How?

If you want to know how we got here, it can be traced back to the blind nationalistic chauvinism following 9/11. Laws were passed circumventing freedoms and giving the government emergency powers that it never relinquished.
Socially, soldiers and police were all “heroes,” regardless of anything they might have done wrong. The fear of terrorism led to militarization of police forces. Anyone who pointed out the problems was labeled unpatriotic.

I remember before 9/11. I never rose for the pledge of allegiance. And very rarely did anyone ever say anything about it. My problem wasn’t the country’s people, but the inclusion of the phrase “under god” and the fact that I take oaths and promises seriously, and before I swear an oath to anything, I have to be sure it won’t become a monster.

But it was ok with most people. Very few really even noticed. Some prick teachers thought I was required to, but I could inform them that the foundational law of the country they pledge allegiance to granted me the right to refuse to swear an oath to it.

That changed. My refusal to issue blanket praise to all of our troops when some were committing war crimes, my criticisms of the Bush administration, and the fact that I stood up for the religious freedoms of pagan students who were told they couldn’t wear their religious symbols got me put on a threat watch list one of my friends found when they were left alone in the assistant principle’s office.

I was in school. I wasn’t even an adult. At that age, I was a Buddhist, and I’m a bigger danger to myself than anyone else, despite being forced into defending myself on a few occasions. In school I’d prevented more fights than I’d ever been in.

When people are frightened, they scapegoat anyone who seems different. And frightened people are willing to give up freedoms for the illusion of safety. Even when the loss of those freedoms causes more harm in the long run than any terrorist attack could.

We gave the government emergency powers and the ability to define what an emergency is. We gave the police weapons of war and responsibilities beyond the scope of law enforcement duties. Then we assumed they’d be responsible with it.

Set all this in a country built by genocide and slavery, where a few rich people have all the money and the majority of everyone else can’t afford to lose a paycheck or two. Add severely mismanaged global pandemic, a rapidly changing climate, and a greedy con man with the reins of power. The rest falls into place.

I hope very much that we can make it out of this a better people and a better union than we have been. I sincerely doubt it, but we have to try.

Your friend
-Ed.

Scent of Summer

I don’t enjoy the scent in the air that heralds the coming of summer. I never really talk about it, but it hurts me. It means loneliness. Another year gone, and hope dies again.

When I was younger, in highschool, I never enjoyed being there. It was torture. So many people pushed together like too many rats in one cage, taking out their frustrations on each other, and the cruelty and putrescence of youth was as close to the ignorant malignant narcissism of reality television as reality can get when unscripted by a talentless producer.

Yet there was always the faint hope that there might be something… Someone better to meet who would be different. Who would make it worthwhile.

Then the year ended just as it had started: alone. Only the end of the year was worse. The hope had gone. And then it was months of Draconian rule, abuse, neglect. Without escape. Only endure until the next round of torture began in school with the one thing that always makes one torture better than another: hope.

The scent of summer always reminds me that my hope has always been in vain. That I survive is a given. A certainty. Those few desperate moments when I’ve been able to truly live have always ended when the spring dies into summer.

Illusions fall away. Like the strange moments of clarity when you truly feel the oddity of your consciousness… No one can be you except you. The world is vast, and understanding is fleeting, and hope is self delusion evolved into us because, without it, there is only experience. And the logical conclusion taught by experience is not conducive to survival. So we find something to hope for. Because it kept our ancestors alive long enough to reproduce, and so the tendency is passed on to future generations.

Hope springs eternal because it’s part of us. It is life. Though mine has always grown long in the tooth in spring, died in summer, and awakened full of life in the autumn. A contradictory parody of the seasons.

I feel the summer coming. Grass in the cemetery. The choking heat of sterile fire that burns old hope to ash that fertilizes the emergence of new hope. The cyclical pattern of survival.

But the hope, no matter how unrealistic, can’t be killed forever. Because, as unlikely as it is for hopes to be realized in life, it’s only impossible once life ends. So I’m certain that I will endure the summer again. And be hopeful again. Not giving up because there’s always a chance, however slim, while you hope. And the only way to ensure that you will fail is to stop trying.

It is tedious and arduous and unrewarding, but there will be a chance once again.

Your melancholic friend,
Edgar.

Life, Love, Pain, and Time Traveling Mail

I used to hate vacations. They seemed to keep me from socializing. I remember when I was in high school. I didn’t have a lot of money or friends, but so long as I was out there around other people, there was hope I could make a connection… A friend, or -if I was really lucky- maybe a girlfriend.

Now I sit here on my holiday break all alone, but somewhere along the line, something changed. I don’t feel like going out to socialize at the bar, or even the coffee house. I’ve been to both places enough to realize it’s just as likely to happen as the U.S. getting nuked by Canada. It’s as much my fault as it is circumstance. I get so tired of the way people interact. Some only small talk. Those who are intelligent enough to have a meaningful conversation with usually turn it into a debate.

I am interested in conflicting points of view, but when it comes to an issue of psychology vs anthropology on some obscure interpretation of the evidence, I have no dog in that fight. Can’t we discuss it rather than turn the coffee shop into an arena?

Then there are those who never let a lack of education in a subject get in the way of forming a strong opinion about it. I always see this with arguments against evolution. I’m not even saying evolution is correct, just that reading creationist literature doesn’t qualify you to speak about evolution. That’s rule number one in any debate: Know your opponent’s argument from their perspective.

So I know it’s largely my fault that I can’t really justify any hope I am going to make a human connection. Everyone is playing a game I wasn’t invited to by rules I don’t want to follow for prizes that they don’t want. I don’t get it, but who does?

It seems strange to me now how easy it was in my kindergarten. Everyone had a best friend. Everyone had a crush who liked them, too. It was so simple it was like those insipid Disney movies where there’s no real danger, everything works out perfectly in the end, and the only real conflict destroys the suspension of disbelief even more for how contrived it is from start to finish.

For me, private schools were like that. They were simple. Then came public school. That’s when I started to see what life was like without the mollifying shield that money can provide. If I were to write a letter to who I used to be, it might go like this:

“Hey, Eddy,

Remember what it’s been like until now? Remember what divorce leads to, because it ain’t just tearing everyone’s world apart, it’s the only thing more expensive than marriage. Stay away from both. Well, buckle up, kid. You’re in for it. Middle school in the slums won’t teach you much, except to always watch your back, and how to turn anything at all into a weapon. High school will teach you that you don’t belong, but never where you will.

The women. Oh, the women… You know how you think you can meet the right girl and stay with her? Yeah, kiss that dream goodbye, moron.

Life ain’t pretty and if you close your eyes you can mistake it for Hell. Life is going to kick your ass on a regular basis, but you’ll be surprised how much of a beating you can take and still get up to take a boot to the teeth again. Never complain, though, because some asshole out there will take issue because they think they can compare their life to anyone else’s, measure pain like you’ll eventually measure alcohol to take that pain away. They’ll tell you that their life is just as bad, if not worse, and they’re not crying. Let them say it. You have rum and Star Trek to make your life tolerable. Let them keep their persona of superiority.

It’s not all bad, but the bad shit is like punctuation: It’s inside , outside, framing and following everything else. It’s the period that ends the sentence: “I love you.”

My guess is, you won’t believe me. You never believe anyone without proof, and you don’t take advice. You’ll learn I was right and you’ll hate me for it, just like I do. You won’t listen, though, so I’m not going to warn you about Tiff or Shelley, or any of the others. It wouldn’t stop you trying even if you knew.

Don’t give up, though. It’s going to get better. At least, that’s what I keep telling myself.

P.S. If possible, read more and talk less. You’re surrounded by assholes.”

That’s what I would say. Hmm. Ever wonder what you would write to your younger self? If I could send a parcel instead, I might just mail-bomb myself and cause a paradox, thus imploding the space-time continuum and saving us all the trouble.

Well, I guess it’s Ed out. For now.