe it’s okay. I don’t want you to think I’m not aware of the standard I hold myself to. I take just enough pride in my perpetual headache about what it is I want, and I find nothing more exciting than when I recognize an opportunity to engage with or do exactly what meets that standard.