I've been through and witnessed some things that some people don't even know exist. Terrible things, dark places, broken minds and spirits. I did this in service to the people around me, for the peace of mind and safety of friends, family and country. I stumbled in, and once in, there was no way out for me until there was. So I took it all, and kept as much away from the people I cared about until there was not much left of me but Survival Mode. Now, I am trying to heal.
Some days, I can't handle stress. Some days, I don't want to. Most days I realize that we still exist in a broken competitive system out of sheer laziness and lack of original thought. That's frustrating. Some days I sit and have conversations with people who are just trying to get the upper hand in the conversation the way they have been trained to. Finance types, sales types. I know because I have been through the same training. I lose sight of the business at hand and quietly mourn the fact that we can no longer live our lives and be human, we have to be marketing managers, each building our own "personal brand".
We have become so salesified, selfish, siloed versions of ourselves constantly worshipping a fake reality where humans who used to wear one or two of Antigone's masks now have to put a filtered, curated, edited, re-edited fantasy version of ourselves and our lives into cyberspace to compete with other avatars and "lives" that never have been and never will be real. Our derivatives have derivatives. It takes up a great deal of our days to pay homage to this non-existent reality that our real connections and relationships languish. I wonder if it is sane to try to "heal" and return to a place academics thought was healthy for everybody 150 years ago. Am I relearning trust just to be consumed all the faster for my efforts when I re-enter the world?
And I realize that I cannot be both human and cyborg. I can't engage in my days of fun with fuzzy danger floofs, feeding chickens and ducks, collecting eggs, tending bees and gardens in an age-old rhythm, and then think about selling myself and them online. I don't want to pursue cheap and easy dark psychology online to the masses for engagement, sales, and followers. I think it's inherently flawed and doomed, this system of ours that has made no effort to rise above a survival of the fittest scarcity mindset.
This may be a mid-life crisis. It may be my soul crying out at the absurdity of it all. But some days I just want to say Fuck It: I'm opting out.
