I had a thing I wanted to discuss. It wasn’t a knee jerk reaction. It was an attempt to meditate upon, and learn from, events.
It was inspired by the kerfuffle in Minneapolis. It wasn’t strictly about the spastic faffing du jour, it was (at least intended to be) something with more depth. I put a lot of thought into it.
There are parallels between Kent State (1970) and Sonowgadishu (2026) that weren’t formerly apparent to me. They wouldn’t be apparent to a younger man. I’m no longer a young man. They seem obvious now. A real press might try to illustrate the situation but in lieu of reporting we’ve got clowns scrawling graffiti with a crayon. They can’t address the true shape of things because that would acknowledge facts they’d rather avoid. The truth doesn’t vanish if it’s never spoken aloud, but the human mind does fade. Further, the deductions of a wise mind won’t get hits on YouTube.
The internet is unsuited for big picture thinking. Irrelevant dopamine hits of “like and subscribe” are not the purpose of wisdom. An estrogen shitstorm of short term emotional twitching has become the internet’s bread and butter. To deliberately think things through, hoping to use the written word for exploration, is just too hard for the TL:DR universe.
Regardless, I tried. I started writing shortly after the most recent predictable chaos began. Corruption that everyone already knew about became undeniable. It already existed so nothing had really changed. Yet recognizing a thing seemed to give it substance. Distractions were piled upon misdirection until an excitable lesbian had the misfortune to wind up on the wrong end of a pistol. What a terrible thing. What can be worse than a life squandered and lost! It really sucks that it happened. Yet I think maybe that’s what some people crave?
Virtual voices bay for one team or the other, as if that’s relevant. I’m not without my biases. But what if we’d just witnessed a thing that was fated to happen? Is it Satan or man that starts the ball rolling? Why is it so cyclic? Why have I seen this movie before?
Before I could gather my thoughts, another dipshit turned the dial to eleven. He violated the main rule of carrying. Legality and morality aside, wise people do not go to stupid places and do stupid things with stupid people. He’s another… Another what? Another victim? Another martyr? Another moron? It’s a shame he’s dead. I don’t like that it too seems fated.
I don’t want to make light of human tragedy but I wonder about the almost fanatical lack of freewill. One can get up in the morning and go to work like any other day. Or one can say “fuck it” and go ice fishing. But the ones that died could do neither. They were there because they had to be there. What does that say about freewill?
I’ve seen this before. You have too. I thought hard about 1968 and 2016. I thought about a president that was so popular he won 49 states. He was forced to resign. Another president is pretty popular too. He’s been hounded, hassled, sued, and shot. Does it have to be like that?
My mind’s eye can almost see the circle of time which encompasses all these things. It starts with a sea of agitated souls. If I had a time machine I could go to 1968 and find people absolutely losing their damn minds. In retrospect, from the view of 2026, 1968 doesn’t seem so bad. Decent music, muscle cars, cheap gas, there’s plenty of good to be found. I could take a shorter trip to 2020 and find the same thing. People absolutely freaked out about the end of everything, who are living in a world of plenty and (should they choose it) peace. From the view of 2026 it seems a little silly; governors making proclamations about hair salons, lines painted on the grocery store floor, really? If it doesn’t seem stupid to you now, hang tight, it’ll someday seem like cowering under a school desk in preparation for nuclear war. I just wish our cars and music were cooler.
In 2020 cities burned. It feels like they must. They burned in Watts in 1968. And Los Angeles in 1992. Minneapolis had the same “mostly peacefully” 2020 that gripped Portland. None of these are unique. Are Rodney King and George Floyd the same thing?
I think people need drama. I think they crave it. I think peace and kindness is too boring. I think people lust to experience some portion of hell. If war and famine don’t show up by chance, they’ll make their own hell in their own skull.
I reflect on people that are attracted to it. They go from places where life is boring to where life is not. Some get themselves planted and that sucks. I wonder if that’s what happened because it was always going to happen. We all know it will happen again. Why? That’s a big question isn’t it?
I tried to write that all out. It was too much. Nor was my attempt likely to do good. I mean good in the true sense of the thing. It wasn’t going to be evil, but I could not write good into existence. It wasn’t going to make anyone happier, or give more insight to those with similar thoughts, or elevate the thinking of people sloshing to and fro in their own tide. Maybe I’ll post that draft sometime. Probably I won’t. It feels unnecessary.
We are awash in shallow, emotionally incontinent, fools. Perhaps the best one can do is stand back and let the tantrum wear out the toddlers. Just shut up and let it happen. Don’t bother trying to explain the Matrix. I had to see it for myself. You did too. Those who won’t look, will not see. That’s all there is to it.
For those of us who keep our own counsel, maybe all we can do is acknowledge each other’s presence. A small nod of acknowledgement. A bit of freewill amid the programmed lemmings. Then we pass by; each to our own fate.