I don't know about you guys, but I'm having a wonderful time.
Yes, in spite of my many years of complaints, things going on lock down, and general wave of fascism and ineptitude killing many things, I'm on a bit of a high. It's not manic, it's not a swell in my chest of deep appreciation or joy, and it's not the kind of schadenfreude you might expect from someone as spiteful and riddled with hatred as me.
I'm happy because reality is creeping in. Once you get past boredom, you're forced to stare at the nakedness of your state. Once the virus reaches your door, you're forced to look death in the face. Once you're hungry, can find no place for recourse but the increasing fear and violence from your neighbors, you're provoked to act, even reflexively, as if there's something deeper motivating your survival that's been ignored.
At bottom, we're a confusing set of contradictions, if only at least verbally. We want to save the planet while maintaining the edifices that give us wasteful and destructive things. We want to "love our neighbor," but mostly as long as it is in the form of a Facebook like for the guy who's going to be delivering them groceries. We believe in equality when we perceive an injustice is being done to us or an entertaining Netflix documentary highlights the plight of poverty and generational neglect.
The day-to-day vocalizing and struggling with life's circumstances are expressly avoided, distracted, or denied. As such, being a person who prides himself on trying to vocalize "at bottom," I find myself in perpetual opposition to what I might describe the "insinuated or seemed life." There's a form of communication that is perpetual dog whistles of different pitches. There's politicking and passive aggression. I, almost always, stay silent or just call you a cunt.
So what does a cocky cunt like myself afford himself with this access to what may crudely be deemed a better approximation of "truth?" In a crisis, I have affordable land and the ability to grow food on it. I have solar panels, so even if I had to dramatically scale back my energy usage, I could stay warm or filter water. I have a calm and deliberate disposition when faced with change. I accepted things were hard a long time ago and picked to sacrifice the appropriate things to be better when times got tough.
This kind of stuff makes me mildly smug, but also resoundingly hopeless. I gave my group of friends credit they didn't deserve, because I thought we all understood the times we were living in and what was coming. I thought we all could decode the implied language, and translate it into being deliberate and accountable for all of the pitfalls and failures we were expected to deal with. I thought we could look at our funny, pretty, intelligent selves and cut out a place to be together.
What I'm increasingly learning about society, or the human animal in general, is that it does not give itself the credit that I wish to. My friends don't believe in themselves like I do. They don't believe what they are capable of. They don't trust when I admire them. They don't believe they can change literally the entire world to meet their ends. You still can. I'm still working to.
Yesterday, I was in a conversation about the harsh words I have when I see a certain kind of "fat bitch" or just ridiculously clothes or haired person that just gives you pause. I put little stock in my sentiments. The superficial cutting people down is as weak or strong as you want to make it. It was making my conversational partner uncomfortable that I might be derisive of the idea that "really pretty" people might have the same shit to talk about me.
What's key in our conversation is the discussion that spun from it about creating your own reality. If I got ripped over the next few months and was still regarded as less attractive than Brad Pitt, it doesn't matter. I'm no thirstier for anymore eye-fucks than he might be. I don't regard attractiveness as a qualitative measure on which to judge someone. I've never needed to be ripped to be a whore, and I struggle to understand the person who would tear themselves or my partners down for their looks to try and humble me. Attractiveness can be accounted for scientifically, but the psychology of what's attractive is significantly more complex and nuanced. Take over the mind, and the body follows.
We construct reality, and to parts of the brain, dream-like scenarios don't differ from being awake. This necessary construction of being conscious does not negate the reality of viruses or math, but it does leave a gaping hole at the center of how we're to understand ourselves and place among others. The reality you construct can be a series of choices informed and encouraged by the facts so-discerned so far, or it can be a painful contradiction that manifests as continued problems impeding your movement through the world. If I thought I was "so hot" that it prompted me to approach everyone "under" me with derogatory comments or an inability to engage them with respect, we'd have a major problem. My meager concept of them would Trump my capacity as a human to empathize or act better.
The psychology of the realities you can inhabit is up for grabs. It's not a single choice in the moment of intense feeling, but a series of decisions over time that embed themselves into your core and mold your instincts. There are a great many misconceptions I've been under that I trained myself out of, and it enabled my ability to navigate the world with a degree of confidence that might seem harsh, naive, or needlessly scrutinizing, but is the giant Band-Aid covering all of the screaming, crying, or confusion that used to be there.
I don't care if it's a crisis, a bump on the head, or a triggering line after years of reading and contemplation, I want as much or more for you as I want for myself. I understand that as perpetually working and reminding myself how and why it can actually work. I live in spite of the abject failure of the scientifically accounted for math of our collective fuck ups and immaturity. I live in service to what I have accomplished or believe I still can and the people I want to do it for. But first, I chose to do it for myself, blame myself, and see how in some way it was my fault or responsibility all along. My sole recourse in life is the piling on of things I'm responsible for. This doesn't mean you have none, it means it's that much more I'm continuing to expect out of you. The chasm between us will grow or shrink along that understanding.
I hope the time alone, or the brushes with death, are the right kind of exhilarating and opportunity for you as they have been for me.
Tuesday, March 31, 2020
Tuesday, March 17, 2020
[840] Corona Made Me Do It
I don't know what to say.
How long have we lived in the 24-hour “news” cycle with everything “the war on” and “breaking” from Justin Bieber entering the country to how so-and-so “slammed” and “eviscerated” so-and-so with their legendary commentary?
How long have we had to study the various eras in how civilizations thrived or fell?
How long have we known that we've lived beyond our means, in selfish isolation, screaming “fuck the world” with all of the jaded wisdom of every teenager?
How tired have we been? How fat have we gotten? How many “School of Life” videos and existential memes have been shared?
How many times has “Get out the vote!” been parroted? How many silent wishes for death upon generations of those not as “with it?”
First, I was indifferent to the coronavirus. Then, I went to Wal-Mart and felt the low key panic of people's shifty eyes and odd choices on what to stock up on. I'm not panic buying, but I wanted to make it a couple weeks for if and when the shit really starts hitting the fan.
Next, I'm a touch curious about 1 out of every 50 articles that pop up about it. The prevailing theme is that we're, obviously, unprepared, defiant, and going to make things incredibly worse before they get better.
Then, I want to exploit the crisis. I email my investment guy. I tell every single person I can find in the office, now is the time to lobby for work-from-home and more money. I'm energized to do a little more land walking and mapping, because space away might cost a premium.
Now, I'm “generally angry,” that for all of the hullabaloo, for all of the cries about how things should go or the ways people are “stepping up” in a crisis, it all feels like bullshit. I subscribed to some “we'll get through this!” groups for central Indiana where pleas to find ways to get food, rent, or even cars towed stream in.
FUCK. ALL. OF. YOU.
As we speak, the neoliberal mess of Joe Biden wins Florida by a landslide. The narrative on Trump's response is morphing from his general perpetual lies to the handful of reactive and scared shitless plays he's making to appease anyone and anything that resemble “the market” or “his base.” The edifice, even while crumbling, is dedicated to the shine. The mouth pieces stoke the fear. The half-truth minute by minute scare pieces flood in. Catch-phrases repeated, finger waving the moral turpitude, and self-promotion acts of solidarity abound.
We've lost even the capacity to recognize it as an act. We used to have location-based relationships, or short and incidental ones. We might've built “professional” verses “personal.” A “brand” was something independent of the things you did in service to making it profitable. Now it's just this all the time everywhere. Wait until you hear someone a little quicker on the take say it or do it first, shop it around. Don't create or plan in service to the genuine betterment of something, “make a statement” and tell people to follow a dead link and flooded, incorrect, phone number.
This is how it ends. Probably not with coronavirus, but with this sheer inability to ever recognize the real again, even as death stares you in the face. Trump is death, and we voted for him. So was Sarah Palin. So were the celebrities and lobbyist narratives and daily capitulations we made in service to keeping our own heads above the shallow waters we were still allowed to swim in.
What kills me, what floors me to no end, is that for all of my constant and perpetual bitching, I've struggled so fucking hard, not to piece together a house or cope with one meaningless waste of my time after another in trying to get a little more of my indulgent American dream. No, I've fought and fought and fought to speak as though there is something better to be doing, and you, me, us were not doing it, and even during a fucking crisis, I can't get the conversation, the plan, or the disposition that can treat this shit LIKE WE ALL KNEW IT WAS FUCKING COMING.
I don't feel like I exaggerate when I claim people long for death. I don't think that the emotional burden of the silence is overstated. I don't think the ho-hum, literal fucking shoulder shrug I got today, is less deadly than the deadliest virus. Our minds are poisoned. Our spirits don't bite. When the panic truly sets in, there won't be enough news outlets to cover it. When the ship really starts taking on water, you're gonna feel hungry, starved, from all the bullshit we've been feeding on. There won't be land to swim to as we cramp up and drown.
When we come out the other side with 2 whole extra days of half-paid sick leave, that's when you kill yourself. Don't do it as you lose your job, run out of Hotpockets, or think too hard about how sick your grandma got after you came back from spring break. Do it when you realize it's never getting better, and you don't even know how it could. Do it because you're already dead, and there's nowhere left to go. The virus seems like it's trying to force the issue, but at least it wants to live.
How long have we lived in the 24-hour “news” cycle with everything “the war on” and “breaking” from Justin Bieber entering the country to how so-and-so “slammed” and “eviscerated” so-and-so with their legendary commentary?
How long have we had to study the various eras in how civilizations thrived or fell?
How long have we known that we've lived beyond our means, in selfish isolation, screaming “fuck the world” with all of the jaded wisdom of every teenager?
How tired have we been? How fat have we gotten? How many “School of Life” videos and existential memes have been shared?
How many times has “Get out the vote!” been parroted? How many silent wishes for death upon generations of those not as “with it?”
First, I was indifferent to the coronavirus. Then, I went to Wal-Mart and felt the low key panic of people's shifty eyes and odd choices on what to stock up on. I'm not panic buying, but I wanted to make it a couple weeks for if and when the shit really starts hitting the fan.
Next, I'm a touch curious about 1 out of every 50 articles that pop up about it. The prevailing theme is that we're, obviously, unprepared, defiant, and going to make things incredibly worse before they get better.
Then, I want to exploit the crisis. I email my investment guy. I tell every single person I can find in the office, now is the time to lobby for work-from-home and more money. I'm energized to do a little more land walking and mapping, because space away might cost a premium.
Now, I'm “generally angry,” that for all of the hullabaloo, for all of the cries about how things should go or the ways people are “stepping up” in a crisis, it all feels like bullshit. I subscribed to some “we'll get through this!” groups for central Indiana where pleas to find ways to get food, rent, or even cars towed stream in.
FUCK. ALL. OF. YOU.
As we speak, the neoliberal mess of Joe Biden wins Florida by a landslide. The narrative on Trump's response is morphing from his general perpetual lies to the handful of reactive and scared shitless plays he's making to appease anyone and anything that resemble “the market” or “his base.” The edifice, even while crumbling, is dedicated to the shine. The mouth pieces stoke the fear. The half-truth minute by minute scare pieces flood in. Catch-phrases repeated, finger waving the moral turpitude, and self-promotion acts of solidarity abound.
We've lost even the capacity to recognize it as an act. We used to have location-based relationships, or short and incidental ones. We might've built “professional” verses “personal.” A “brand” was something independent of the things you did in service to making it profitable. Now it's just this all the time everywhere. Wait until you hear someone a little quicker on the take say it or do it first, shop it around. Don't create or plan in service to the genuine betterment of something, “make a statement” and tell people to follow a dead link and flooded, incorrect, phone number.
This is how it ends. Probably not with coronavirus, but with this sheer inability to ever recognize the real again, even as death stares you in the face. Trump is death, and we voted for him. So was Sarah Palin. So were the celebrities and lobbyist narratives and daily capitulations we made in service to keeping our own heads above the shallow waters we were still allowed to swim in.
What kills me, what floors me to no end, is that for all of my constant and perpetual bitching, I've struggled so fucking hard, not to piece together a house or cope with one meaningless waste of my time after another in trying to get a little more of my indulgent American dream. No, I've fought and fought and fought to speak as though there is something better to be doing, and you, me, us were not doing it, and even during a fucking crisis, I can't get the conversation, the plan, or the disposition that can treat this shit LIKE WE ALL KNEW IT WAS FUCKING COMING.
I don't feel like I exaggerate when I claim people long for death. I don't think that the emotional burden of the silence is overstated. I don't think the ho-hum, literal fucking shoulder shrug I got today, is less deadly than the deadliest virus. Our minds are poisoned. Our spirits don't bite. When the panic truly sets in, there won't be enough news outlets to cover it. When the ship really starts taking on water, you're gonna feel hungry, starved, from all the bullshit we've been feeding on. There won't be land to swim to as we cramp up and drown.
When we come out the other side with 2 whole extra days of half-paid sick leave, that's when you kill yourself. Don't do it as you lose your job, run out of Hotpockets, or think too hard about how sick your grandma got after you came back from spring break. Do it when you realize it's never getting better, and you don't even know how it could. Do it because you're already dead, and there's nowhere left to go. The virus seems like it's trying to force the issue, but at least it wants to live.
Thursday, March 12, 2020
[839] Come Sail Away
I've said it before, and I'll say it again, and no one who's written less than me should ever start anything like that, but I'm a king.
Yes, I am indeed a king. I have regal hair with the softest curves. I have attire that causes people to call me “sir” and move out of my way. I eat incredibly fancy food from all over the world which I pay a premium for, because I can afford it. People smirk and chuckle at jokes I make, even the less than funny ones. I control the very air of my living quarters. Millions of people conspire to keep me entertained. I'm in considerably better health (indicated by my plump but not obese stature) than those I generally interact with. I'm skilled in different sports, hobbies, and am as learned as the books I complete every few days (which I even have people to read to me). The finest women have, and continue, to throw themselves at me. (Mostly as they drive.)
By all accounts, I've peaked. My realm of one is as good as it ever has been or could be save the grandiose immortality-seeking posture of vast structures built to honor me and the formation of leisure gardens. But rest assured, vast structures are commissioned and various gardens will be populated with the freshest foods and flowers.
Where, then, to go but the grave?
In one of the newer episodes of Cosmos, Neil deGrasse Tyson discusses East Asian sailors who, after populating islands and growing isolated from each other, forming different dialects and words, they all maintained the pronunciation of “sail.” Something moved them into the vast expanse of the ocean, and by way of urging us on, Neil wants us to believe we can traverse the stars. They had their kingdoms, luxuries and problems, but familiar and safe home, but were compelled into the unknown.
I think the psychology of most of the “West,” is that of the self-satisfied king. What ever could be the matter? So much abundance! The idea of there being something better, someone else to consider, or something beyond was lost. The gripes of baby-boomers about people my age not working hard enough when I never knew someone not working multiple jobs or destroying their youth in service to desperately struggle. It wasn't too far before them things like the steam-engine were invented. Our species’ recent history had an actual life-threatening amount of work to try and improve upon in order to shape our decadent conceptions.
We stagnated. We defeated the Nazis (yeah, right). Everyone got a car, a modest dwelling, vacation once a year, and smart enough to know whether or not they wanted to go to college. When the temperature got turned up on the water we were floating in, it was easy enough to ignore it. Cost of living going up? Environment signaling danger? Sick, but not too sick just yet? Slowly, daily, one person's mind at a time went blind to the cost of living each day like a king. Living like someone with no subjects to account for. Living like someone who can't be held to account without violent revolution and a good beheading.
The grip of how you anchor yourself is practically insurmountable. My dad seemed to have a really hard time hearing that our ancestry was more Peruvian than Italian. My dad is someone who takes an incredible amount of pride in my grandparents and how they grew up and what they went through. My dad has read an insane amount of history and things related to his heritage. A “simple” fact displaced his roots. I don't blame him for being upset. I was happy to figure out how my hair is curly and people habitually think I'm mixed or Hispanic (my dad regularly has people speak Spanish to him...)
Where are we currently anchored? I'm 31, which means I occasionally see a friend of mine who has mostly or finally paid off their student loans. They've raised several cats, had half a dozen jobs, a few first marriages, maybe 3 or 5 kids total if I go back and count. The vast majority, and remember, I knew a lot of smart, hot, middle to upper-middle class white kids, are not married, 2 car garage, 2.5 kids, cliché conception of the past. Most are meme generators playing adult-ish cards in service to not being destitute. They've found a balance that lets them do a series of mid-life crisis things, now prepackaged and Grouponed, every couple of months.
Kids? Maybe by accident or if their spouses had them from the previous relationship. Work satisfaction? Hey, at least it's not that guy's amount per hour. What's the future look like? Honestly, in asking myself that question, when trying to adopt the character of my collective conception of what I've watched from my online feeds...I don't know. I drew a blank. My personal conception is the freedom to move away from the increasing number of disasters I think I see coming. It probably has a few hastily built rooms with a dozen quasi-businesses. Hopefully I've roped back in Hatsam and haven't scared away Allie Cat.
Yes, I am indeed a king. I have regal hair with the softest curves. I have attire that causes people to call me “sir” and move out of my way. I eat incredibly fancy food from all over the world which I pay a premium for, because I can afford it. People smirk and chuckle at jokes I make, even the less than funny ones. I control the very air of my living quarters. Millions of people conspire to keep me entertained. I'm in considerably better health (indicated by my plump but not obese stature) than those I generally interact with. I'm skilled in different sports, hobbies, and am as learned as the books I complete every few days (which I even have people to read to me). The finest women have, and continue, to throw themselves at me. (Mostly as they drive.)
By all accounts, I've peaked. My realm of one is as good as it ever has been or could be save the grandiose immortality-seeking posture of vast structures built to honor me and the formation of leisure gardens. But rest assured, vast structures are commissioned and various gardens will be populated with the freshest foods and flowers.
Where, then, to go but the grave?
In one of the newer episodes of Cosmos, Neil deGrasse Tyson discusses East Asian sailors who, after populating islands and growing isolated from each other, forming different dialects and words, they all maintained the pronunciation of “sail.” Something moved them into the vast expanse of the ocean, and by way of urging us on, Neil wants us to believe we can traverse the stars. They had their kingdoms, luxuries and problems, but familiar and safe home, but were compelled into the unknown.
I think the psychology of most of the “West,” is that of the self-satisfied king. What ever could be the matter? So much abundance! The idea of there being something better, someone else to consider, or something beyond was lost. The gripes of baby-boomers about people my age not working hard enough when I never knew someone not working multiple jobs or destroying their youth in service to desperately struggle. It wasn't too far before them things like the steam-engine were invented. Our species’ recent history had an actual life-threatening amount of work to try and improve upon in order to shape our decadent conceptions.
We stagnated. We defeated the Nazis (yeah, right). Everyone got a car, a modest dwelling, vacation once a year, and smart enough to know whether or not they wanted to go to college. When the temperature got turned up on the water we were floating in, it was easy enough to ignore it. Cost of living going up? Environment signaling danger? Sick, but not too sick just yet? Slowly, daily, one person's mind at a time went blind to the cost of living each day like a king. Living like someone with no subjects to account for. Living like someone who can't be held to account without violent revolution and a good beheading.
The grip of how you anchor yourself is practically insurmountable. My dad seemed to have a really hard time hearing that our ancestry was more Peruvian than Italian. My dad is someone who takes an incredible amount of pride in my grandparents and how they grew up and what they went through. My dad has read an insane amount of history and things related to his heritage. A “simple” fact displaced his roots. I don't blame him for being upset. I was happy to figure out how my hair is curly and people habitually think I'm mixed or Hispanic (my dad regularly has people speak Spanish to him...)
Where are we currently anchored? I'm 31, which means I occasionally see a friend of mine who has mostly or finally paid off their student loans. They've raised several cats, had half a dozen jobs, a few first marriages, maybe 3 or 5 kids total if I go back and count. The vast majority, and remember, I knew a lot of smart, hot, middle to upper-middle class white kids, are not married, 2 car garage, 2.5 kids, cliché conception of the past. Most are meme generators playing adult-ish cards in service to not being destitute. They've found a balance that lets them do a series of mid-life crisis things, now prepackaged and Grouponed, every couple of months.
Kids? Maybe by accident or if their spouses had them from the previous relationship. Work satisfaction? Hey, at least it's not that guy's amount per hour. What's the future look like? Honestly, in asking myself that question, when trying to adopt the character of my collective conception of what I've watched from my online feeds...I don't know. I drew a blank. My personal conception is the freedom to move away from the increasing number of disasters I think I see coming. It probably has a few hastily built rooms with a dozen quasi-businesses. Hopefully I've roped back in Hatsam and haven't scared away Allie Cat.
I've found myself coalescing at work. What does that mean? I'm finding it easier and easier to shine, get cocky about it, and speak with a more demanding and daring tone. It comes out in an email I shouldn't have responded to. It has me making sure you notice I went above and beyond in manipulating the stupid or crazy person into doing what I needed. My “future” in doing something like this is the same as it was for me when I behaved that way in school. Extra shit to do. People giving me that look like they wish they could destroy me, except, dammit, I really did help them with something or actually know what I'm talking about. It would be a safe, prescribed, future dictated by the inadequate expectations and pace of a system that stagnates by design.
While we're all holed up in our homes coming face to face with the immediacy that catastrophe can strike, revel in the opportunity to reflect on what's been stuck that, ironically, can be unleashed with the right compelling force. You have to will your way into the future, attack problems worth your skill and attention, and define the indefinite unknown as something for you to shape. You can get fatter, richer, older and more complacent. You can be a cliché king from a forgettable child's fable of folly and excess. Or, you can mark your era by the continued conscious decisions to behave your way over another. To speak to what you actually want and believe, over what's been handed to you, wilted and wrung dry.
If the bug kills you, what did you leave? Your nice-enough personality? Your impersonal out-of-context Ikea quotes and art on your walls? Was it anything someone coming after you could pick up and take even further? There's a kind of king I wish to be that I'm not yet. I have my solitary kingdom, cut from the wretchedness of circumstances imposed upon me. But I still dream. I still wish to design the mind that makes it hard to stop but for the chance to stare and wonder about all that is or will be.
While we're all holed up in our homes coming face to face with the immediacy that catastrophe can strike, revel in the opportunity to reflect on what's been stuck that, ironically, can be unleashed with the right compelling force. You have to will your way into the future, attack problems worth your skill and attention, and define the indefinite unknown as something for you to shape. You can get fatter, richer, older and more complacent. You can be a cliché king from a forgettable child's fable of folly and excess. Or, you can mark your era by the continued conscious decisions to behave your way over another. To speak to what you actually want and believe, over what's been handed to you, wilted and wrung dry.
If the bug kills you, what did you leave? Your nice-enough personality? Your impersonal out-of-context Ikea quotes and art on your walls? Was it anything someone coming after you could pick up and take even further? There's a kind of king I wish to be that I'm not yet. I have my solitary kingdom, cut from the wretchedness of circumstances imposed upon me. But I still dream. I still wish to design the mind that makes it hard to stop but for the chance to stare and wonder about all that is or will be.
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