The temptation lately has been to list. I want to point to things that seem like they are part of a constant flow of “shit is fucked.” I want to denote them as such, and then point to how they could/should/might be provided a certain awareness or series of choices.
I'll once again qualify the “givens.” Things are cyclical, balanced, and ambivalent. Right and wrong exist when you get down to any level worth talking about. There are problems with every organization, structure, or manifestation of power, which does not make them evil, but their tyranny should not go ignored or denied. You choose to take responsibility, or you don't. We're not at the mercy of anything more than we are the story or spell we put ourselves under.
In what feels like record time, I've gotten a call from my regional manager about “something she's been made aware of.” I, unable to ignore my thoughts or sense of agency as I seemingly watch myself capitulate day in and out, sent an email explaining my perspective saying how I want the owners to pay everyone considerably more. There was more to it describing my perspective of work broadly and sense of history and numbers, but I stated plainly, as I do, a perceived injustice and why it lends itself to overwhelming hopelessness and futility.
Psychologically, I can't keep up the act. I've never been that good at it to begin with, but I'm not exaggerating when I say every single day I'm feeling pressured to speak out, rage, or just bring the fight for a conversation that doesn't center around deference or excuses. I feel like I see people in defeated states, often practically on the verge of tears, or indignantly lashing out over exceptionally petty things. That's it. I don't meet the ones who are angry. I don't meet that ones who have a plan for anything. I couldn't shake an opinion out of someone about their pay, nature of their work, or place in the world. Always, *always*, it's “moving right along.” It's a furled brow and needing to sit down for a talkin' to.
Don't I know the way things work?
THEY DON'T.
Not just yesterday, not ten years ago, today, we're dying in record numbers. We're 9-11ing every day. We're letting Kentucky get away with re-electing Mitch McConnell. We're, in no way, prepared to deal with the reality of 73 million Nazis stark raving mad about kids in cages, the tyranny of public health, and the right to be as racist and ignorant as their Dear Leader. WE ARE NOT HUMAN. We are a faceless mass of hysteria crashing into all levels of how society attempted to organize itself. We're exposing lie after lie, and it took how many YEARS before people were even willing to use the word “lie” with regard to Trump?
Truth matters. Right and wrong exist. It is not enough to get-by and exist as we are. If you can't wipe the fog from your eyes or clear your head on your own, the world is begging to kill you, today. I feel “radical” for wanting to make enough to live with a degree of comfort. It seems like a “dream” to not regret how I'm spending my time and in service to what. I feel obligated to “persuade” people they have an individual voice and responsibility to get angry, say something, and fucking DO. Join up and manifest. Do the math. Fight, bite, and scream!
If we're on the front line of this wave of fascism and stupidity, and we are, kill it! If we're trying to cling to some nominal sense of being and family we've clambered together in spite of the chaos, fucking defend it! If we shed a tear like some cliché commercial Native American over the environment dying and profit for profit's sake, throw yourself on the goddamn wheels and stop this fucking machine.
I'm violently indignant about your title, your presumption, or your placating held-harmless excuse engine. We're not all equal in blame. The people not paying you enough are. We're not all guilty. The people burning and cutting and polluting are. We're not all just at the mercy of greater forces, you, quiet co-conspirator are more guilty than me. You, person who feels the same anger and passion and swallows it need to stop listening at me and listen to your fucking self. You need to act!
I'm worried. I'm worried in the same way as when I crashed my car. I didn't consciously decide “I'm going to crash this bitch, I hate debt, it's not what I wanted, yada yada series of regrettable thoughts.” I drove it like it didn't matter, like I didn't matter, and like I wanted it gone. My deepest compulsions and beliefs manifest. If what's true of the world is the same that's true for me, nearly everything either wants me dead or is wholly ambivalent at the prospect. I need to find an outlet. I need to live in service to right and wrong, not self-righteous delusion, not accommodating coping, and not blind and deliberately ignorant posturing. I need an environment where right is right and wrong is wrong and if I work to be right I can expect to build and teach and create something worth protecting and fighting for.
I meant it when I said I needed to break things. Maybe it's “polite” society. Maybe it's my last barely clinging to the cliff idea about what's “pragmatic.” Maybe it's the “mature” governor that's toned down my behavior suspiciously at a time that coincides with what is an ongoing societal existential crisis. Like I'm running from the responsibility to be the Alex Jones-voiced character from Waking Life roaming the land with my megaphone. I live in a time that I can't invoke his crazy-ass horrible-person name without taking on his baggage before someone would bother to watch the fucking movie!
I think it's fitting that as I feel myself winding down on what else to say, Stop The World by Extreme is playing in my headphones.
If nothing else, I'm positive I will break a considerable amount before I get to me. Here's to hoping it's worth it and works out as well as my car crash did.
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