This is an important blog. (HA!)
Since I was in my mid teens, me and Byron have talked about “the level.”
It’s an often referred to, perhaps hardly defined, but definite line that helps guide our discourse.
I’m going to take a go at it. My prevailing thought is that it’s about a level of awareness. You are explicitly barred from the level the more your opinion and perspective relies on the cliche and predictable. You can’t “default” to anything someone expects you to say.
The most intriguing thing about “the level” is other people who are probably supposed to be there, or are exceedingly close. It’s a dramatic cliche to be the loner “smart” asshole in the room; endlessly judging the people around you, completely convinced your perspective is both the saving grace and bane of all existence. But the level is not to be so easily surmised.
The level is humility and honesty. I put humility first because you can’t begin to be honest without knowing you’re fundamentally rooted in being full of shit.
The level embodies a kind of exploritative mindset. Take an informal conversation I can recall between me and Byron. He can explain that while he’s substitute teaching a group of kids who grew up in the Gary school system (a ghetto’s ghetto for those unfamiliar) the lessons he imparts are less about whatever subject he’s been assigned to, and more about life in general. My comment was “oh, you’re teaching them to be house niggas.” This an easily agreed upon comment from him and laughed at by the bartendender overhearing our conversation.
To be on the level is to understand I’m not being deliberately or otherwise racist. It’s a world apart from our current social justice warrior atmosphere. Surely it helps that he’s black teaching black students, but at the same time, there’s literally no more accurate assessment of what he’s trying to do for them than “train them to be house niggas” than how I spoke to it. There is no room for outrage and butt-hurt guilty white conscious.
This realm of accuracy and getting to the point I feel is struggling to exist. The tension people feel between “black” and “African American.” The pseudo-accepting conception of Islam that seeks to put a wedge between how people identify and what the fuck it is they identify with actually says. But as a a person on the level, you default to understanding the point first, mitigating the “touchy” language second.
A radical obligation to truth is something I don’t think exists anymore. I mean, it does because I’m still alive, but when you draw out situations, you can see why I think the way I do. For example, I use the term “faggot” routinely. I love the term. It’s striking. It’s descriptive. I’m well aware that it’s supposed to be derogatory towards gay people. I can honestly say I’ve never thought of sucking dick or fucking an asshole when I employ the word. (Because, let’s be real, you’re only upset about the guy on guy shit.)
I ask my gay friends what they think of the word. The best answer I’ve gotten is “you have to ask yourself what you want to be as far as a kind of ambassador in your use and conception.” Personally, I’m glad to drag you into a conversation about whether you think I should use it or not. I want you to be uncomfortable or doubtful. What I don’t want is for you to be desperately and needlessly grasping to the idea that I’m an ignorant bigot because I find utility in the word. I don’t want to be lectured by the illiberal matriarch who pretends to have a grasp of where I’m coming from.
Because isn’t that the heart of it? Every smart person. Every closet genius. Every little asshole who thinks they’re the only one who gets it. It’s the heart of all pretension. It’s where the willingness and pride to speak out comes from. It’s where I root my ideas regarding how I criticize your naivety. You have to pretend that you can surmise the position and nuance of every human brain. You have to read the controversy, write your own little diatribe (that’s woefully secret), and glance upon the world like you’ve something to teach.
I don’t care what the language is. You’re a faggot bitch. You’re a dumb bitch nigger. You’re literally worse than any word I could conjure that’s supposed to top nigger, cunt. How do you feel? How personally affronted do the words hit you? If it’s “any amount’ you’re not on the fucking level. You can’t deal. You’re not worth the time and conversation. You’re reacting to the connotation, not taking the message, not testing yourself, not worth a good goddamn.
And you’ll never believe it about yourself. You’ll think your opinion matters. You’ll think you’re going to express yourself in a way that wins hearts and minds. You’re above my pathetic drunk-ish rambling ready to write off the point for the sake of your closeted warm tummy feeling. And you’re wrong, and you’re nothing, and you’ll never reach the level.
I never know what to do when I meet the “other” thoughtful person at the bar. The one who’s there with their lackies or friends that they, more condescendingly than they realize, take for granted are along for the ride. I’m certainly under no illusions there’s plenty of thoughtful people. I found enough philosophers in my teens to find myself cliche and boring. My concern remains with trying to ally myself and create something beyond our loner conceptions. I’m already too bored. I’m already underwhelmed. We’re full of shit, and then what? Your friends are sheep...yawn...the fuck is the next step?
And it’s hard if you grew up with noone to talk to. How do you learn you’re full of shit in cousin-fuck Indiana around your muddin’ and hee-hawing friends? What if you’re the 1 in 10,000 person who moves to Oregon without the hippie plan to be relatively homeless in the mountains because bills and a job aren’t necessarily the devil? Where do you go with your dreams when what’s on offer is subreddits and if you’re lucky a shitty movie adaptation of your favorite author?
The level almost shouldn’t be talked about. It’s like recognizing like. It’s intuitive in a way that shits on the South Park interpretation of SJWs high fiving about their ability to be PC. You don’t learn it. You don’t try. You just are a person who gets it, feels alienated by it, and knows it’s the most vital and integral part of how you conceive of the world. It’s knowing that it’s only as dramatic a statement as the stupid bitch niggas around you make it.
My concern is thinking that if you ain’t there, you’re not getting there. For years we’ve wondered if you can be trained. If you can be enlightened. If you can embody the agency and the choice that takes you literally anywhere. And to this day, I don’t know. I don’t really believe it. The judgment always comes first. The feelings always bleed through. The coddled pedantic song and dance is needed to mitigate the raw emotion from the fucking point.
This is why I want to delete everyone and think I fucked up in trying to make friends. This is why I hold inherent dignity in even the stupidest of shit things I do. The agency, the choice, the ever-present inescapable moment to do anything else, to think anything else, to re-imagine and prompt dramatic and immediate change. That which overrides every opinion and challenges you to shit on everything you’ve ever known. Respecting, owning, challenging, wishing, and provoking that moment in everything you do and with everyone you’re with. Throwing yourself into the winds of potential or chance.
That’s what you don’t do. That’s what you’re afraid of. That’s the only way I can justify anything I do hoping, almost praying, that any fucking moment can prove a worthwhile diversion.
It’s all a joke. It’s all a game. It’s all going to disappear as quickly as it existed. Are you going to die pretending you never existed? Are you right here, or not? Are you waiting? Are you ready? I don’t think so, so keep doing as you do away from my fucking level.
