One unique artifact of living – well, depending where you’re positioned – as the American is unintentionally getting a streak of hostility despite some warm introductions. Whether it’s because of all the psyop campaigns, or just the reality of living in a multi-cultural jungle with constant tensions, nevertheless whenever I interact with people I always have to think, “How is this person going to fuck me over?”
Some would say this is a wise way to live, but there’s an embedded hostility still. Having to render everyone you meet as a potential perpetrator is a little crazy if you think about it.
This perpetual vetting of every interaction is why, on a fundamental level of values, I cannot deal with text messages or emails in a serious capacity – that’s the core of it. Having any sort of private line of communication, you have to constantly ask yourself, “Am I comfortable with all of this getting leaked?” and so writing like you’re about to walk up the public square stage gets exhausting.
The same with more unpopular opinions, and how crazy the norm has been, again – “am I comfortable actually standing behind these thoughts if they get leaked, and do I want to deal with the tar and feather of ostracization if so? Ruining future business prospects because one couldn’t shut up and understand how Power actually works and whatever complaints you got doesn’t mean squat if you don’t own the Washington Post?”
It’s a nice perk at least, to know that these are the bird cages and you can write what you’d like, but if you aren’t going to hold a firearm or gut your opposition and slather some blood then you’re just roleplaying. Thousands of years of the jungle, it just became concrete and digitized, and if you think everyone is going to be your friend, I mean, have you ever gotten mugged?
Sometimes I envy those who haven’t been fucked with yet. You can hear the whispers, “Who hurt you?” It’s human nature – it’s human nature to complicate things.
Anyway, I’d like to think I’m an affable enough correspondent, but this is the reality. I am looking for your knives with every interaction, and within those interactions, I, unfortunately, deep down, can’t give a fuck whether we last for a long time or say goodbye in the hour. Because it changes little, unless we’re sharing a village. Big if. Even then, we can only love the present moment together.
I was wondering what it’d be like to interact with people without wondering how they’re going to hang me in some witch trial. It must be nice. People don’t know what they got in these other places, something like Switzerland affording such conveniences of higher-trust living and sporting delusions of bleeding-heart open arms toward people who want to chop your head off; just that you’ll never see it in gated communities.
I also fully acknowledge all this suspicion could be fueled by the psyops of the psyop capital of the world, but it’s not like these things festered randomly. When you get fucked with enough you learn this is the way to move about, unless you love suffering.
And sometimes you just run into these innocents, and they don’t get it why anyone would want to carve their name into your arm, the level of insanity behind a smile, and the inexplicable tangling of every email thread, every phone call, hang out at Fresco’s eatery before you see the homeless screaming.
So yeah, I accept that, on a fundamental level, I am a little paranoid, a little bit of a wacko, and an asshole too. Because I’d rather be cautious and disliked than to deal with the brutality of the modern world; namely, that anyone can take whatever thoughts you’d ever think and decide to air it on their social media. Cameras make me so god-damn uncomfortable.