Feeling sick and pessimistic, wanting to get some stuff off my chest before I try pounding out a piece on this upcoming Geostorm monstrosity. I sit in a small stuffy office all day reading letters from prisoners, setting them forth on a paper trail. I determine if there’s an immediate response to be given that explains to the authors something, anything, about what they can do in their situation, even if it’s simply informing them of their situation, or if there’s a possibility for a longer process that may work in their favor.

It’s a department in which everyone who’s a part of it speaks of it as “plugging away” or “fighting uphill”. This seems very cliche, but by the end of the day, you feel exactly that in a certain way you’re not sure if you want to elucidate on after escaping the office. To me, it is the smallness of you or I in the midst of this system of slavery where terms like “work camp” are not some vocabulary presented as abstractions you were once introduced to in a high school civics lesson. They are not symbolic of anything else. They are necessary for this state we find ourselves in. Though I do not identify with the self-appointed leaders of this state, I related to this comment I saw earlier, particularly the bolded portion, on a report about american military rehabbing of al-Nusra:

I seriously cannot believe the whole world allows us to go around murdering millions of people. To hear Trump say if Iran is not going to be partners in PEACE! Are you fucking kidding me? How does anyone look at that and not laugh in his face? There is no one with any power and influence in the ENTIRE WORLD who has any sort of moral compass to allow us to do this year after year. I have often said if I believed in religion, I would think this world here is hell and we are trying to work ourselves out to get to heaven. To have psychopathic murderers literally running the world, it seems I would be correct if I held such a belief.

A comment of mine in response to someone else in a group who was dead on about how infantilized adults are now, surrounded by a swarm of media that encourages those with a certain class mobility (harrr *wheeze*) to constantly “relive” their childhoods:

It’s def not kewl to take yourself or your role in the world as a conscious actor seriously. I experience the same numbing effect when I look at my regular feed of bullshit, and then you get painted as some weirdo for being an adult, posting about adult things that affect our lives in more meaningful ways than new water slide openings. This has evolved from how boomers were mentally experimented on though. They were inundated with ads that told them consumption and the “choices” one could make in this activity were important adult concerns. Now many of this generation I know are narcissistic children of a different stripe, convinced they have made a series of decisions about brands that have truly impacted their lives.

It’s fucking everywhere. You can’t escape someone talking about their stupid Star Wars collectibles or posting about artisanal donut giveaways that feature their favorite Sesame Street characters. I feel worlds apart from most of these people, and I don’t know how to bridge that. I’m the buzzkill, probably anyone reading this is a buzzkill, too. I don’t want to start saying “what is wrong with everyone else?” because on an individualized level, there seems to be certain conclusions that one ends up with in a mindset like that, and I want desperately to avoid that. At the same time, I realize that I am tempted to ask that question in this hyperalienated state we find ourselves in because of how fascized western society is.

To say that the bourgeoisie are thoroughly fascized is redundant. It is acceptable among too many “average” americans to post “jokes” about killing homeless people in a country where a story about a woman shooting a homeless man because he asked her to move her Porsche makes headlines simultaneously. People become indignant when it’s suggested that a viral video of toddler girls dancing might be sexually provocative and inappropriate in the same state where the Supreme Court enshrines the “free speech” — including access to any content on social media — of any given sex offender. And these are the things that directly affect their neighbors, their own lives. There’s not even self-respect given.

Earlier this week, and it’s only Wednesday as I’m typing this, Trump said he wants to destroy DPRK. You could hear a virtual pin drop with the liberal non-reaction. It’s absolutely shocking that people rushed to defend Mika Brzezinski from “Trump’s sexism” on cue but can’t muster the keyboard-finger strength to send up a word for millions of Koreans. Knitting the likeness of the guts of dead children instead of your “lady parts” to wear on your head isn’t as appealing I suppose, but it might have more of an impact. Maybe people would stop and think instead of react. The presentation of “pussy” has never been about more than evoking reaction in this life, anyhow.

I am shocked by this. It’s important to retain the ability for such perception, I think. To serve as memory among people who are constantly forgetting. Forgetting is killing us, and I don’t mean that figuratively. It is reported that one in three elderly people die due to some form of dementia. Adults normalized to live in a state of permanent childhood, children become adultified, and the lingering living memory that might be there to tell us it wasn’t always like this deteriorates in the blink of an eye.