July 11, 2024

It was Albert Camus who said something along the lines of: the writer’s duty is not to tell the story of the historically significant, but to seek out that which is subject to history. Now, I do not consider myself a writer, for to call oneself a “writer” sounds to me like calling oneself a “pencil sharpener.” So what if I sharpen my pencil now and then; there is something else which “I am,” the ultimate and subjective “-er” through it all. This is the soul. However, I think that Camus’s reflection raises the question: where are the surveying eyes of history looking in the world right now? The answer will not be found in headlines, will not be found in the whispers and shouts of our kinsmen, and will not be found in advertisements and art being passed around nowadays, The answer will develop itself in the dialectical extrapolation of humanity's nodes of being [the singularities, the persons]; and as the dialectical map of human communications changes shape, history will reveal itself, but only to those who are there to judge it; and if those judges are men, they will become actors in their turn. 

With regards to political debate in this country, it has been clear in this century that the “uneducated” classes which have been soured throughout the centuries have not gone away simply because higher-educations are charging higher tuition and increasing enrollments. The “uneducated” class is not defined by degrees and institutions. The “uneducated” class, which is more of a space than a class, can be identified by the totality of the dialogues it engages, and how the actors bring themselves to the dialogue being developed. I believe that the “uneducated” class is more of a space which people occupy, rather than an identifying feature of an individual. The “uneducated” space can be located in X, Instagram, the Internet, or any one of those technological mirrors which function as reflections of the most prideful and the most harrowing things we see in ourselves. The counterpoint here is: but aren’t people sharing their ideas and views in a public and productive way? To this, I suggest we look at what isn’t there in these types of communications. There isn’t face-to-face, living-breathing contact--a kind of contact which boils the human neurological functions and exerts pressure on the speech center of the brain and thought center of the brain, so as to create a wholly distinct, dialectical, nuanced, and brave communication. There isn’t the crippling vulnerability and complicated professment of multi-layered truth which constantly uproots itself over the course of the communication being delivered. “Say it to my face,” is a common phrase, and the reason why this phrase exists cannot be stressed further. The written already abstracts the spoken and the directed, but this can be overcome with perspective: what is written can be accepted if and only if it is understood as not spoken. Thus, it exists in a different chasm of the individual’s mind. If the dimension of writing can be respected as its own being, then we are in the clear. Social media muddies this. What is written online or on social media is necessarily influenced by the game of personality management. Except for those lucky few who truly view their online platforms as unbarred fields to place their most vulnerable and truest selves (which is, a practice of those few, I might add, and not a quality of those few), mostly every post can be traced to some sort of “giving up” of what one has to truly say, or even, a blatant substituting of what one has to say for what one wishes they could say, or what another has to say. The result is chaos; the result is the truth being hidden. In mathematics you may have a chaotic sequence with no pattern, but if you “know” the list of iterations of a seed of f(x)=x^2-2, then you know that the chaos is really a process.  However, in the realm of social media, the “process,” the truth of why people post what they post, the mental gymnastics people go through to reach their next post, all of this is hidden to the user, and what the user comes to grips with is an illusion which bears little-if-any resemblance to the internal truths of the user on other side of the screen. 

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Camus: “What I feel like telling you today is that the world needs real dialogue, that falsehood is just as much the opposite of dialogue as is silence, and that the only possible dialogue is the kind between people who remain what they are and speak their minds” - a statement made at the Dominican Monastery of Latour-Mauborg in 1948.

The issue I am grappling with is thus: how can one speak out about what one lets happen to themselves? Is it just for one to denounce behavior that they have received without putting an end to? How can one denounce behavior, when there is the soiled history to suggest that they may fall into behavior of their own which makes them rot? When is the pot calling the kettle black? To this, the answer seems clear: the correct answer to matters of personal shortcomings are best not played out in a public setting; we must remember that there is such a thing as the personal life, the personal journey and battle. For that personal world, prayer is the only possible communication. Unheard, cosmic, prayer. But, the world as we know has a public sphere, and there are happenings in it which go beyond the personal life. The addiction and the loneliness which I face gives me insight into how the human spirit works, and some underlying truth about the falsehoods which are out there. 

As a user of a computer, a phone, and occasionally, social media, and as someone who is connected with people from all walks of life, I have come across the public statements about homosexuality, homophobia, transgenderism, transphobia, pornography, the protection of children, the LGBTQIA+ community, and more issues which orbit around the same vernacular. The dialogue out there is shameful; for the highlighted speakers on both sides put forth packaged language where the truth cannot find its way to light. The truth is best told in stories, not just one, but multiple. Stories not from either side, but from individuals in the world who transcend whatever boxes the Tower of Babel has put them in. And in the multiplicity of stories there is a throughline for those who pay attention to it. There is noise, there is focus. There are motifs, there are surprises. Yet, public dialogue would have you believe that these issues cannot be discussed with these types of stories. 

“My story” is a false phrase. There is “the story” which happened to me, one which I am making sense of and living out from, accompanied by the gift of time, reflection, positive relationships in my life, and positive influences. In one vein, our culture has “subjectified” the storyteller into oblivion, so that only statistics and virtuous thinking can lead common thought. The trick behind this is that statistics contain subjectivity, too, as does virtuous thinking. My hypothesis is that anyone who studies statistics or virtue-based ethics without any personal investment, or without any expectation to gain a tool that will bolster their reasoning, will recognize this. Contrary to what academia and bipartisan dialogue would have us believe, the problem is not in “bias.” Bias is the vehicle through which the human individual is delivered into their perspective. It is practically uncontrollable. It can only be re-routed, if the person makes it a point to themselves to redirect their thought whenever the bias occurs. This is a dangerous game, because it is a sleight-of-hand trick which distracts the consciousness from its natural self. Investigation of bias is a more effective tool, and this is always a personal endeavor. Most attempts at “communal accountability” with regards to bias fail, because of this. Expectation of growth rarely promotes growth. One does not grow a tree by expecting it to grow. One helps it grow by servicing it, by tending to its most essential needs, by responding to its state of being. Another example of this is training for gymnastics. One does not learn a skill because the coach expects them to. One learns a skill through the application of the self, and this may even require them finding mental strength outside of what the coach gives. The coach is not there as a definitive, authoritative source, but as an idea-guy, essentially. Sometimes, the coach may deliver the trainee into the skill. Other times, the trainee might need to carve their own path towards the skill. 

One muscle of the human spirit is to see through bias and understand it. But this is not given as discrete packages of objective knowledge, passed down through Instagram posts and notices. One does not come to understand biases by being told where biases are. This would be like learning about turtles by someone pointing out where their heads are poking up in the lake. After having the heads of turtles in the lake pointed out to you, think of all the things you still don’t know about turtles! Why they’re aquatic, how they breathe, how often they go underwater, etc. The human relationship with biases is best served in one’s own consciousness, making observations about the world, putting them into action, testing hypotheses, and removing any normative expectation of how others should act. For, not only are biases biases, but the comprehension of other’s biases, is itself, a bias. 

With this underway, I set out to write maturely about those things which trouble me. In stories about abused spouses, such as Audrey in Little Shop of Horrors, I always noticed that the abused spouses, like Audrey, would have a hard time denouncing the other party. It was an observation I made growing up, but the truth behind it was not one that I understood until fate blew me to a similar situation, when in intimate moments, I received treatment in a similar category to what Audrey experiences.  The open tunnel was always there: get out! It says. Denounce it! One voice says. But you like it... another voice says. Soft and demure. The primary issue for me in denouncing others was this: if I accepted a treatment, how could it be just for me to speak to others about the injustice of the treatment, when I allowed it to happen to me? Wouldn’t it be more effective for myself to have confronted the treatment itself and put an end to it? Why couldn’t I put an end to it? Why did the treatment follow me around for a long time, like some stench I kept liking to sniff? Furthermore, if there was some comfort or habit for me to return to receiving this treatment, then who am I to say that it was unjust? If I accepted that it was unjust, that I would be accepting unjust treatment, then how could I expect anyone else to not accept unjust treatment? Or how could I expect anyone else not to give unjust treatment? These are questions for the self. 

The questions for the people reading this, the people whom this is addressed to, are larger than my personal qualms. You may enter into my psyche all you wish. You may pick apart my qualifications, my experiences, my history, and my stories in order to reach some conclusion which you already want to reach about me. However, this world is good and true, and the opportunity has been placed in front of me to profess the good and true, and to give this opportunity up would be horror. 

The truth of the matter is that there are many spaces out here, on Instagram and the like, which channel the human spirit into the most isolating form of hypocrisy and theatrics. I do not like to think of people as “uneducated,” for we are all in some ways, “uneducated.” But, I believe in uneducated spaces. And, I do believe that it is possible for people to go through “uneducated” spaces while retaining their dignity and selves. But, I also believe that it is possible for someone to be in an uneducated space for a very long time until the false illusions implant themselves in their brain. But, I believe always in the possibility for change, and I suspect that is why I have taken up this piece of writing.  In this “uneducated” space, which I use specifically to mean spaces which are not uprooting themselves everyday--spaces which are sinking into the cushion of their own conclusions, there is the spirit of hypocrisy, the spirit of swindling, and the spirit of falsehood knocking on all of our doors. Because, this is the space which has been fostered here, in this virtual vacation spot for confused consciences. 

I have allowed myself to be taken advantage of by many visions of men, by many essences, and this was most assuredly my own doing, I will not let myself forget my personal part in the story, you can be sure. However, in so subjecting myself to these essences, a light was shown on the nasty underbellies of humanity which flaunts about in virtual spaces where they can be seen safely and virtuously. Trust what is beautiful, question what claims to be or attempts to be beautiful [and beauty goes beyond superficial appearances, be sure]. Should I profess to be virtuous, take that to mean I’ve gone stale. To travel is all I wish--to travel towards the direction which the enlightening conscious mind can unravel itself.  

Now the focus of my reflections goes towards “the movement.” I use this to refer to the ongoing virtual dialogue regarding sexuality and politics. I have heard the movements’ stories which are pitiful and sad and which call people to action. I have heard the statistics and the news outlets and the nicknames for things like HB 11557.  Let those stories and those statistics be there for the movement. They come from somewhere. I have not yet figured out what they mean or where they come from, but I suspect that where it comes from would be more complicated than what one would initially think. My mission today is to speak towards the true experience from my everyday life. The movement cannot be defined. One can only wonder what the movement is, and how it functions in the life of an individual, and so this person, the "-er," looks to his own life. I encourage everyone with a life to examine their own lives before accepting anything given to them from external sources. No matter if it’s academia, professionals, the government--you name it--look to your own life and your own reason to make sense of things, and let the external sources be flags waving in the distance. Advertisements, if you will, for a certain way of being and thinking. But before rushing to those distant lands, firmly root yourself in your own story, in your own being, and make sense of this life you have, because you are the only person that can do your own. 

With every movement, there is an underbelly. This underbelly usually comes about in the dichotomy between idealism and everyday experience. This underbelly haunted Nazi Germany, it haunted Communist Russia, and it haunts many other nations attempting to revolutionize themselves. This underbelly is underneath the impressionistic expressions of virtue or solidarity, this underbelly is the substance of days-long frustrations and dissatisfaction with one’s life. The most successful movements are usually ones which have love and compassion to care for their underbellies, and which have the diligence to remember their underbellies when they are tempted to appear blameless; the successful movements nurture the vulnerable and bolster up their weak; and with this, the most successful and long-lasting movements usually do not push any agenda without humility, grace, and perspective. These successful movements are the substance of daily life as we know it. They’re the substance of cultures and heritages long-lasting. To know only the surface of a movement is cowardice or ignorance or both, and cowardice and ignorance are two of the greatest threats to the young and the innocent of today’s world. So, allow me to guide you to places to look if you want to learn more about this dichotomy with regards to a specific movement: that of sexuality in this political climate. 

To this, I say this: if you want to fill in the picture of the LGBTQIA+ community, you may want to look at very young men, like myself, on the cusp of being out of boyhood. They are just out of boyhood, because the older men have successfully kept themselves from being attracted to the too young. But my bones told me very clearly that, if the risk was lower, those men would have had their way with me. The idea  was always prevalent that my sexual appeal was largely due to my fourteen-or-sixteen-or-whatever-they-could-imagine year old experience. It’s the pillow of youth; the sexy shine of young men trapped inside their youth before they get old and get wrinkles and die and no one remembers them. If it was legal, I’m sure some of those men would have gladly taken me at twelve. Fortunately, I had a life before I lost my virginity, and I have a life after losing it. 

If you want to gain a fuller picture of the movement, you may want to consider these boyish young men being paraded about naked in private hotel rooms and apartments and living rooms and parents’ houses, where they know not themselves and know not what is happening to them. You may want to take into consideration the older men who are dissatisfied, nervous, lost, and awkward as hell. You may want to take into account the people pretending to be submissive, pretending to be dominant, pretending to have clout, dressing up, pretending to be dogs, pretending to degenerates, pretending to be it all, because they’ve given up where they came from and need something to hold onto so that they don’t kill themselves. 

If you want to gain a fuller picture of the movement, you may want to understand how desperation works. The desperation in young gay men’s eyes, which reek not just of love, not just of romance, but of a desire to make the impossible possible, the desire to be seen, the desire to be given a chance at being subsumed by an imaginative picture of what masculinity means. 

If you want to gain a fuller picture of the movement, I suggest you read smut. All of it. The smut on Wattpad, the smut on sites you’ve never even heard of before. And I would ask you if you feel the same way after reading that smut as when you feel after reading your favorite book. Spoiler Alert: you won’t feel warm and cozy, and there probably won’t be any foods for thought that nourish your mind. (I have a laughable image in my head now of a one-in-a-million writer who writes smut ironically and it’s actually great literature, but that’s for the record books. Further note, this exact comment might be that small, ironic allowance which drive people to actually start letting it into their Mindspace long-term). I would describe reading these things as being beaten on the head with the hidden depravities of our time. And if I’m just beaten enough, I’ll just start to think it’s actually enjoyable. That is how it worked for me getting fucked for the first time. If I just bore the pain long enough, if I just gave in to the touch and the heat, it will get enjoyable. “It will get enjoyable” is the carrot over the pig’s head. Four years have passed, and spoiler alert, the enjoyable-ness never came. Pleasure came. And pleasure went. But enjoyable-ness... no. I’ve often forgotten that that was what I was hoping for.  

A full picture of the movement is not complete without looking at porn sites, any of them that won’t give you some sort of virus. For me, my first connection with sexual different-ness was necessarily wound up in the novel, in the sharing of pornography amongst giddy boys insecure with themselves, including myself. There is a paradox here, because this means that the young cannot understand the whole picture of the movement without looking at porn, and thus without having an assault on their innocence. This means that the young can never know the movement until it is too late. And, a full picture of the movement is not complete without looking at porn sites as much as one can. Not just enough to make one laugh. Because for some of us swept up in this mess, it sits and rots in the backside of the brain until more shit is heaped on top of it. And I wonder if you can remember what was troubling you before watching them. Odds are, you won’t truly remember where your spirit was before, until you fully forget whatever you watched and move on with your life. Call it a personal hunch. 

If you want to gain a fuller picture of the movement, I suggest that you look into the diversity of thought within it. There truly is no united front. The pure difference of opinion is enough to throw light onto the ephemerality of the movement. It’s an endeavor for people. Something to get involved in, it seems. And, with regards to the mainstream “bad” movement, the movement that incorporates the most radical definitions and terms, the changing vernacular suggests an unfollow-able reality that one can only keep up with if one dims their expectation for reason. 

If you want to gain a fuller picture of the movement, I suggest that you look into the assumptions made about people, by people within the movement. There is a striking categorization and objectification. If you keep an eye out for it, you’ll come across it, and if you don’t keep an eye out for it, you’ll come across it, because it blows through the scene like a freight train. Most of the assumptions that have been outwardly made about me have come from those affiliated with this movement. What I’ve gathered is, the un-affiliated, really just, don’t care enough to think about it all that much. The ones putting me into boxes were usually the ones already in boxes, or looking to get into boxes, themselves. 

If you want to gain a fuller picture of the movement, I suggest that you wake up in the morning, and look out the window as the sun makes its climb, and ask, what are you seeing? What is truly there? Is it trees, or shrubs? Clouds or blueness? Write it down, keep a list. Let that sink into your mind. Then go to X or Instagram, and wonder, what was that feeling I had earlier that’s gone now? 

If you want to gain a fuller picture of the movement, I suggest that you look into the dissatisfaction that the affiliates have with their familial lives or their most dissatisfactory relationship. Chances are, there will be another issue which is the real issue that plagues the affiliate, but this issue is avoided for being too complex, too frightening, too above-their-paygrade, etc. The hard truth of life is that, even those problems which are “too much,” especially when they are related to everyday life (which can be inherently wound up with family, since family is one of the key factors shaping everyday life from the beginning)--even those problems we are called to answer for. Maybe we are not called to solve them, or to “fix” them, but we are called to answer for them, and to go out into the world as crusaders for love. Our generation is the purifying generation. The onus is on us to distill what is most essential, most worthy of love in our predecessors and pass that on with our habitual action and refinement of mind. The onus is to honor the gifts we’ve been given, to hone the garden we’ve been allotted. 

If you won’t do these things, then you cannot understand the full picture of the movement. Because I guarantee you, that the majority of people you see involved in the movement, have participated in one or some other of these things in their private spaces. There are two aspects to this movement: the “community” and the “singularities.”  I do not know enough to speak about the “community.” I have marched to my own drum, and the “community” and I have occupied two unique bubbles, but we cross paths often, if I can even regard the “community” as a discrete entity, which I suspect it’s not. I can speak very well to the “singularities,” and my suspicion is that these “singularities” orbit society in private until they get swept up in the “community” in public. Then, with growing allowances, more and more of the depravity in the singularity is let out, like releasing a valve. That is one function of the community, to provide communal justification for the singularity to release this valve.  And may the Universe help those tricked into releasing it. May they find peace quicker than I could. 

Note: I am very well aware of how some modern dialogue works. When certain words are seen, they are stamped with certain pre-existing definitions that the movement has bolstered up. Anyone who knows me, and anyone who knows literature, for that matter, will understand that the words I use, I use because they are the closest thing to get at the truth of what I have perceived and what I am thinking about. My words do not come from ideological behemoths, because I’ve always had a sour spot in my mouth for ideological behemoths, and an even sourer spot for academia that has had individuality, ingenuity, and creativity boiled out itself. I have always promoted individual thought, and this necessitates respecting the definition of words, along with the individual’s understanding of how the word applies to their life, which can only be fully understood by seeking out the full context in which it is used: i.e. what surrounds it. 

The topic of sex seems to be a problem. From a conservative perspective, we’re indecent if we talk about it; confused if we don’t. Or, from a liberal perspective, we’re virtuous if we talk about it, but regarded as indecent; repressed if we don’t. It is probably best for the human race to remove sex from the realm of ideas and return it to the realm of relationships. The natural development of human souls can create for themselves that thing we call sex, in such a way that it ceases to have more resemblance to the abstract idea, and cannot be viewed or accurately talked about from the outside. One may fear in this case the possibility of abuse; however, this can be counteracted with social proper practices and the cultivation and refinement of human reason and spirit as whole, cura personalis. Cura personalis goes to all aspects of life. So, one does not need to manage society’s money-spending impulses to change society’s money-spending impulses. If one tends to the cura personalis within society, then the money-spending impulses will flow out from this. Same with that thing we call sex. 

Negative philosophies on what is unknown are typically poisonous to the soul. Thus, it would be self-destructive for the self to set promises or prohibitions on how it should act. In fact, it is a common theme of humanity that within a promise and within a prohibition lurks the form of self which should have never made it in the first place.  Thus, positive hypothetical philosophy, constantly being rendered distant, is what I foster. Do I know whether or not a proper, fulfilling sexual experience exists for me? No, but I will allow for the possibility that it does, if that is what the Lord wishes me to have one day. This way, if the experience does come, then I will be ready to accept it. However, if the experience does not come, then I will not be discouraged, because I have already placed this hypothetical at a dissolving distance. And, if other false experiences come along, I can take security in knowing that I was tricked, and that the army of Man does not cease to operate because of past impressions. These observations, paired with the guiding philosophy to devote time to what is enlightening, to devote time to that purest Voice of Nature I have heard from the Skies whose music is the most epic story I could ever be a character in, there is little room for stumbling here. What I do know is what has happened, and this is best understood in the negative. That essence was not the ideal; that experience was not what is with me now. There is distance from what that composition was and what I understand today. 

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Now, I am not speaking now on sexual liberation. There is an idea that sexual repression is something to be counteracted; there is an idea out there that there is a need for sexual liberation. This is a difficult point to talk about. The major twist-of-fate here is that sexual repression is almost always a story which is imposed on the individual. For me, I was never sexually repressed as a child, and I was not sexually repressed when starting puberty. I only started to think that I was sexually repressed in the later half of my pubescence. Contrary to what conservative ideology may posit, it was not due to the “bad influences” or “bad actors” that made me take hold of the “sexual repression narrative.” The real arbiter of the illusory narrative that I followed was my own reason. In fact, I never really openly discussed sexual repression, because it was not integrated into my personality. What happened, though, was that I would internally flirt with the idea of “sexual repression” until I realized that this philosophy gave me the justification needed to go ahead with certain actions that I wanted to go after: i.e. letting loose, being young-and-dumb, having experiences. I embraced a story to justify what I wanted to do, the most unreasonable type of thinking.

I would not be saying this openly if I did not suspect that these reflections are important to the people of this nation and the people of this world, given the state we’re in. Something tells me that these reflections have the power to heal the wounded, inspire the dejected, and protect the unprotected. However this is received, I cannot control it. I must accept the fact that I may never come across another loving human face in my life that sees me for the vulnerable truths beating weakly in the crux of my shivering breast. 

Recently, I have been avoiding the use of the word “I” in my writing, but in this case, it seems of vital importance that the “I” is not removed from these reflections. The removal of the “I” is the work that is being done in journals, academics, and politics across the country, as if we’ve become frightened of it. It is as though we’re frightened of the inclusion of “I,” because we’re frightened of how people will take it. Let the world take my “I.” The being of things will protect this vessel of spirit, even in death. There are certainly drawbacks to the “I,” namely when it is used to avoid incorporating wider perspectives into one’s reasoning. I have observed this practice in the past and will continue to observe it in the future, for perspective is a gift. But nothing is ever one thing, and when there is a call to the productive application of the self towards larger truths, answer it before you are buried.  Similarly, when the call is with another, let the self rest. But learn to know where the call resides, who it needs, and how it needs. Where it can be harbored, where it can be remembered; where it can be cherished, and where it can be praised. If none other greater comes along, let this be the long-lasting movement of our generation.