so what now?

some words on coping, or not coping!

Hi!

Thanks for reading this email / opening this post.

me, sending my one friend in China a million Bitcoins in exchange for a light bulb and cancer drugs now that medicine is illegal and we have reverse Cuba’ed ourselves into poverty

Maybe I’m naïve, but I am constantly shocked by how stupid Amercians are. Throughout my life I have distinct memories of having the realization, “this person is fucking dumb.” You get older and see the “grown-ups” that you once thought had it figured out were actually just fueled by things like arrogance, nationalism or untreated mental illness. They fumble around in the dark pretending to have the answers because they’re too cowardly to admit they don’t know.

I genuinely believe individualism is a disease. Thousands of years of religions created to undo the human impulse to center oneself, have been contorted into an excuse for unfettered capitalism. Instead of thanking God for our creation, we manipulate Their words to punish people for being poor, sick or different. Socialism, the idea that healthy communities are vital to society, is seen as the boogey man coming to steal your jet skis and SUVs.

Piggish, disgusting men and the spineless women that love them have taken back the top job. Which isn’t all that different! Look at anyone in the US with an extra-large amount of power and you’ll see an outline of where a soul once resided (this is meant to be the optimistic part…). Today is not the first time in history that a violent buffoon has held the pen and it definitely won’t be the last.

We should not be blindsided by fascism feeling the embrace of people who use school children as target practice. Who sacrifice young women to the God of Money so He can get more poor white workers. Who believe men that are the intellectual equivalent of a basement-dwelling, conspiracy-peddling older brothers to be our nation’s greatest minds. We are a society which is very sick, and I am personally working hard not to catch it.

I could say that I hope all women who voted for Trump get the sexist, abusive husbands they seem to want so badly. I could wish that the children of Trump voters are afflicted with the smallpox and illiteracy their parents worked so hard to provide them. I could spend my days hating the stupid slobs who lack basic critical reasoning skills, who envision themselves to be wealthy and powerful, despite just being a disposable cog for the oligarchs who hate them, and then find joy in watching their lives completely fall apart in the wake of the most incompetent, empire-ending leadership we could dream up.

But then I would be just like them!

I still have hope. I have good friends and family and books and music and food and shelter. I have a strong sense of resilience, hard-earned by getting through some bad shit. I have a community that treats me with genuine kindness. I have stories about my sister’s Russian host mother in St. Petersburg, smoking cherry cigarettes, cutting hair in her kitchen, and living her bad bitch life. I’m going to become a cockroach. I’ll be slippery and disgusting and unwanted. I’m going to make it impossible for them to kill me.

xx