I catch a line as I’m making one of the worst decision of the last year, to decide to “just listen to the radio” on the drive from Evansville to Bloomington. It goes, and I’m paraphrasing, “Just look at Deuteronomy! How many times does it tell us to get wisdom!?” You know because “wisdom” is just one of those things you pop into the bible for and after a few short passages you get to level up.
Every time I hear Paul Ryan speak makes me want to throw something through my TV. “We’re going to move through these scandals and get back to fixing the American people's problems.” Yes Paul, we’ll do that by denying them healthcare and pretending math isn’t a thing when we propose budgets, you soulless fuck.
I follow this bombastic though health challenged and apparently intelligent person who I caught at random sounding creepily like me. He complains about the same politics I do. He makes references to history and all the reading he and 5 other people on the planet care to do. He makes drunk threats about applying his special skills to some form of attack or retaliation for the circumstances that keep him and his loved ones in perpetual misery. He mostly just posts too often, ends up hosting open mics, and then playing with hobbies for a spell.
It’s meme-i-fied on every other Hitler 2 supporters’ page this mythology regarding the accomplishments and “jokes” regarding their old angry savior. Screaming, racism, threats, terror attacks, etc. are “true American values” and the “real threat” is anyone who’s different or acts like they’re smart. They have as much a religious fervor for their god here on Earth as double-speaking believers do when they say things like “that’s not my interpretation of pick-you-fable.”
The conviction. The absolute certainty. As if anything is ever as You understand it. The all-blinding darkness and surety. “I’m Muslim but I voted for Hitler 2 because ISIS! Give him a chance!” “I’m Christian and am peaceful but gays are an abomination!” “I’m a republican who BELIEVES DAMMIT, so bust out your guns and your pipelines and your bigotry, it’s time for you to respect this big waving dick as it crashes into your helpless impoverished world.” The irony compounds when the people who have reason to be the most convinced use their skeptical posture and habits to doubt themselves into complacency. “Now now, we can negotiate with these terrorists.” “Everyone deserves a voice and to be heard.” “It’s not all bad, look at this singular positive instance against the flood of general bullshit. Isn’t it nice?” If we turned it into a math equation, we have a hard -5 actions from general idiots threatening overall survival and well being, then we have a +1 -2 from the do gooders pretending their little victories here or there speak to the whole.
I read plenty of history. I know there are historical precedents and big egos and wasted money next to piles of bodies we can scarcely imagine. It’s with that window into our heart that I genuinely ask. What do you think we’ve actually gotten right that speaks to our lasting legacy of a species? Different past cultures have been perfectly happy to have more equality and respect for gays or women that “the greatest country” can’t figure out. Other cultures have had significantly greater respect for natural resources and animals. People used to distribute things based on need, not if you had collateral and could sure up your needs with interest. Tell me, what is it about “modernity” that is such a shining beacon on a hill of progress, depth, and understanding?
I feel you get answers to that question proportional to your general ignorance of the world before you. You don’t define “slave” so you don’t conceive of yourself as one. You haven’t seen your water poisoned, yet, so every instance “over there” is surely an isolated incident. You’re sold on the extravagances of wealth and arguments between pundits from birth and therefore can’t retain a capacity for what “fair and balanced” even means.
There’s a line in a David Wong article about our brains not being wired for modern life. We didn’t have “jobs” when we hunted and gathered. We didn’t have thousands and thousands to entertain and appease at all hours constantly pushing our brand or comedy. We had our little family, we shared, we processed our little worlds in the here and now before we likely died before 40. Now we have “big data” attempting to codify and predict you like your mental machinery hasn’t been finely tuning that for generations. Your entire being is a data point to be coddled and exploited. It’s a world where it becomes, quite literally, impossible to figure out who you are.
I can’t begin to describe how lost I’d be without writing. I’m a month away from being “homeless” with land in the middle of nowhere and I’m more relieved than I’ve ever felt? My “rent” for the property is already paid until the spring of next year. Most of my shit is in a moving van already. I’ve got the tabs lined up with sustainable communities I’m gonna try to check out or piggy-back on. And the road to getting here has been anything but a straight line. It’s been me trying to anticipate closing windows and levels of compounding disaster.
I didn’t think when I got out of college I’d be living through a Hitler 2 presidency. I didn’t think that it wouldn’t just be a hobby I’m pursuing with my website, but potentially vital to getting a survivable grasp on the sheer amount of destruction stomping its way through our legislature. People are already being attacked and dying. Animals are already going extinct at unbearable rates. And we have what? Isolated reports from Joe Reporter about another scandal, attack, and threat to your life that you can’t do shit about. One after another until you scream your little scream and rev your motorcycle mentally prepared to get nailed to the cross of your ignorance.
You have to dig out what drives you. You can’t even just “live through it” regarding your convictions as there are endless examples of people who would kill or destroy and go right on doing so and feeling great. The great goal of the 21st century shouldn’t be lording technological progress over people who can’t afford it. It shouldn’t be spending huge quantities of money on things that keep us constantly distracted. It should be a commitment to doubtful introspection bolstered by a sea of information at our fingertips. The fact that we even have data-backed definitions and precedents by which to judge how stupid we currently are is our only chance in its mass distribution and understanding.
Unlike commercial enterprises, there’s no limits to the ways you can experiment with in how to teach something. I can sit in a field in the middle of nowhere and piece together my articles and map and arguments and seek out video editors or pick up the new skills to distribute across mediums. I can attack the big problems I have with existing at all by using my brain and making my sacrifice the allegiance to a kind of living situation that isn’t really all it’s cracked up to be anyway. It’s never been that “I don’t want a boss” or “I don’t want a job.” I don’t want a stupid boss. I don’t want a meaningless job that literally costs me my life for negligible and fleeting gains. There’s always plenty of work to do, we’re just habitually and conditionally focused on the wrong kinds.
