to say that i've felt my life just...feels weird lately? odd? ...maybe alien is a better word. either way, just saying that would be an understatement.
i've been trying to understand the current malaise that we have been in for about more than a few years now, and yet i have not come anywhere closer to trying to be able to understand just how deep the abyss. as i try to delve deeper and deeper into potential tactics that i think could work, i am consistently reminded of a world that seems so fundamentally against what i wish and want to do——more importantly, a world so against my entire identity. as i see strains of far-right politics and fascism rise throughout the world, i also see many of those, especially those who i care about, feel the exhausting dread that has once again bashed our heads in.
at the same time, my life has become very different in many ways that i appreciate. i have a group of people away from the online realm who like and cherish whatever i seem to do and i'm no longer miserable all day in my room. however, in many other respects, i've been reminded of why school has made me brutally miserable in more ways than one. i'll give my own observations for now, but don't expect much because i frankly feel incapable of making many observations about our world today. i have become exhausted beyond my comprehension, and any time i feel like i'm out it just ends up actually being worse than i thought it was. a lot of it has to do with uni, if i'm being honest. a lot of it also has to do with...a lot of the recent events lately. i usually don't have the energy capable of being able to make seemingly profound statements about our world, but i feel like i need to process these thoughts right now so that i can know what i'm up against a little.
lately, i've been reminded of why i've decided to keep myself away from systems of schooling, or atleast give myself enough distance to a point where i can more freely do what i want, even if it means being cooped up in a room all day. it has always been on the back of my mind that i have once again put myself in a system that is antithetical to what i am and what i believe. a system where i have to be "productive" and "manage my time" despite the fact that a lot of my time is eaten by being so exhausted and so mentally unwell that it takes a long time for me to process anything. however, this has really gotten to the forefront of my mind since a few weeks ago.
there's an idea i encountered in a book called "tools for conviviality" by ivan illich called a radical monopoly. to summarize, radical monopolies refer to modes of achieving certain goals that have become so pervasive, promoted, and centered that it ends up creating distance between those who have that mode and those that don't. in this machine of the radical monopoly, we are introduced to the concept of overprogramming, where people become so used to the radical monopoly due to its programming to the point where people cannot see a horizon where the radical monopoly doesn't exist. they become to used to it that being outside of it feels like a nightmare.
as systems become more complex (this can apply to many things such as computers and education), we require the need of manipulating a person into being able to know how to operate within this system. as such, the act of learning itself becomes a commodity to be consumed through schools, unis, etc. the pervasive nature of these systems leads people into being less able to learn things on their own, even if they are actually capable of doing so. before i ended up in uni, i wanted to go into culinary school so that i could learn to become a chef, despite my actual desire of just learning how to cook for myself altogether. even though i did engage with a lot of material on cooking, i still felt that i needed to get "educated" in order to say that i can cook. that's what overprogramming looks like.
of course, this feeling like being outside the system is a nightmare is not entirely unfounded. the nature of radical monopolies is that they are able to create a rift between those who partake/must partake in the system, and those who are unable to or don't. you become less and less of a representable human the less you are entrenched in these systems, you become less employable if you don't have the "sufficient" education and certification, no matter how competent you are and how much you can learn by living and going on your own. this is on top of the already existing systems of stratification today.
as a part of the system's manipulative nature, we are often warped beyond our imaginations so that we can even partake in these systems, we must adjust in order to deal with the standardized curriculum of our schools. even if it makes us more miserable, it's better than being disposed of by the world we are in. even if it means becoming mentally or even physically sick, it's better than being unemployed...but...
every moment that hurts me makes me replay another. i get confronted about an empty signifier, soon i remember all the times i've felt miserable because they want me gone or to "change" in ways that feel violating. every moment i've felt disposed of, they appear once again. i leave class and the uni, miserable and almost physically sick...fuck. i didn't want it to be this way. i just wanted to do what i loved, and now i'm all messed up and exhausted and miserable...i don't like this.
i decided to major in philosophy for the sake of my own enjoyment: if i'm gonna spend 4 years in uni, might as well do something i love...then i realize that what i love about philosophy—the weird, unorthodox, and frankly odd social and political theory—will not be found here often. that'll be something i have to do on my own whilst i focus on the "important things" (read: classes, getting a career, making myself employable.). the "important things" sicken me, they sicken me so much because i know i have so many other things that get in the way of them. they sicken me because it leaves me incapable of doing what i enjoy to do. they sicken me because they're tied to my ability to actually live at all. i knew that this was going to be a drawback that i was going to take, but god i didn't realize that it would lead to me becoming more frail by the day.
the machine we partake in most directly impacts those who are unable to partake in it with consequences and punishments for not doing so. truancy laws get the cops called on you and may get you put in juvenile prison or just normal prison, you become more unemployable if you don't partake in the machine of education, you can't get really anywhere without cars in suburban america, etc. of course, this means that it most impacts those who are already marginalized as is. this machine doesn't even have to be *good* even if you do partake in it, as capitalism has already taught us. in fact, it only has to seem like the only "reasonable answer" or the "state of nature." 'people are naturally lazy, so we must put them into education/work or else they'll do nothing.' as they say...it's bullshit, but god do people believe it.
one of the results of the forced/willful partaking in this system is the cruelty and misery of it all. this cruelty is so banal that it seems (and for all intents and purposes, is) normal. it wears people thin until they can no longer do anything but go on other platforms that feed on their attention and mental state. it's an endless negative feedback loop that ends up making those more and more miserable, more jaded, more irritable and polarized, etc. it is not surprising that as our ability to easily access spaces where we can communicate dimishes, the rise of the social media empire has preyed on that desire in order to manipulate us more than schools, cars, work, and many other systems do.
this machine of school, exhaustion, and apathy has genuinely made me more bitter at points to the world and especially its people. i hate it, i don't want to be this way. i don't want myself to be like this because it reminds me of the period of time where my irony poisoning was serious, a time where i was miserable all the time. i want to affirm the love and thought that people have, that the people i care about a lot have. one of the consequences of school is that you'll often see a lot of things in an instrumental way, because that's how it always is within these systems. people, time, habits, usage of anything: if they don't contribute to your "education" (read: grades), then you'll be punished. such a sad affair breeds misery in the people who do participate in it, forced or not, and exclusion and even more misery for those who fail or refuse to participate in its cruelty. if you're out of line in any way: same result. it's ultimately a machine that renders everything disposable, which in reality is just the goal of the current system we are in that has produced our malaise.
and yet, despite these many realizations and observations, i can't seem to make myself make a grand statement about the world. i can't make myself do much with it because i'm too afraid. i know i'm fighting against it because it's the right thing to do, but i can't make myself say that i'm fighting *for* something other than the spread of yuri.
i cannot lie to myself any longer: i'm not fighting a "good fight." i do not want to lie to myself and say i'm fighting a good fight when i feel the exhaustion within me become so bad that my cynicism takes over. if i'm being honest, i only wish to honor and cherish those who i care about a lot, the people whose backs were used in order to create the world i'm in. i don't have some grand goal other than a few semi-joke statements about making the yuri utopia. even though my imagination runs wild with visions of a better world, i am an exhausted cyber-angel who cries over nothing sometimes. i make myself, more than any grand vision of a world, centered around the desire and love that i have for the world and its people. this has always be a priority of mine, and uni has unfortunately put it on the backfoot because of how all-encompassing it has become. my education-induced exhaustion has turned me more and more apathetic to the world around me, and thus all roads and thoughts lead to the same dead end that i so thoroughly despise. i know that's not the case, i know these thoughts are illuminating and that i ought to cherish them because that's what i tend to do. i know that this apathy is part of the instrumentalization of the world around me that i'm being programmed into via education and that i should reject it. i tell myself this, and yet that apathy always comes back in my worst moments. i know that many people are cruel, that many people do in fact want to see the groups that i care about gone. the scariest part is: i think that they are not inherently evil. sure, they are evil and cruel and racist and transphobic and whatnot. however, they're really a representation of the logical conclusion of our systems.
it's not fun. it's not fun knowing any of this. however, my project has never been for them, it has always been for the people i care about first and foremost. i want to honor them first, support them first, above anything else. if it won't be done by anyone else, it might as well be done by us. there is no notion of honor in any of this. i don't want honor that i don't deserve, i only want to do the things that i think can help the people i cherish and care about and love.
i walk late at night, it's 12am and i'm walking to a fast food place. i order something in order to just feed myself for the time being. once i get back to my dorm, all i do is rest. rest for another day that is to come. once again, i encounter something in my sleep: the people who i care about the most. their lives that i cherish and care about. i've always had them in the back of my mind, but it's the first time i ever got to encounter them in some form.
...unfortunately, there's no end in sight. the road seems to have no end. there's no light at the end of the tunnel of this existentialist nightmare that i have subjected myself to once again, a nightmare so familiar that i'd rather experience it again and again if it meant that i wouldn't be eaten alive...i don't know if i'll ever get out. as a result, i unfortunately don't have a prescription i can add. the education machine is a monstrous system with so many parts that we probably don't know how badly it has affected our thoughts and lives. however, i have known this for far too long, and i have stuck to the path that i've taken, of embodying desire at all costs. it always comes back to yuri, a concept where i can lay the groundwork of the small garden i live in mentally in the otherwise desolate and withering mind i have. i have so much to lose and so much to gain, but it feels like i couldn't end up caring less. it's always been for this...quite frankly silly genre that i've so thoroughly embodied myself around.
quite frankly, it's been the only thing along with my friends and people i care about that has given me a consistent reminder of why i kept doing any of this, of why i chose the path that i ended up choosing. honestly, it goes a long way. i'm surprised by how far i've gotten with it. for something that doesn't exist, it's quite honestly been the most helpful concept because it most thoroughly reminds me of what i desire and what i want to build towards. it is the vantage point that i view the world through, what i use in order to say what i desire from it, and what i think can be done for the sake of it. it is ultimately the place where i'm able to dream of something beautiful when the world tries to get rid of any dream i have.
once again, i go back to it. i go back to it because i yearn for something. my heart aches for something new, something that'll give me clarity. if i'm going to fail, i won't fail miserably. no matter how beautiful or horrifying it gets, i've made my choice.
...it's been a lot to handle, if i'm being honest. a silver lining of uni is that it gave me an accessible way to contact and talk to many people away from keyboard, and i cherish those people for making me happy and keeping me alive more importantly. i genuinely mean it. this connection has luckily recovered enough of my frail mental state whilst i (and them as well) deal with... a lot. i wish spaces that can help people communicate each other non-digitally were accessible for everyone, but it unfortunately isn't. however, i'm not the one to make those observations right now. for now, i thank a lot of the people online too, especially my best friend and collaborator named scarlet. i also thank rotbrain for communicating with me for the past few months, even if i haven't responded to them lately. i hope that this is not all i have to say, and i'm here to fight for you all, even if it seems absurd. thank you all, you've given me a lot of time to recover. (´▽`ʃ♡ƪ)