Today I feel like I am fighting my own shadow somewhere deep in the dark and fevered forests of my mind.
Makes me feel a little feisty, a little paranoid. But sort of cheerful too.
Gonna finally finish my frigging video. The thing has been hanging over my head for too long and it’s not like doing the final edit and adding a few bells and whistles is going to be some enormous effort or anything.
Besides, I have ideas for other videos and I can’t do those till I finish this one!
Chaos still reigns in cities all over the world. But it’s a peaceful, non-violent chaos. No overturned cars, no fires, no looting. The demonstrators are policing that themselves. Anyone tries to start that shit, they get surrounded by demonstrators and held down then handed over to the cops.
And that makes me smile.
I keep thinking about what a unique event this all is. Because there is no way these demonstrations would be anywhere near this big and this fervent and this long lasting if it hadn’t been for the pandemic.
Covid ensured that billions of people worldwide had plenty of time to come out and protest because they didn’t have to go to work. It also ensured that people were feeling somewhat stir crazy and thus were in the kind of defiant mood that breeds dissent.
Of course, the people in these demonstrations are not social distancing, and that has me worried. Some are wearing masks, some are not.
So if there is a second wave of Covid, we can’t just blame it on the yahoos who want to re-open everything too early.
But one crisis at a time. Covid is so last month. I mean sure, most of us are still social distancing most of the time, but by now that just seems normal.
The levels of nostalgia are piling up so fast, it’s making me dizzy. For three and a half years, we were nostalgic for the pre-Trump years. Then Covid made us nostalgic for the days when all we were dealing with was Trump. Now we’re kind of nostalgic for the time when all we were dealing with was Covid.
Can’t wait to see what the next crisis, the one that makes us long for the days when all we had to deal with was worldwide protests.
I wonder what it will be. Alien invasion? Lawn gnome uprising? Cats 2?
But I am not really worried about the future. The demonstrators will win. Reforms will happen. People are pissed off and the governments of the world know that this is not going to go away on its own.
And what do you know, people all over the world are united in a common cause on an unprecedented level. We have a global consensus now, even moreso than we did on Covid, and the people of the world are realizing that they can make change happen.
These are truly historic times. I feel like the world is finally waking up.
And it is NOT a morning person.
More after the break.
OK, first, the video version 2.
The next version will have some clip-art and/or video clips and/or music if I can think of anything that is on message and isn’t so corny that it makes the whole thing seem sarcastic and thereby undercut the message.
I mean, what music do American Libertarians like? Rush?
Now that’s me delivering the message. But I would prefer it to be delivered by someone else. The man whose voice I was unconsciously echoing in my performance.
The voice of Jesse “Formerly Known As The Body” Ventura.
He would bethe perfect person to deliver the message. He has great “mic skills” as we say in wrestling, he’s very popular in libertarian circles, his natural cadence and rhythm is perfect for the message, and not only is he from Minnesota, he was their frigging governor, so you know he’s got cred with right wing-ish people in Minneapolis.
So if you are out there, Mister Ventura, it would mean the world to me if you would record a version of this message in your own voice and style.
Who knows, together we might just be able to bring right and left together in the common cause of defending American liberty.
Surely that’s something we can all agree on, right?
The infinite cringe
Let’s talk about shame.
I have lived my entire life crushed by shame. From the very beginning, I felt shame just for being around, taking up space and breathing the air.
Like I have said many times before, all my life,I have felt like an unwanted guest who has overstayed his welcome but cannot leave.
Without saying anything, my family made it clear I was not wanted. I was an unplanned child and too shy and timid to even insist upon my own right to exist, let alone demand my equal share of anything.
So nobody ever dealt me in. Nobody was willing to sacrifice any of what they had in order to give me my due, so I hung around the edges just happy that they let me stay and grateful for whatever tiny scraps were given to me when they remembered me.
Then bullying came along and destroyed whatever was left of my self-esteem, and made me ashamed of being fat, of being smart, and of being around.
I wasn’t welcome anywhere. Nobody was ever happy to see me. I always felt like they were just barely tolerating me, and any second they could abandon me forever.
No wonder I spent so much time in my room.
And to this day, this shame haunts me. There is still a big part of me that feels like I don’t even deserve to be alive, let alone have needs.
I feel like I have spent my entire life in mute apology for my very existence.
Hence the infinite cringe. I have been inwardly cringing away from reality and trying to make myself as small as possible so I can get as close to not existing as I can.
And I don’t know what to do with all this shame. I know that the only real cure for shame is right action, but what is right action when the sin is being alive?
just continuing to be alive is not enough. I need a massive dose of whatever the opposite of shame would be.
Pride, I guess? But pride in what?
I have no answer for that question.
But I am going to keep looking.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.
Oh, and I made a comic :
