It seems like I keep telling the same story over and over but each time from a slightly different angle and creating many disparate slices. Let’s try to put it all together.
I’ve been struggling with having a low income all my life. As a Black millennial & true 90’s kid, raised inside and along the beltway in Maryland, I took a full dose of the socioeconomic mobility koolaid. I internalized all the propaganda about Black excellence, achievement, the talented tenth, delayed gratification, grit & rigor, hyper individualism. This was inflamed by having a significant portion of the social network I was exposed to seeming to be middle class or more financially well off than me. I was supposed to work hard at school, get good grades, go to college, get a well paying job, and “make it out” of my starting situation. Despite my best efforts and sacrifices, that didn’t quite happen the way I hoped. With the clarity of hindsight, I can see many of the reasons why.
I had many adverse childhood experiences and recurring traumatic events that shaped my personality and approach to life. I know some people carry around grievances with varying levels of consciousness about it. In theory, they could set them down provided they do adequate counseling and reflection. Some of us are molded by the things we’ve gone through. Lessons are learned, decision making is affected, new behaviors adapted, habits are formed. Time goes on and these things become incorporated into who we are and how we perceive and interact with the world. There is no setting it down. “Unlearning” can effectively be killing off aspects or dimensions of the self. Pruning like this is not impossible but it is very difficult to do. It requires intention and a great deal of time and energy. Things become so integral to who and how you are that it’s basically automation and reflex rather than choice or decisions.
I’m imagining the actors who can pull off perfectly convincing accents and dialects or people who are fluent in a couple-few languages. When they revert to their original tongue, is that as much a choice as their performances? I mean, can you ever unlearn your first language? I’m thinking about how speech pathologists help people with a lisp or other speech impediment. That’s seemingly some major system level reprogramming that’s happening. I suppose there’s a great deal of actual musculature that’s involved so the training is more literal when physical.
I found myself, again, at the threshold of needing to do some dramatic deconstruction and rebuilding of the self. I’m no stranger to it and I don’t resist being transformed by the truth. This time is different. I wasn’t able to do it fast enough and/or I didn’t have the time and resources I needed for it. Maybe I procrastinated. Either way, it seems like it’s too little and too late.
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Let’s work under the assumption that it is true that ADHD and Autism are neurodevelopmental disorders and migraines are a neurological condition (disease, disorder, syndrome? I don't know). Imagine spending decades not knowing you have those, approaching life as if you didn’t, and trying to become someone who doesn’t. Add on being someone who picked up a sense of personal responsibility that is perhaps excessive. It’s harmful and often dangerous. I’m not being hyperbolic. I’ve read the academic literature on it. It’s like misusing a tool, or pushing mechanisms beyond their tolerances, or running a motor at peak output for too long. I’ve broken myself.
For most of my life I’ve felt or knew something was wrong or weird about me. I’ve always worked to suppress or kill those aspects of myself. Honestly, I thought a little diminishing of the self was part of the social contract. I thought it was part of what made you a good person and determined your success in life. Somewhere along the way I picked up the idea that the best people were those who were best at denying themselves for “the greater good”, whatever it might happen to be. I started learning very early in life that who I actually am is not wanted, valued and doesn’t matter. So, in some extreme act of camouflaging, I’ve become this person who only becomes their true self when home or alone and does some amount of a performance otherwise. I’ve realized that I default to trying to discern what is or could be suitable and becoming what any given environment wants from me. I’m not always good at pulling it off and am often quite bad at it. Faux pas abound. The truth remains that I don’t seem to show up with sufficient or any amount of self advocacy.
As a practice of unmasking or de-camoflaging, I’ve started asking myself what might it look like if I didn’t feel as if I had to perform and could show up however I wanted or in a way that felt sincere. I have a lot of trouble answering that question. There are many times when the answer is that I am actually insufficiently motivated to attend and/or don’t want to go to or do the thing in the first place.
Because I didn't know I could ask for, needed, or had a right to accommodations and interventions, I went through life without them. I didn't know I was having such a significantly different internal experience from everyone else. And whatever the academic/scientific understanding of the term “gifted” might be (high IQ, overexcitabilities, high cognitive ability), that additional quality would also make for a life of alienating experiences and unmet needs. From 2nd to 12th grade, with very few exceptions, I was in classes exclusively with other talented and gifted - honors & AP kids. All day, everyday. Being and being perceived as “smart” was 87.4% of my identity and I thought it would be my golden ticket. I didn't know I was using that giftedness to camouflage how alien I felt, and was. I was overclocking my brain to figure out how to navigate and do things that apparently came more naturally to others. I built up all these internalizing behaviors that eventually manifested outwardly as mood & anxiety disorders. I learned too well how to suppress and push through multiple discomforts and pain. I think I thought it was virtuous to do so. I eventually stopped noticing or consciously processing all the things that were really bothering and hampering me. I expected I should be able to overcome through sheer force of will, and that failure to do so was a character weakness. I’m 34 and am just now getting good at not letting a headache or migraine grow and linger on for hours and days until I’m incapacitated.
But also, isn’t this the plight of a Black man in America? Is it not the cultural norm and expectation that the Black man is a beast of burden? There is historical precedence. At home, in his community, and across the nation it is upheld that the best Black man is one who sacrifices his body and mind for a slice of companionship, community, and capitalism. And because I can hear the “what abouts…” forming in the minds of the simple, yes I know this can also be true in a different way for Black women. It’s not a competition. We can both be simultaneously receiving and inflicting this kind of harm on one another. We both deserve to have our pain acknowledged and have a duty to tend to the wounds of one another. It’s awful how we’ve been programmed to perpetuate these little violences against one another. And because I can hear the “what abouts…” forming in the minds of the simple, I am only talking to who I am talking to.
…man, I really hate Black gender wars conversations. On the internet and in-person. Discussions and dialogue about dating and gender roles has to be the lowest most cointelpro shit ever. Black liberation will be forever impeded by conversations about who should pay what percentage of the bills. Whatever your answer is, stop entertaining conversations with people who disagree with your stance on the matter. Stop dating & marrying the people who disagree with how you think dating & marriage should go. Maybe it isn’t that simple but it’s gotta be a better option than the status quo.
And like, the research and knowledge work is there. Apparently my particular concoction of divergences and marginalizations makes for a high likelihood of a very rough life and an early death. I’ve reviewed the articles, listened to the lectures, and read the prognosis described by authoritative bodies. I’ve come to understand a lot about my life. I’m extremely lucky and blessed to have made it this far, been to the places that I have, and experienced and done what I have. Very few people get to. I am grateful and don’t want to be greedy.
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After 6 years of sacrificing and clumsily navigating a high stakes pubescence, serendipity happened and I was able to get to college away from home on a nearly full ride. I was on my way to making it out and moving up. I still couldn't shake the alien feeling though. Anxiety was getting worse, social demands were becoming more complicated, training wheels were removed, and my executive function was reaching capacity. Survival tactics and habits weren't serving me as well and I haphazardly kept constructing dynamics and situations that would reinforce a pathological way of being.
Years of having to abandon things I loved and that brought me joy. All that because I needed to focus on what I thought was the key to getting free and really making the life I desired. It’s sad, I gave up a lot of joy in the journey thinking it was an investment that would enhance or increase my joy at the destination. I did delayed gratification wrong. And all this without understanding my disorders and without adequate support. I intellectualized it all and doubled down on using my “brilliance” to figure out what I could while suffering a diminishing self worth when I couldn’t.
I caught a bug at some point. I got inspired to start a better kind of school. Something empowering and joyful, rooted in self determination and fun. A place kids would actually like and love to be at, a place that parents had difficulty getting their kids to leave at the end of the day. I thought I'd go the grad school route to do it but realized it'd take too long and my philosophy was developing into something far too anti establishment for the program I'd be spending time in. The visions for what I wanted to do were vivid. The information I read and reflections I had were collecting around and supporting a dream for something radical and paradigm shifting. It’s as if the mission took root in me infusing itself into my vascular and nervous system.
It's very tempting to say I was brave, took risks, and made some bold & daring decisions. But it was more that I didn't have any other options . I was increasingly dysfunctional in grad school. Still unaccommodated, too many whites, too cold, too much snow, in a too expensive apartment, completely incapable of registering my loneliness, in the middle of religious deconstruction, stumbling through limerence, and diving dangerously deep into meditation practices without any guidance. The fatal trio of hopelessness, purposelessness, and worthlessness enveloped me and I was ready to end it all. I knew that this one crazy thing that I actually cared about and wanted to do would not just be difficult and odd but somewhat impossible for someone of my station in life. But it was the only thing that I had and that felt worthwhile. So, if it was a choice between death and this nearly impossible thing, I might as well give it a try. The only way it could happen is if I pursued it aggressively. Worst case scenario is I fail. Then I’d know for sure and could go to my grave content and without wonderings about unrealized dreams. (In hindsight I realize the worst thing would actually be to get perpetually sidetracked and rerouted in pursuit of it the dream)
Then I did it. With much trepidation and uncertainty, anger, joy and zeal I did the thing I set out to do within 2 years. And I was alive. Still unaccommodated, still broke and a bit broken. But I was alive. I had purpose and passion. I had dynamism and a spark.
As things went along, I started to realize stuff in my life was out of balance and needed addressing. Largely in the lingering emptiness I had and social deficits I ignored. I noticed a sector of my life that I couldn’t seem to solve or deal with on my own. Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t just be smart and think my way out of it. It was hard to get a handle on it. The circumstances of my finances and housing would not stabilize enough for me to be able to devote attention to it. Those pesky and maladaptive habits and internalizations I picked up throughout life were leading me to recreate circumstances for recurring cycles of retraumatization, self abandonment, and disorganized attachment. And then the pandemic happened. It derailed so much personally and professionally. That bit of turbulence, despite all my trying to adapt, caused a cascade of failures that revealed a systemic problem that I had denied and ignored for too long. The overcompensation reached its limit and I was in a downward spiral of burn out that I just haven’t been able to recover from. I would come to learn the full extent of how different I was and how deeply flawed my whole approach to life had been.
I am nothing if not resourceful, resilient, and trying to figure it out. Despite no longer being at the school and having done the 1 thing I stayed here to do, I thought that maybe I could recover and figure something out. Maybe I could bounce back or pivot and still build a life worth living … somehow… even after yet another series of traumas and griefs… I could overcome this. I thought I could and eventually would if I adapted, learned, and tried hard enough. But that cognitive motor I had been over taxing to figure out and navigate life while trying to subdue my internal absurdity was beginning to malfunction. Glitches and shut downs were happening more than usual and not just because I was tired, thirsty, preoccupied, under pressure, or caught off guard. I started to fear that I would sink to darker places again if I didn't figure something out soon. I needed to get my life back on trajectory to one worth living. I tried feverishly to do so but I spun out catastrophically. It all collapsed. I’m accustomed to creating wonderful things out of scraps but there’s nothing salvageable here.
I’ve come to face even deeper levels of desperation and burn out than I initially feared. Though, I’ve started to accept my disorders and limitations to some degree. Despite wrestling with this, learning & growing from all this, I couldn't manage to repair things and get life back on track. I ran out of runway. I've asked for all the help I could ask for from friends, strangers, professionals, and the government. I've tried to figure this out but I'm tired now. I am tired of trying so hard to maybe enjoy something that seems determined to be unenjoyable. I am grateful for the brief time I was able to fly. I know many never get the chance. Unfortunately, I am not made to be bound to the earth. I cannot thrive on the ground and I can’t fly with one wing.
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Over the years I’ve come to understand the distinction between the terms suicidal, passive suicidality, suicidal ideations, and chronic suicidality. I learned early on and quickly to use “passive” and “ideations” in order to make sure things seemed less intense and minimize the risk of medical incarceration. The truth is, I have chronic suicidal ideations that fluctuate in how active or passive they can be irrespective of how sad, anxious, or depressed I might feel. I think dealing with this long term and more intensely has broken me a bit. Makes it hard to do things like connecting with people, participating in casual conversations, or pretending to care about anything I perceive as mundane or trivial.
I find the typical protocol or standard script for suicidality does not fit or apply to me. That system is a failure at so many levels and access points. For me, it makes getting help a fraught situation and people’s attempts at helping really frustrating to handle. With a normie layperson that doesn’t swim in the abyss, I find myself doing more caretaking of them and their discomfort with the subject. Their discomfort is so viscerally strong that over time they will talk to you less and less until you’re really no longer friends. I understand this reaction and don’t hold any grudge about it. I like to imagine that it’s more of a natural or instinctual reflex, no matter the level of conscious decision making involved. Most people don’t want to be around gloomy people. Most people try to avoid anything resembling or that feels like death.
Trying to advocate for yourself to your clinicians is tough when you’re preoccupied with, afraid of, and trying to avoid being hospitalized. Involuntary holds, which I know and research shows are not helpful, would only serve to exacerbate things and guarantee that my ideations turn into action plans. 988, crisis centers, and emergency rooms are really only there to make sure you’re not an imminent danger to yourself. (Other than means and intention, I’m uncertain of what exactly is considered imminent with regard to time.) They also try to “connect you with” (inform you of) some long-term care. That’s it and that’s all. Your ability to access and afford the care; your fit with that care provider; the relevance, quality, and effectiveness of that care; and the time it might take compared to the time you have is a whole other matter.
For me, suicidality has mostly been the product of logical deductions about my circumstances. Obviously a depressed mood can agitate or inflame it but it’s really not at the core of what my experience has been. Many people don’t and can’t seem to understand that.
I’ve read the limited academic literature about this unique flavor of suicidality, it’s somewhat of a known issue. The prognosis isn’t great when you are lacking the protective factors like I do.
And then clinicians have their annoying legal things and ethical codes to worry about that result in them initiating a protocol that I think deprioritizes the client’s needs and that personally feels deeply invalidating and disempowering. It’s such an awful feeling to be vulnerable about this in session and then have the licensed professional turn into a robot that spends the next 45 minutes going through their “just so that I’m not held liable in court” check list. It’s another awful feeling to be charged a couple hundred dollars for it. Additionally, creating safety plans is just as annoying. I think they’re probably only suitable for a specific iteration of suicidality and unfortunately it’s not mine. The clinical accounts confirm the effectiveness is very limited. It’s another intervention that serves the clinician and their practice far more than the patient.
These methods are just rendered pointless in the face of chronic suicidality or time & contingency based suicidality. I figured out early on that rather than getting fixated on removing the suicidality itself, it was best to focus on building a life worth living. There have been times that I’ve capitulated and tried to “trust the professional” but it hasn’t been super effective at helping with the main goal. It often facilitated more, greater self abandonment. I realize now that I’ve been having some reasonable reactions to my life circumstances and the world I live in. I’ve tried to overcome. I’ve tried to get help. It’s just not working out well. The treatment that solely sees it as irrational and a chemical imbalance has been invalidating, patronizing, and gaslighting. Just telling people to go to therapy or call a hotline is really inadequate. In some cases you’re actually sending them into harm's way. Dignity, a livable wage, non exploitative working conditions, healthy whole foods, housing, clean water, affordable healthcare, hassle free access to accommodations, and experiencing love & care is real suicide prevention. Anything short of this is some half measure, fugazi shit.
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So much of the current “help” (education, support, public resources) for autism and adhd is about kids. The audience is the parent or educator but it’s about helping, dealing or working with kids. That’s probably because that’s where you can make the most money. There's some currency to be collected in targeting adults about adults but that’s trickier to get off. So much of that industry is a racket and taking advantage of vulnerable or desperate people. A lot of the content online is not empirically supported and/or has been infused/diluted with schizo-spiritual psychobabble nonsense that presents like some amalgamation of myers-briggs 16 types, the enneagram, and hogwarts houses. I could say more about all the issues I see in the online neurodivergent community but for now I rather not. I’d encourage you to follow blackspectrumscholar and audhd_academic to get connected with good information. They’re doing the work, good work. Not perfect but now’s not the time for criticism.
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It’s no secret that job hunting sucks. It’s accepted as an unfortunate reality of the world we’re in. I find that unacceptable because it permits people to completely ignore the real problem and blame applicants for not knowing the ever changing secret tricks and out maneuvering them. I think the Human Resource department and its many rebrands, like People & Operations, is the swamp that needs to be drained. It’s the bureaucracy that needs to be cleaned up.
Job postings are often poorly written. (Deep inhale) Two fluff paragraphs about the company, intentionally vague description of the role & duties occasionally sprinkled with cult like language, inflated requirements and qualifications, a lot of language screening for specific personalities, language implying they don’t want someone with a disability, boilerplate statements and legalese that’s there because it’s required and/or to help pass the progressive culture vibe check but not to reflect any relevant person’s actual values or intentionality around equal opportunity & accommodations (like encouraging women, blacks & brown to apply), a disclaimer to say this is just some of the stuff and things may be added or changed over time so they can slow creep you towards exploitation…
I’ve seen so many iterations of online job boards. There’s state sponsored boards, boards for government jobs, job boards for nonprofits, boards for people that attended an HBCU, boards in particular industries like tech or higher ed, boards for people with specific licenses, and boards for people with disabilities. So many are clearly just aggregating postings from other sites and filtering for specific types of listings rather than employers actually creating a post on those sites. It’s hard and maybe impossible to know which job postings are connected to an actual live opening at places actively looking to fill a position with an outside hire. There’s no way of discerning if they’ve already hired someone but left the post up, if they’re just collecting resumes (data), if they already have a preferred internal candidate, if they’re using the applicant and interview process to train staff, or if somewhere in the interviewing process the company undergoes some changes that halts hiring. Though, seeing it as a post from a real person at that company or seeing it posted on the organization’s instagram can be a great indicator. But then there’s no way of knowing what’s on their secret “do not hire” list where they eliminate you because you went to a specific school or worked at a particular company. There’s no way of knowing if they’re using something in your “the work number” data against you.
Job fairs, where you can shake hands and meet real people, are often no better. Many times the person at the table is merely a flesh and blood version of the same ineffective, timewasting digital systems. The person at the table often has zero authority or power to hire, to get you in the door to someone who does hire, or to have any positive influence on your process at all. Sometimes those people are hired mainly to attend these sorts of events that exist as marketing and PR stunts rather than real pathways to employment. Sometimes they just have a laptop loaded up to their careers page. Sometimes it’s just a trinket and some instructions to go to their careers page. Maybe they have you write or type in your name and contact information as someone they met at the event. Many times that list goes nowhere and does nothing for you but thank you for attending and asking you to confirm when you’ve applied for something. I’ve seen companies and organizations attend job fairs that were actively undergoing big layoffs. Sometimes the jobs they are actually hiring for are roles that require you have acquired a certain license already.
All those unknowns and uncertainties about the reality of the job and your candidacy. Still, if you want or need a job then you simply must jump through all the hoops and humiliation rituals just for an audition spot where they may have you complete some exploitative hiring tasks to get some free labor, collect data about the market, and train staff or some AI systems.
Then there’s the varied advice and services around cover letters, resumes, networking, and interview skills. Career counselors, hiring managers, HR personnel, and potential immediate supervisors regularly put out conflicting information about how to improve your application. That industry is a racket. Hopefully you aren’t spending too much money to maybe, possibly, a little bit increase your chances of getting a job. Of course results will vary but if any of these people are as good as they say they are or as good as you hope, are you basically just paying to get an interview? Isn’t that pretty fucked up?
I’m tired of what all it takes to perform a kind of warm, energetic, charismatic, corporate blandness that says to your interviewers (of various aptitudes, personal biases, and hangups), “Hey, I’m not just capable of doing the job well but we could maybe even become friends!” It is so exhausting. It’s draining to know that your ability to come up with great answers to their silly questions has very little to do with your actual ability to do the job well and yet you have to play the game anyways. It’s upsetting to know that I could easily lie and give the “right” answers but doing so would forever taint my ability to see supervisors & colleagues as anything other than chumps.
But these HR people and recruiters must justify their existence and expenses. So, they create a whole lot of olympics and attend events to make what they do seem more legitimate.
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Hey man, unemployment benefit length being based on unemployment rates is silly and broken. Why would unemployment rates being low mean I shouldn’t need much time to get another one? What about hiring rates? This is stupid! And the way unemployment is defined and calculated is flawed. Those numbers do not mean what people think they mean.
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I don’t know if I can adequately or accurately describe the agony, dread, and shut down experienced when you feel shackled to a work station of some sort and forced/compelled to do painfully uninteresting work for the foreseeable future with a frequency/duration that is higher than you can sustain and for compensation that is too little to be worth it. It would probably seem melodramatic and you’d be inclined to dismiss it even though I’d be telling the truth.
You know the saying, “time flies when you’re having fun”. Have you ever experienced something so opposite of fun that you saw a chronograph tick slower, and nearly pause? Has your brain ever revolted against you and decided to stop processing information or understanding language? Have you ever viscerally felt like the need to get up and leave was a matter of life or death, and holding yourself still created the sensation of lightning and earthquakes resonating within your body? Have you ever been so consumed by an involuntary loathing of the utterly unremarkable week ahead of you that your body resists your instructions and gravity clings to you with passion? Have you?
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I’ve tried to find and use the affordable services, public support, social safety nets that exist. That process is as much of a job as actual job hunting. The experience can be really adversarial and antagonistic. There’s so much about it that is subtly shaming and dehumanizing, a cold and crude people processing factory. The amount of paperwork you have to go fetch from obscure places; printing, signing, and scanning documents; the accounts and passwords you must manage; the surveillance and reporting; time spent commuting and sitting in waiting rooms; the emotional labor and subservience performed for the administrative drones, the cost and burden of compliance checks. Then programs have varied qualifications or limited scopes of service that become apparent after you’ve invested time and energy hunting them down.
(Deep inhale) Get this proof document from the department of labor or the irs or your lender or your utility company. Oh sorry, we don’t provide services for ASD. Oh, we don’t prescribe stimulants. Here’s another person who maybe can help you. Here’s a list of possible resources, go on a quest to investigate them and maybe apply. Then something on that list ends up being just another list of quests to go on. Here’s a website you must create an account on and it’ll help you out but it’s no help at all because it’s merely an aggregator that collects your data and serves the primary purpose of looking like we’re really invested in trying to help you. Here are some surveys and tools that will help you learn absolutely nothing new about yourself. Though you need a job you can start ughhhh 2 weeks ago, they will give you ideas for a career track that will take 2-4 years to actually pursue. Here are some services that are only for seniors, or only for covid related things, or only for parents of children, or only for a limited slice of the disabled community, or services that require cumbersome reapplication and verification every few weeks, or that are simply insufficient to ameliorate anything.
I’ve tried for sure. Mental health & disability services presume (require) you not also be poor in order to be most effective. Low income services presume (require) you not be disabled or ill in order to be most effective. Employment aid services presume (require) you not be disabled. Employment aid services for the disabled only work with some disabilities and only help you get exploitative low wage labor. Employers require you suppress any and all indications or ramifications of you being poor and disabled.
Damn. I’m realizing as I edit this that I’ve gotten into grad school 4 separate times and the reason I keep having to drop out largely boils down to being poor, autistic, adhd, and not having an adequate social support system in place(which seems to be a common occurrence for both disorders).
There’s actually a lot about the dynamics and culture of these work things that is discriminatory or exclusionary of the poor. On top of having one of the legally protected marginalized identities, it makes it all awkward and difficult to navigate. I find myself wondering how might applications, interviewing, and hiring processes be different if hiring managers and interviewers started from the assumption that each applicant only had 2-4 weeks worth of funds and food left. How might the best of us become more respectful of people’s time and effort in the process? How might everyone else just become even more intentionally exploitative?
It’s really quite challenging to show up as your fully capable self in an interview or the first weeks of work if you’re stressed out and in crisis. Welcome to the hunger games!?!
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We, both the big collective we but also specifically you (the reader), me the author, and your elected officials hate the poor and the disabled. It’s true, not always in a conscious, top-front of mind kind of way. Though we do have some safety net programs and organizations, they really only target their assistance at their “perfect” candidate who is fit for the specific kind of help they want to dish out and not the kind/amount of help that’s needed. We don’t want to be them and we don’t want them around. We don’t want to be reminded of them and we don’t want to know too much about their misfortune. Better to believe it was lack of prudence that got them there rather than insurmountable odds and active subjugation. We’ve been made to be so worried about the contagiousness of their misfortune and low socioeconomic status that we stay away. We’ve been made to be so fearful of and in competition with some foreign nonwhite freeloader come to pillage our scraps that we fail to see who is actually robbing us. So then, when we do offer services and help, it’s never enough to help people get to a place where they can actually thrive. Most organizations and definitely the government, so by extension the people, fail to help people completely escape their conditions. We’re all too wrapped up in our fears of not getting a slice of the pie and paranoia about competition that we can’t see we should be collectively angry and aggressing against the hoarders.
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I guess my point is this
I initially stuck around to try to do the thing that I really cared about and really wanted to do. I figured I might as well try since there was nothing else to lose. Then I was actually doing it. I’ve done it. I’m lucky and blessed because so many people don’t get to actualize the way I have. After it was done, I stuck around because it seemed like I was supposed to, because not doing so seemed like it was shameful, and because maybe I could pull off a sequel, reboot, or a second act. Even if there was a slim chance, I ought to at least try, right? I should make sure it’s over before I call it a day. So, I’ve been trying. I’ve been trying to pivot. I’ve been trying to be creative, be open to alternatives, and be willing to embrace some amounts of discomfort and inconvenience or less than ideal options. My whole life has been doing that. I’m no stranger to biting down and doing what must be done. I’ve sacrificed and compromised for a big goal before. I’m not sure why but I’m less able to now. It’s not a conscious refusal or stubbornness, I’m finding that I literally just can’t. I try and things malfunction quickly. I think I’ve ignored my difficult internal experiences for too long and I’ve broken something. I can honestly say I’ve tried as hard as I could to get things back on track. I’ve tried to rebound but it just hasn’t happened. I’m not invested in anything here, I’m not enjoying it. I don’t have an actual, existing and compelling enough reason to go on trying to other than the potentially inspiring resurgence story I could tell later. I’ve exhausted myself in looking for one, hoping to stumble across something. Now I’m just suffering in the process. I’m craving fulfillment and joy but if I can’t have that then I’ll settle for rest and peace.
I quickly navigated through a nihilism phase a long time ago. Existentialism served me well for quite a while. Absurdism can be fine enough but its sustainability is limited by the accessibility of the means to live life. I’ve seen the forms and fled the cave. I’ve picked up my cross, ascended mountains, and gazed upon sizable portions of the terrain. This boulder won’t move and I can’t hold it here any longer. It is not necessary that I be crushed in the process of it returning home. It is silly to fight Tao. I yield to The Way.
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Postscript
May those with ears to hear and eyes to see, do so.
Some people were fine (just fine) to free the enslaved but didn't think they should be commingling, voting, swimming in shared pools, or making any fuss at all. Some of those people and most of those minds still exist today in one color or another. Don’t be that person and try hard not to be that mind.
Birmingham jails have spoken and men have marched but few people have listened and understood. The 10 point program remains unfulfilled.
To whom it may concern, I wish you well with the whole being racialized as Black in the United States of America thing. I know some believe there’s a chance and feel like they must do/try something. They think they see culture worth preserving, youth that need protecting, or some gains to not just surrender. Sunk cost fallacy shit. You fail to see those things are already lost to and owned by the ocean you swim in. But I provide this without judgement. I _?_mpathize with your situation. Plus, research and philosophy says you’ll likely be happier trying, even if ineffective. It's the sense of agency that makes you feel good, not any tangible, sustainable, substantial results. The illusion of choice and such… (suppressing the urge to make an extended reference to The Matrix). History says “they” will still be rich and powerful. To some degree, them and their system is fueled by your very pursuit for a piece of what they have. As if they’d ever share it with you without you giving something up in return. But also critical to your lack of success are the small, naive, prepackaged ways you choose (are allowed) to fight. Something, something master’s tools… something something master’s house. You have no idea the invisible hierarchies and finances that have either planted or constantly work to supplant the bodies you think will be vehicles for your liberation. With them, if and whenever suppression fails, then acquisition and commodification typically does the trick. I hope you are not lulled.
Personally, I was radicalized by the history and legacy of American Indian* Boarding Schools, Hawai’i, Puerto Rico*, what happened between the Latter-day Saints in Utah and the US government, whatever the government did to Black Americans in the 1980s, the Counter Intelligence Program, the OSS simple sabotage manual, and the radical teachings of the greatest cult leader of all time, Jesus of Nazareth (not his self appointed 508c1a proxies).
It seems like Black people were given emancipation in exchange for their eternal servitude to The Union. “Many such cases.” It’s quite sad.
Most of you are so lost in trying to preserve the church as an organization, institution, or a monument to something rather than actually serving the greater purpose. People seem to believe that the USA is synonymous with the kingdom of God, I assure you that it is not.
Stop giving your children away to serve government and corporate interests. The public school system (including charters) and even most private schools are inherently anti-Black. Your staff and faculty could be as Black looking as an HBCU(<--lmao for reasons of irony aka respectability) but their agenda is still the same. The “learning” goals (brainwashing and propaganda) is still the same. The public school system is there to serve a sense of the public good, the larger capitalist social dynamic, not your child in particular. But be careful not to overcorrect on this. Don’t become some isolated copper & crystals wearing lunatic who rejects the scientific method, tries to cure everything with ocean grass, affirmations, and olive oil, and that raises children who can’t function in society. Collect a group of 40-50 likeminded lunatics first and then do it together. Notice I said collect them, not create them. Also, do not turn your community into customers, that is the poisonous fruit.
Lastly, if you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.