I look back at some of the shit I said during the 2016 election season, and it makes me really sad… I wasn’t wrong. But, I let my disgust for a system that takes advantage of peoples’ human nature leak into my relationships with people.
I tried to talk about the ways our brains work, how we respond to certain emotions and feelings… And how those are manipulated by politicians, the media, basically anybody trying to sell you something… which, in our society – a capitalist society – is everyone.
And it frustrated me that people didn’t want to hear it, that they didn’t seem to listen & EVEN WORSE didn’t want to listen.
I thought I was helping. Like, “shit, I want to school to study all this crap… I’m trying to give you an inside scoop so that this BS-storm going on in society doesn’t hit you too hard…”
But nobody was listening.
Nobody cared.
I was trying to un-make their ENTIRE SOCIALIZED BEINGS with a few Facebook posts & offhanded remarks, which were received as just as much of a threat as “terrorism” or “the alt-right” or “misogyny”… Why? Because it was diffferent.
What’s different to us is scary. It sets off alarms in our brains to resist to deny to… whatever.
People have preconceived notions about me, politics, social issues… And I was foolish to think I could make them see otherwise.
And I was downright stupid to think that being smug, condescending, sarcastic, rude, all those attempts to be better at being worse than I felt they were being would create any change.
[And what a dumb approach that is… I know we’ve all done it: “Oh, this is the game? I’ll play…” The game was being an asshole and, by golly, I CAN win that. Your girl is a stone-cold bitch if/when necessary… & I rreeeaallllyy hate to lose.]
I was doing the very thing I was talking about: giving in to raw emotion, reacting, playing into the game. And it didn’t matter why… it only mattered/matters that I did.
Even by trying to call out politics for its bullshit, I was adding fuel to the fire. Instead of actually BEING the thing I hoped for, I tried to force people to see it.
So… I guess the lesson here (even though I’m just venting) is to just BE.