there's this Vice interview with Slavoj Zizek, the one that everyone sees when you look him up on YouTube. one of the questions he's asked if about what would happen if everyone put on the glasses from They Live, to which he says "it would be the end of ideology". i always took it as that the interviewers phrase that answer is deeper than it actually is, because all it means is that if there some universal metric of interpreting the world - like sunglasses that exposed subliminal messages and aliens - there would be no room for subjectivity. the truth would be completely spelled out so ideology would be useless. there would then be no need for it.
i don't think that's what would happen. i think that if everyone put on the sunglasses, we wouldn't all agree on what we would see through them. we'd argue about the true meaning of "OBEY", the intentions of the aliens, who sees what through the sunglasses (is what i see what you see), how and why the sunglasses were created, their legitimacy, who created them, etc. if you really think about it, we would still have no reason to agree on anything, even then. i think the thought of everyone being in the same situation Nada is in the movie holds the true horror of the entire concept of They Live. it's not in the alien mind control alone, it's in that even when we're all plunged face-to-face with it, we would still bicker over whether it was happening or not.
but i probably have no idea what i'm talking about.
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(i know this is written in the third person but it's about me, not you.)
you need to come the fuck down, dude. like, seriously, you're being kind of really extreme, especially this last weekend. you're not a bad person. i don't think you're any more immoral or bad than the average person. that's not to say you've never made a mistake, though. you have and we both know that even if you're totally fucking fanatical about it - like, you get drunk on it, dude. bogging yourself down on how much you suck for a week in your bedroom is not gonna undo why you suck, assuming you actually do. moreover, in truth, you really don't suck that bad. i know you're very all-or-nothing with everything, something is either the one way it is, or if it even deviates slightly, it's something else entirely: you either work hard or you're a mooch, you're either a good person or a bad one. you know that's bullshit, right? i know you know that's bullshit. everything you talk about wanting to write is about grey moral areas and how murky people are and shit. do you think that applies to everyone else but you? i know you know that's just impossible, man. you cannot be so hard on yourself. you're not free from being critical about yourself, you know that too well. you 'know' that too well to the point where you excuse constantly totally invalidating yourself and putting yourself all the way down as you trying to be grounded and self-aware. it's not you being either, you just come across as unnecessary sad. again, i'm not saying you've never done anything worth criticizing. you really shouldn't have touched that guy's hand when he tried to shake your hand during a pandemic because it's hard for you to say "no", you may be dangerously indecisive, you need too much validation, you try to appease everyone because you're afraid of offending people, etc., etc. but Christ, if THAT's your harmartia, then you're really not doing all that bad. you could be doing better, but you're still doing okay. you don't have to ruin a week as punishment for going slightly off course. i hope you know you're allowed to make mistakes. you haven't like drone strikes an orphanage of battered children or some shit, your judgment isn't always 100% accurate. join the fucking club. everyone else is like that, too. you're like a God-fearing atheist. you treat this shit literally like sins. you don't have to answer to Him, you answer to other people and yourself, which you see to be doing. moral of the story is that you shouldn't have to be so hard on yourself. you're not that bad.
you can still be scared, though. me telling you this isn't going to fix everything overnight. i know you know that. you still have a lot of questions. how that relates to what i've been talking about is that along with not being so hard on yourself, you're allowed to take yourself seriously. you have legitimate, serious questions, and i know living with them isn't easy. but here's one thing you beat yourself with that you can turn against itself: you don't know anything. nothing is set in stone, you're not fucked, the future is yet unwritten. now, i'm not saying give up on being conscious about yourself because there's nothing to worry about. there very well might. but, at least relax a little bit. it's probably going to all be fine, and if it isn't, you still have time left. one more time: don't be so hard on yourself. you're okay.
or am i really just a fucking coward? is the fact i need to put that as a question proof that i'm a coward? is this pep talk arguing against that me beating around the bush so i don't have to sit with the thought that i'm a coward because i am a coward? is this all just pointless meandering?
i hope it's all going to be okay. i really do. but even if that's not certain, i'm still going to try. i have no choice not to. why not?
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why do i bring up God and religion so often?
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The Headmaster Ritual
i was going to do a whole post about the situation in Kamloops, B.C., but i don't know what i could say beyond what i could say briefly at the moment. it's absolutely egregious. it's fucking genocide in every sense of the word. most of those schools were designed to have graveyards built on the properties, most of them had graveyards, but they would raze or build them over after they were done with them. they were planning for the kids to die. the last residential school closed in 1996, in Punnichy, Saskatchewan.
800 kids are thought to have died in Alberta. there are definitely more.
this country is a giant unmarked grave.
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i've missed you a lot recently. i'm sort of embarrassed to admit that, to be honest, even if you've told me the same thing. sometimes i feel like i'm being too clingy and you'll be annoyed if i say stuff like that, but i'm just being silly - no, wait, "silly" isn't a cool word! i gotta say something cooler, like "i just have my head up my FUCKING ASS"!
