[443] Player 1: Fight!

I struggle with the idea that I should be provoked to write more “academically.” This is silly because I want you to actually attempt to understand where I’m coming from. If you read me, presumably you’re not trying to read a bastardized reinterpretation of some technical article about U.S. relations with Iran I posted this morning.

At the same time, I allot a certain weight to detailed looks into the particulars that I can rarely feel about something I write. I’m intrigued by this inadequate feeling because I feel that most people adopt it when they refuse to write (or share) their “equally worthless” thoughts on some topic. I find this idea considerably troubling. See past desperate pleas for your views as evidence.

As much as it makes me want to break something, I’m provoked by Donald Trump. I think he is a perfect case study in the power of “lazy impressions.” When you distill the man down to his smallest parts, the problem gets easy. Trump is a racist. Trump is an egoist. Trump is immeasurably ignorant. But with all the fire and pretense of a traveling preacher, he gathers a disconcerting number of eyes and ears.

And then what happens? We make it trend. The media goes apeshit. We reinforce the hatred and ignorance of the message with polls and discussion forums. What we so despotically remain devoid of is the capacity to recognize what this does to our brains. We make it normal, the “usual.” We make it okay.

We do it because it’s easy. We do it because we’ve been conditioned to approach every shiny phenomenon as if it’s the first of its kind. We do it because we’re tired. We do it because we’re busy. We adopt every bad habit of the lazy ignorant American way of life because it was/is/and will continue to be prescribed to us as long as we keep swallowing.

So then discussions about “revolution” come up. Then I ferret out articles and videos about changing the environment we’re operating within. I make urgent calls I hear echoed by vastly better researchers about “slowing down,” remembering past eras and examples, or our mental prisons with the finest velvet bars to endlessly stroke.

Further, I’ll get into a few hour long back and forths about how messages do or don’t come across. Me and Jake will break down ideas about “when people are ready” or what constitutes an “attack on their being” when challenged with some world-shattering trigger-warning-esc idea meant to, like, blow their mind, man… And lo all the fear and physically different brain structures that plague the authoritarian conservative mind! A problem so insurmountable; if only we could have gotten to them as children.

Here I think about loneliness of spirit. You forget who you’re playing for. I’ve been more frequently thinking about why or why not I’d bother bringing a kid to the planet as I conceive of it now. Fuck no. I’d tell them what? “Buy extra sunscreen?”

I still can’t persuade my players, you, to talk. Culture is a feedback loop. Passive acceptance begets passive acceptance. In a small way, I sort of expect revolt. If you’re suffering. If you’re tired. If you’re always busy. If I won’t see you for years at a time and you actually think I’d be cool to have around more frequently than that. I want little acts of rebellion. I want you to brag about them. I want you to give your struggling circles license. I want like a paragraph that suggests you think crazy shit is crazy too. I want you to do it for me, but I hope you’d appreciate that it can be good for you too.

I want to even start a fake conversation pretending there’s more to be done in service to things that matter. Just fake it with me. Play along. Stop taking all the articles I’m sharing and you’re not reading so seriously. What concerns you and what would you maybe do to address it if you pretended you had power? I’m asking so little.