I've been watching Soft White Underbelly videos over the last few weeks. This morning was a girl who has a pimp. The guy Mark who does the interviews, was giving her money which was going directly to her pimp. Mark sets back up the camera, interviews her and her pimp in a more interrogation/accusation style than he normally does, and says he can't funnel Patreon supporter money to her pimp. He explores "who to blame" in bringing up "the life," "hustling," "poverty," etc. The comment section is a predictable amount of, "She used you" and "She's being controlled and your demeanor is uncalled for."
Control. When do we actually have it? Can it be ascertained in any meaningfully distinct manner? It's a theme we return to every moment of our lives. Personally, I feel like I have an incredibly small if barely-there amount of control. I use my writing as evidence of that. I'm exploring and piecing together so many impressions I couldn't control what they made me think or feelings layered under so much prudent introspection, it's hard to express them sincerely. Is she being controlled by her pimp?
What does it even mean to have control if not predictably influence the outcome in the shared objective world? If she always, no matter what she feels inside, gives him the money, I'd say yes. That control starts most often when you're very young, and just continues. Did your parents control you growing up? I suspect most of you are familiar with acquiescing to the vast majority of rules or behaviors imposed on you or inferred. My "super power" to quickly read people was imposed by my mother. I didn't say to myself, "It'd be nice to learn how to better control and recognize when she's likely to hurt me or break my shit."
What does it even mean to have control if not predictably influence the outcome in the shared objective world? If she always, no matter what she feels inside, gives him the money, I'd say yes. That control starts most often when you're very young, and just continues. Did your parents control you growing up? I suspect most of you are familiar with acquiescing to the vast majority of rules or behaviors imposed on you or inferred. My "super power" to quickly read people was imposed by my mother. I didn't say to myself, "It'd be nice to learn how to better control and recognize when she's likely to hurt me or break my shit."
Control seems like something you earn. That's not the same thing as saying everyone who has some measure of control or who can be of major consequence has earned anything. I think it requires consistency. You might prevent yourself from eating unhealthily 1 day a week. That's better than 1 day a year, but it's not the kind of control I think most of us are looking to have or claiming to have.
I think we show a severe lack of control in how we judge others. I've read a few "anti-work" posts the last few days talking about how people's parents bought houses and became millionaires doing nothing special beyond working normal jobs or the exact same roles people my age are today. In discussions with these people, they simply can't imagine or believe that rent is 3 times the cost of their mortgage or that you need 2 jobs to barely keep your head above water. These older people often feel as though they were in control of their lives and that anyone younger than them just isn't working hard enough or is just being indulgent.
When that happens, you don't get empathy and policy shifts. So what does either side of that misaligned discussion control? Before you accuse you can ask a question. You can form the discussion around numbers. You can consider ways to organize, support, and share. Or, and this is what we do, you can figure, "I've got mine," and say confidently you don't control wages, the job market, or an infinite series of confounding variables related to the economy and personal work ethic.
I certainly don't control how much I get paid. I can't even capitalize on the "coverage" that's "always needed" as they have a "float" to undermine paying me any more than my baseline salary. They go so far as to take things off my schedule so I'm not automatically qualifying for money by having more clients than their ideal threshold. I'm literally making less money the longer I stay at this company, leaving aside the wasted gas and repairs for my vehicles to get me to the office for no reason.
I do control my narrative about my shitty circumstances, my attempts to mitigate them, create around them, or contextualize them. I allow my judgement to be fluid and informed by more than the most forsaken sentiment about how it plays out, accurate and hateful-feeling-laden as it may be. I can't control insurance companies or clients or the amount of available or worthwhile jobs to try and apply for. I can, wide-eyed, engage each deliberately convoluted and malicious barrier from a place of sincerity and desire that doesn't need to eat me alive.
You have to know and be confident in your "why." Why keep fighting? Why get sober? Why lean into as much pain as you can bare, and then a little more? Why is it worth sacrifice and discomfort and weird challenging nuanced understanding? For me, each time I answer the question, I'm able to move on. Why write? So I can focus on my trivial work tasks without it ruining more of my day. Why build a fort, go to every show, or try to start a business? I'm so deeply acquainted with hatred and exhaustion, I'm curious and desperate to feel consistently any other way. I don't feel like I have a choice in lieu of my desire. This in contrast to not feeling like I have a choice because I haven't figured out what I truly desire.
I want to be of consequence not because I recognize and can emulate the behavior of a pimp. I want to create so I can feel like I belong. I want to demonstrate what I'm positive people can't even conceive of for themselves. It's why I don't need a god or lengthy debates regarding my entitlement or disposition. On my laziest day I'm doing some kind of work in service to my highest ideals. I happen to exist in a context which gives no fucks about that. How quickly does your average person then take and weaponize that intuition into compulsive self-destruction? You're tempted to think they don't know what they want or their "why." But it's worse than that, because they do. And in knowing, they open themselves up to all of the pain and errant judgment and depravity of a world dragged along by the narratives of others. How are you supposed to compete with that?
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