“an extreme negative emotion held against other human beings for reasons they do not control can be blinding. Blindness about other human beings, especially for a writer, is equivalent to death.” “half the crowd out there is chipped” i like shadow weaver cuz she knows who she is. “stop me if i try to take the power for myself” are we here to sort & classify people or to help them learn. what’s more valuable—a grade or a story “This is the law of the Creator” just means you can’t show me whose the fuck law it REALLY is so i can talk to them mySELF In her second brief to the Supreme Court, 1973’s Frontiero v. Richardson, Ginsburg would coolly observe that “the method of communication between the Creator and the jurist is never disclosed.” 100220 somethings wrong with her. i can just tell. like i used to could tell with her mother. im attuned to it. i know the signs. the secrecy. the hedging, the sneakiness. the blowing things off. the shrugging. the half truths. the false confessions. the sacharrine confidences. the different kind of quietness—its slack but not relaxed. the distance. above all, the distance. im worried sure, im sad, ive got gas and im clamped down and tensed up. but so help me god, most of all it pisses me off “ something seems off there’s a lot you’re not telling me that’s your right, but as your dad i feel like it’s my right to tell you the shit that other people might not you can get mad at me for saying this but focus on the basics: don’t fuck up school get a job don’t blow your money on stupid shit (1) don’t throw yourself at people just to run away from stuff don’t get high just to run away from stuff (2) you can bullshit random people any time you can bullshit me probably better than half the time (3) but you can’t bullshit yourself at least not forever 1. when it comes to your lease, it’s my effectively my money too 2. remember, it WILL affect how you interact with people. and your family—both sides—DO have that gene that makes it easy to get stuck in the vortex, the downward spiral 3. every little lie erodes trust. you’ve outright lied to me some undetermined number of times. how many times is one too many? 100820 pretending to be genuine is just pretending Dear teachers, If you’re going to try to teach my kid a “life lesson,” pause to ask yourself on what authority it’s based. If you lack empathy, maybe it’s because you haven’t overcome as much stuff as you give yourself credit for. (And the actual lesson won’t be the one you intended.) 101020 Millie’s thing last night and why did i feel so disgruntled after. She was quoting from some goddamned internet thing (does anybody do anything else these days) about how you should validate a teenage girl who says she doesn’t want to read *1984* because of the rapey way that Orwell writes women. We went back and forth, I was basically like “yeah but christian dumbasses say they can’t read *The Crucible* because of witchcraft” and “there’s some truth to the ‘snowflake’ thing” and she got mad but denied being mad at me and I was basically just trying to be right, trying to be this voice of moderation. Finally she made this analogy: It’s OK for someone to put down a book because they’ve read the same heterosexual love story five million times and they don’t need another one-dimensional gay side character doing stupid stuff for the benefit of the straight people. And maybe that’s what she meant to say all along and maybe she didn’t get there right away, kind of like you don’t get to your real insights and conclusion in an essay before you’ve gone through a few drafts, the first ones almost blindly, just chasing some distant pulse. But to me, the significant part, other than how much of a not-listening jerk I sounded like to myself, is that I can look back and see how I was knee-jerk reacting to someone dismissing a part of the canon. Ordinarily I don’t give a shit, but if it’s a part *I* think is important, then suddenly it’s not OK. At some point I even pulled out “I wouldn’t tell someone they can’t read something so why would I tell someone they have to read something” but even as I said that I knew that the other things I was saying and implying didn’t really match up with that. What even *is* an “important” book? Why do I still not trust (young) people to learn about the world by making their own choices about reading? Why do I espouse one philosophy in staff meetings but then revert to Old Mister Grumpy Badger in a spontaneous conversation with my daughter? And then try to deny that that’s what I was doing? I guess it’s kinda like the difference between practicing kicks in a drill, or even being in a roda, vs actually being out on the streets of Bahia, surrounded by the vital, the new, the present moment. Nothing like a swift kick to the head to make you ask yourself, What *do* you believe, and why do you (still) believe it, and what difference does it even make, and to whom? 101320 worried about millie worried whatever suddenly convulsed her into her angry shell was something i said worried that i’m more worried about that than about whatever her actual problem is worried that if it’s not something i said, then what the hell is it? flashback to the feeling that i’m just supposed to already know worried j9c is going to start making me look bad trying to be ok with that i’m worrying about that 101520 the value of a where-shit-goes-to-die, supposedly ‘to do’ list annex of your ‘real’ to-do list is that you can periodically look over at it, realize how long its items have been sitting there, and question whether or not they’re really all that important or urgent. If yes but no, leave them on there. If no and no, feel free to throw them out. If no and yes, what the fuck are you thinking? 102520 Remember: they’re not (necessarily) idiots; they’re under the impression that they’re doing OK and stand to lose everything. Selfish, greedy, provincial, and either rich/white or desirous of aligning themselves with the rich/white for protection, they simply care more about preserving what they think they own than about anything or anyone else. In a way, it’s hard to blame them for that. It’s easier to pity them, up to a point. This state of blind fear is worse than benign ignorance, and it’s why “education” doesn’t work. Either they don’t care about (or are openly antagonistic towards, because they’ve been programmed to react to what they percieve as codified threats) the philosophy you’re trying to convince them with, or their need to see themselves in a positive light will make their neocortex do that thing that we humans are best at, rearranging the data and its interpretation in a way that makes them able to still be right. How did they get this way? Why are they like this? Lack of imagination? Lack of empathy? Just dumb luck, by being so accustomed to safety and contentment that the alternative is too terrifying to countenance? And could I be one of them if conditions were just right? Damn right I could. And so could you. We might already *be* them, in some areas of our lives. But that doesn’t mean we should throw our hands up and say it’s just how people are, people suck, it means if even only for a lucid moment we’re *not* them, but realize we *could be* them, then we have a duty. We have a responsibility to direct from the peanut gallery, to dom from the bottom, to speak up even if we’re not officially the MC. To have an opinion and back it up with examples, credentials be damned. But how? I am almost afraid to think about how. I suspect that’s by design. And I suspect it has a lot to do with being willing to look stupid, to look naive, to look like everything the caustic engines of social media have turned into fuel for cynicism. It’s just another form of coming out. It’s also why walking or biking around this little “town,” this pimple of propriety, this drumlin of depressive sameness on the glaciated plains of apathy, is always such a shadow-walking, low-grade nightmare. It’s the cognitive tinnitus: a high-pitched keen of smug racism and classism; a midrange warble of paternalistic politeness; the subsonic pulse of concealed violence; and over it all, never wavering, never ceasing, the maddening dog whistle of my own complicity as a “member” of this “community.” > “We’ve lost control,” said Gensiot, who noted the district cannot overrule families’ health concerns. “And once (those students) are out of here for a year, we’re not going to get them back.” How do you know? Why? What if there’s a better alternative to “getting them back”? > He added: “There’s nothing that beats being in person for school. It’s much more than academics. It’s social behavior. It’s social norms. It’s learning to handle adversity. It’s the real life experiences that teach you to deal with that.” Why do you think real life experiences can only happen in your oppressive prison-like compounds? (https://www.channel3000.com/wisconsin-schools-whipsawing-as-covid-19-hits-rural-districts/) 102920 anger comes from helplessness if you can, be careful of where it jets out and whom you shoot it at Cory Doctorow: > In this regard, Amazon is no different from the bulk of large firms, whose preference is that property rights – and all other rights – are the exclusive purview of transhuman, immortal colony organisms called Limited Liability Corporations. > Artificial persons are the only people who get to own property, or seek protection under the law. Flesh-and-blood humans – customers, workers, etc – are little more than occasionally inconvenient gut-flora. > We have a name for a system in which only a tiny elite get to own property and everyone else has to lease that property and confine their uses to those that are in the interests of the aristocracy: it's called feudalism. > We're in a golden age of digital feudalism. Its hallmark is privilege, from the root, "private law." The public laws – the statutes passed by Congress – exist only to punish those who thwart the private, self-serving choices of firms, whose choices represent the real law. 102920 *You need to push through and beyond the mediocrity in at least one area of your life.* I got played by JS the liberal do-gooding almost-went-to-MIAD jargon-using power-hungry shithead. Somehow in my rush to lap up approval I gushed about what an arrogant jerk KE is. And now KE is literally crying on Zoom and I’m feeling guilty as fuck for playing both ends against the middle. But shit. I can’t afford to lose my job either. Can I? Sure, now he “reaches out.” Now we’re “friends” and “incredible educators.” He reminds me of me when I flailed a futile lifeline out towards Ben Jenkins, and was similarly humored. Although BJ at least had the decency not to pretend to give a shit. Is the cutthroat inevitable? Is this really who we are? Or is this just who I am? “I didn’t think *guys* were like that; I just thought *you* were like that.” - Glenn to be fair, it’s not just approval that i was/am after. i really would like to be a real professional, in a creative community, with something like a mentor, pushing boundaries, being dangerously honest... i’m afraid it may be a self-serving fiction to keep acting as if someday, one of these days, that could happen safe within the bounds of “Education.” the doubt inherent in that want is what conspiracy theorists and fringe groups pray on, perhaps. “You are special, but we alone understand you! You’re like us! Not like the dumb plebes!” And yet a self-defense system tuned just a hair past what’s necessary to avoid falling for that trap will actually kill your own soul. does anyone have the luxury of being a pirate these days? did they ever? did they decide to be one anyway? and then what happened?