I'm high, and having a go at understanding the other.

For me, the authoritarian thinker is pretty far on my otherness scale.

That Navy guy who resigned, for example. I listened to his speech, and cannot fathom how he thought it would be well-received.

Did he intend to communicate "shut up sit down it's your job to die with a smile on your face if I say so?"

Did he do that on purpose?

Because seriously, that was some badly thought through shit.

I react badly to dehumanization because it happened to me pretty traumatically. I was taught dehumanization by experts, and man I can pretty much flay the skin off a son of a bitch if I choose to employ those tools.

But in a professional setting?

The compassionate parts of me would like to think the little ginger dude was in over his head, appointed for partisan reasons by a president who will never show compassion to his underlings, and scared of his pants by the virus, over which none of us has control.

I really do want one of these motherfuckers to show a little backbone and RESIST. But I guess if your identity is deeply anchored in authoritarian mindsets and power hierarchies, that would feel a lot like stepping into traffic.

It's not like powerful white men have had much call in their lives to build courage. I get that.

But seriously.

It would take one bad Jenga pull and that shit sandwich of an executive branch would just implode, and I can't imagine senate GOP taking a single risk when it does. They'll stand by while the overripe mango gets squashed, and say I thought he was wrong all the time.

I know that I am in a unique position when it comes to transcending your identity and shit.

But is it really that hard to say fuck it and flip the table?

(Not rhetorical)

I can't do this shit to fix the world. I don't have the access.

Sometimes I think I should seek more power, and that might improve the world.

But I know me, and I'm not so sure I could be trusted with power. I just think I'm too angry, and in love with burning shit down.

I mean, I run the risk of misusing power to take surrogate revenge for my abuse on all of you, and that's not cool.

The difference is self-awareness. I'm deeply aware of the evil I could do, and I choose not to put myself in a place where that could happen.

Sometimes I want to. Sometimes I get tired of watching a bunch of yahoos running shit into the ground. But there it is. At this point in my development, I'm not willing to take a risk on taking power.

Do you suppose that influences the storytelling block, the writing prose block, I experience?

It's something to investigate.

Man this pot is serious shit, huh?

I know that my mother and father hurt me like they did because they were stricken by untreated mental illness, and/or neurologically incapable of forming bonds that didn't rely on hurting someone to feel safe and in control.

But parts of me still demand vengeance.

Still yet other parts of me are proud for having the self-awareness and strength to break a multi-generational cycle of abuse and incest.

That's a point of pride, right?

So if I can do that, why can't little ginger navy dude or any one of Trump's disgraced staff do the same?

I am just some nobody from Pennsyltucky with a bachelor's degree I barely remember getting.

These guys are running the fucking world, and they can't develop courage and self-awareness to break multi-generational cycles of bad behavior?

I suppose I'm as bad as an ex-addict being all judgmental about users. I did it, so can you. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps, all that shit I despise so.

Maybe what I've done IS spectacular, and I should stop expecting it of non-spectacular people.

I don't feel spectacular.

Pretty sure the running the world guys feel spectacular.

Or are just faking it really well.

I could at least empathize with the faking it.

It could be that little ginger navy dude, the senate GOP, the overripe mango -- they all function within the dictates of a value system so foreign to me that they may as well not be human. And I'm sure it's the same for them when they look at me.

I'm sure they'd scoff at the value of self-awareness. They would never admit to being capable of evil.

Or are they aware we think they are evil, and just don't give a fuck?

So much otherness.

Maybe better to just stick with eating them, I don't know.

I do know that if you choose to live in a society, and you fuck over the other people so you can have all the power and money and privilege, whether you do it consciously or not, with intent or not, you're a danger to the community and need to be mitigated.

I have this theory, and it's hardly complimentary or socially acceptable, about species differentiation.

You know how a species branches off, it splits, it turns into two species, biologically?

What if that's happened? What are the ethical considerations I should take?

I mean, whether they are still human, or if I am no longer human, we all are still conscious beings, and therefore there's a level of respect I believe is due.

Recognizing otherness is one thing.

Trying to eradicate otherness is not cool.

Let's face it. The ones with respect as a basic ethic will always lose, and badly, to the ones without respect as a basic ethic.

That's one of the reasons I support interpersonal violence. For all that I'm eager to jump off this ride, I'm not cool with dying for my beliefs.

I am however learning to be really down with beating you into a psychic pulp to maintain my boundaries. Which, considering my background, is a huge achievement. This summer yielded oh so many lessons on trust and species differentiation.

But I see these people waiting on line with masks so they can vote, literally risking their health.

So much more could be accomplished if just one of them picked up a rock.

Back to the why I shouldn't have power thing, right?

Because picking up a rock is the ultimate power, metaphorically.

Those who are willing to break the rules will always beat the ones who are content to trust in the rules.

Maybe the world needs more rule-breakers on the side of the regular folk. Stan Lee certainly thought so.

But alas, I am far from Iron Man. Lucky for all of you, I am farther from being Thanos. I consciously corral my inner Thanos. Maybe I should, maybe we all should, let our inner Iron Man out for a while.

I mean, fuck, man. What else could get worse? What else could go wrong?

If little ginger navy dude can't find his inner Iron Man, maybe we can. Maybe if like eleven of us find our inner Iron Man, we could shift shit just a little.

I can't remember what occult author, maybe the Rune Soup guy? said that magic is not some grand change, but lots of little changes. Little nudges towards the world you want.

Maybe. What do I know? I'm fucking high.

I wish my twitter crush would read this, and remark on my insightful thoughts. I think I'm moving on from him. Sorry man. Being my crush means you have an uncertain existence.

Still stoned

I wish some super blue check would retweet this thread, make it go viral. Then at least I would feel I safely supported a change in the world, without becoming like Dark Elf lady from Twin Towers.

ALL SHALL LOVE ME, AND DESPAIR