My brain is doing that spider-webbed, simultaneous-swirling-thought thing again. I’m completely at its whim today. It’s validating to know that I’m far from alone, but that fact doesn’t always make me feel less alone.
I wish I could compartmentalize my empathy — not to punish anyone, but to quell the ache in my bone marrow whenever I hear about Yet Another Bad Thing. I spent two straight years smoking THC-concentrated wax because I was tired of feeling. This year, I developed intermittent asthma from the fluctuating air quality which forced me to all but stop smoking flower altogether (although I do love a good edible.) The upside is improved breathing, but the downside to sobriety is unmitigated, unadulterated, unchained feelings. No therapist, counselor, or case manager I’ve ever spoken to has understood where I’m coming from. They don’t understand my thought processes or my viewpoints. I have to hold myself back and pretend I have a better handle on my life than I actually do. I have to tiptoe around what I want to say, or else I run the risk of being Hannibal Lectered onto a dolly. They always offer non-solutions that involve me spending money that I don’t have. I don’t want to go to the fucking spa, Stacy. I want to be understood.
The internalized shame I’m grappling with must’ve taken up weightlifting, because it’s been mopping the floor with me lately. I was told from childhood that my feelings were an inconvenience to others, that I shouldn’t be so sensitive, that I shouldn’t cry, worry, or care so much. Easier said than done, Dad, but go off, I guess. I wish my skull was translucent so I could actually see the smoke emanating off my overheated brain. Lately, it’s been seared Medium-Well.
No human mind is equipped to handle torrential floods of bad news from every corner of the world. I have my own capacity at which I can no longer take on any new information. My Control Center has a failsafe that prevents me from turning my rage into kinesis, but in turn, it reduces me to a wailing, snotty, drooling mess. I can only manufacture so many tears in 24 hours. Where’s all this wet coming from?
When I’m not being constantly reminded of my failures to conform to a capitalistic society, I’m being harassed and harmed by abusive men who hold power over others. Just because I can handle (read survive) a lifetime of trauma, doesn’t mean I chose any of it. From romantic partners to medical professionals to celebrities, they seem to sniff me the fuck out. They depend on silence, complicity, and apathy to keep their fuckery afloat. They’re not prepared to be held accountable and they weaponize their power and influence to perpetually postpone their day of reckoning.
Collectivism has died. We are a sea of shriveled pods, living hand-to-mouth, blaming other pods for our woes instead of addressing the reason we’re all parched. Partiarchy harms everyone — both those subjugated by it and those perpetuating it. Granted, those harms come in many nuanced forms and severities, but no one wins at the end of this. None of this is sustainable. None of this matters. None of this is fucking worth it.
So why are we still playing along?
Aren’t you tired? Aren’t you afraid? Aren’t you hopeful? Aren’t you enraged? Don’t you want things to be different? I feel the rage of a million suns but feel entirely helpless. There’s just one of me, but worlds of pain roil inside me. Rage can be useful, but right now, it’s just eating me alive. I’ve managed to cultivate peace in my corner of the world and I protect it to the best of my ability. When these assholes come plodding up in their knee-high boots and trample my garden to a pulp, I want to go scorched earth. To them I ask, why does my peace bother you so much? Why can’t I just be left the fuck alone? Is it amusing to force my hand? Are you entertained by my anger? Are you exerting excessive control onto others because of your lack of control over your own life? Your insecurities are not my fucking problem. Your ineptitude, your shortcomings, your failures, all belong to you. Dumping them in others’ laps just doles out unnecessary pain. I know misery loves company, but damn. Get a life, maybe?
Whether or not you believe in an afterlife, humans are a blip on the map of existence. We’re not even a sentence. We’ve managed to run our planet into, well, the ground, for a paper currency that we made up. We inflict real pain, suffering, and misery onto others for green paper and coins and numbers on a screen. What is the point?
“That’s how it’s always been” — spare me.
“It’s what we’re supposed to do” — says who?
“What, are you too good to participate?” — according to society, I’m the opposite, actually. But thanks!
I’ve been overflowing for so long that now I’m just waterlogged. Time slips through my fingers like sand. I have the footing of a newborn giraffe. I can’t seem to catch my breath before Yet Another Bad Thing happens. Why are we being forced to participate in our own demise? Y’all do know that if you saw an asteroid in the sky heading right for your house, your manager would still expect you to come in for your shift, right? Everything’s $10 a month. Everything. No one can afford to breathe. We are indentured servants selling our bodies for a paycheck that was already spent before we even started. Kurt Vonnegut said we’d go down in history as the first society that wouldn’t save itself because it wasn’t cost-effective. Seeing that unfold in real time is a trip that I never wanted to embark on.
None of this shit matters, but also, all of it matters. What we make of our existence should matter. The way we interact with others should matter. Empathy should be a feature, not a bug. We watch others suffer for our entertainment. We develop ways to cope with the harm we’re dealt. We consume and exploit, rinse and repeat.
I want to live somewhere else. Like, not on this planet. Not even this galaxy. I’ve always been waiting for my mothership to beam me up and get me the fuck out of here, but she ain’t coming. I’ve gotta make do with the life I’ve been given, and I’ve been trying my damnedest. I don’t like being pushed past my limits on a regular basis. Having limits is human, and last I checked, I am one of those (on paper.) Why can’t our humanness be enough? Why are we commodified and consumed? How the fuck did we get here?
I don’t know. This is yet another brain vomit of a blurb. I can’t wait for better days. I want release. I need relief. I need to be able to take a break without people crawling up my rectum. Why are people so overzealous to move on to the next thing? Is their need to consume greater than our need to communicate with one another? Why can’t my communication style suffice? Why do I become paralyzed by the thought of letting time pass? Time isn’t real, either, so why am I so fixated on grasping it? I have no control or agency or purpose. None of this does. Usually, that’s a freeing feeling for me— hence the title of this post. If nothing matters, then everything matters. But today, I’m dealing with the other side of that coin. It’s damp and cold and dark and heavy and painful and agonizing.
Futility is a double-edged sword.
