The Delicate and Direct Balance of Hubris and Ability

Arrogance is not always the most becoming characteristic of those in power, but it is the most prevalent.

However preposterous and emotionally driven the democrat’s arguments were towards President Trump, let that not negate the fact that they accomplished this impeachment simply because they worked for it. They worked for it ferociously and with a seemingly insatiable thirst for blood. And the republicans defense against these clear acts of aggression was merely the façade of an egotistic swagger. Well, where the hell is that gangster lean in your step now, boys? You’ve been had. And nonetheless, in a public format, by the same people you have been calling entitled snowflakes and weak pussies for years.

Now, don’t get it twisted, the left’s unremitting barrage of complaining and griping has been embarrassing and near insufferable to watch over the last few years. But say what you will, they cried themselves all the way across the finish line. From the very second that Trump took office the democrats took to the streets like starving homeless people. And they demonstrated some of the most emotionally, visually, and philosophically confusing protests and rallies that have ever been held on the streets of this country. But, somehow, through all their hysterical nonsense they were able to get their message across, loud and clear. They carried a simple unified credo of, “Fuck Donald Trump!” and they never let it go. History has proven time and time again that people motivated by hate have a propensity to cause drastic and erratic change. Never forget that.

As the democrats released a goddamn torrent of relentless accusations at President Trump, consistently threatened him with impeachment, and had every molecule of the man investigated; what were the republicans doing to fight back?

They were on the internet, calling people libtards in the comments section underneath a video of Ben Shapiro arguing with college students. They were boasting that Trump was too powerful to be impeached. They weren’t worried about what the millennials, or the liberals, or anyone else for that matter, had to say because they already won the election, goddammit.

Well maybe you should have done something other than emulate the President’s braggadocios behavior. The republican party seemed to adopt the arrogance of their most powerful representative and it became their greatest downfall.  

Just to put this into perspective, watching Donald Trump become impeached by the current democratic party is like watching the kid who cries in his dorm room as he listens to Radiohead, beat the shit out of Stone-Cold Steve Austin. While it may be a cliché and widely overused by high school football coaches, there is truth to the sentiment, “hard work beats talent, when talent doesn’t work.” In the words of the warrior prophet Ice-T, “You played yourself”.

While this may not be the championship ring that the democrats have their eyes focused on, the Impeachment of President Trump is still a milestone victory for the left. The end goal for them would ultimately be Trump’s actual removal from office, but that seems unlikely with a majority republican senate. However, if you are a republican don’t immediately fall back into your prideful ways and find comfort in them. Fool me twice, right? Maybe it’s time to invest in something a little more tangible than a misguided faith in regard to the president’s future proceedings. Faith has no place in a flawed and corrupted system such as politics. Just something to think about as we approach the inevitably chaotic saga that will be the 2020 presidential election.   

Insincerely, Yours

              “Uh, hey Shannon I just wanted to let you know that I’m not coming in today because… I quit. So, yeah… anyway, bye.” I hung up the phone and looked out over the hood of the car as the smoke continued to bellow from the radiator. It was cold that day, violently cold. The kind of cold that takes your breath away in its entirety. I was soaking up every ounce of the quickly fleeting heat left inside of that car. As I sat there analyzing all the prior decisions that had brought me here, a strikingly vivid realization settled in my soul like the snow that was swiftly covering the ground around me. My car was broken down and stranded in a Wal-Mart parking lot, I had a dangerously small amount of money left to my name, and I had just quit my fucking job. Never in all my life, have I been more at peace. That feeling of vindication was bar none. I was reveling in the aura of happiness that was encompassing me in that smoking piece of shit car. It was then that I realized I would never have to clock in, don that atrocious headset, and say, “Thank you for calling WOW! Cable, Internet, and Phone. My name is Javan. How can I help you?” ever again.

**********

              Inside the confines of the WOW! Cable, Internet, and Phone call-center there were a specific set of attributes that existed in order to create the perfect American office setting. Imminent and persistent feelings of disassociation, sadness, countless hours of empty rhetoric, irrational and belligerent customers, fucking HR, and of course the incessant and insincere small talk. All of those wonderful workplace accoutrements were plentiful in the sales department of the world’s shittiest cable company. This horrid place was my first introduction to the wonders of corporate life and the fundamentally fucked up idea that is professional communication.

              There are two forms of professional communication that corporations like WOW! teach their young employees. First, you’ll be instructed on how to speak to your co-workers and superiors according to some guidelines that are set forth by some dollar-store equivalent of a conflict negotiator they call, “A Human Resources Representative”. Second, you will be instructed on how to speak to customers. This form of communication is paramount to all others, as this is where you are shown that as an employee you are fucking worthless.

              “I AM GOING TO SHOOT YOU IN THE GODDAMN FACE AND BURN YOUR FUCKING HOUSE DOWN!”, screamed a valued customer of the WOW! Cable Company.  “Sir, I can totally empathize with the fact that you would literally want to commit murder and arson because your bill went up by three dollars. That seems entirely logical and I apologize for any inconvenience.” I responded, as a nineteen-year-old kid who had nothing to do with this gentleman’s increase in monthly payments. It was however entirely this irate creeps’ fault that this he ordered a $2.99 soft core porno and his wife caught him. But I sat there like the faithful and obedient punching bag that I was, so I could continue to be dehumanized and berated over the phone in the name of a bi-weekly pay check.

But this is what you are instructed to do. You are encouraged, rewarded, and uplifted by your superiors for the way you let people speak to you in a manner that is truly vile. And you are reprimanded or even fired if you attempt to defend yourself from the likes of these deplorable dick-bags that call in. After all they must care for the customer above the employees.  No matter what a call-center tells you, they don’t give a flying fuck about their employees. Simply because the turnover rate for 18-35-year-old Americans, with little to no sales experience that need a job, is unsurprisingly high. Corporations like WOW! intentionally mass-produce employees that are void of a spine. They encourage you to be a doormat for your fellow man and then they call it “practicing and honing” your professional communication skills.  

However, there was nothing even remotely professional about WOW! Cable, internet, and Phone. They were a bunch of degenerate scum bags. They conveniently only offered their services in ridiculously low-income areas. And we were selling their garbage ass products and services to people that couldn’t afford anything else. The areas we serviced were Detroit, Southside Chicago, very specific neighborhoods in Columbus and Cleveland, Ohio, and a little town called Evansville, Indiana, where every single person spoke like Joe Dirt with a mouth full of rocks. Let’s just say that if you ever google map searched our service areas, the majority of it looked like something straight out of the TV show, The Wire. So, many of the customers we attracted were equally as shady as the dog-shit products that we were pushing. Subsequently, most sales calls were comprised of attempted fraud in the form of identity theft and almost always accompanied by some very vivid death threats. Threats directed towards me, when all I was just trying to do was inform a customer that it was in fact very illegal to attempt to purchase anything, let alone cable, using his dead grandmothers social security number. But I sat there and took my unnecessary ass-chewing from a legitimate criminal that I just caught, red-handed, in criminal activity because I needed the job.

The first time that a stranger tells you that they are going to drive to your call-center in Colorado and castrate you in the parking lot, it’s shocking. By the 1,368^th time that someone tells you they are going to kill you, you are desensitized by the regularity of it occurring. Hell, you almost want them to just go through with it so you don’t have to do talk to these people anymore.

So now that you’ve been trained and seasoned on this new-found (and very fucking skewed) idea of what professionalism really means, it begins to reflect in the way you interact with your supervisors and managers. As they expect you to be just as subservient to them as you are to the customers, no matter what they ask of you.

When you are interacting with your supervisor in a call center, it’s usually for something called a “QA Session.” This is a truly bizarre ritual that occurs weekly, where the two of you sit down and listen to a recorded call of you and a customer. Your supervisor will take notes and grade your performance based on how well you adhered to your, “sales script”. All the while, they are simultaneously oblivious to the fact that the customer just informed me of just how deep he wants to put his dick down my throat because we can’t match prices with Comcast or Time Warner. At the end of the call your supervisor will turn to you and begin to critique how you handled the situation.

“I’d be more than happy to get those services disconnected for you, Ma’am.” I said to a woman who had just explained to me that her husband had recently passed away, and she no longer needed cable because he was the only one in the house that watched TV. I canceled everything and scheduled for a technician to come to her house, disconnect the cable, and take the equipment away. As far as any decent human being should be concerned, I did the right thing. Trouble was that my supervisor was anything but decent.

“Are you fucking serious? How long have you worked here? How could you just let that opportunity for customer retention slip away?” My supervisor, Shannon sternly asked me these questions during one of our final QA sessions. These questions were in response to the way that I handled the aforementioned call. I was in disbelief. There was no way I was being chastised for showing compassion and understanding. “This can not be fucking real.” I thought as I tried to comprehend what the hell was going on. As Shannon continued to yell at me for letting a sale go, I realized this woman was just as ingenuine as her blatantly fake tits. I realized that this entire corporation was nothing more than fake tits.

Imagine, the ideal call that they were looking to hear from me.

A woman is grieving the loss of her goddamn soul mate, and you want me to pester her into subscribing to HBO?! That’s your definition of professional communication? Professionally, kiss my ass.

A true and well-versed communicator realizes that even when turning a profit is the goal, empathy and sincerity are the cornerstone to any effective form of discourse. Not this robotic and repetitious bullshit that is absent of any level of transferable emotion. Those that are truly successful in the business world are not drones that suckle on the teat of commission. They are tactful, ambitious, driven, and intelligent. And maybe if WOW! had reinforced those ideals instead of pushing an agenda so crooked that it would make a slumlord in Harlem find Jesus, they might still be in business.

**********

It took several hours to limp that broken truck home. I was cold, I was wet, and I was filthy from trying to fix the damn thing in the parking lot. But I was sincerely happy for the first time since I started that job, because I was no longer inhibited insincerity.

We have very little in this life that is actually in our control. The manner in which we communicate and where we go to make our money are a couple of things that we do have a grasp on. So, choose them both wisely. Your words are impactful. Your thoughts can resonate within others so much deeper than you ever thought possible. Know your worth. You are so much more than just the combination of numbers on your check. 

May Your Demons Never Die

On August 10^th, 2019 justice was served in a philosophical and almost poetic fashion inside of a jail cell inside the Metropolitan Correction Center, located in New York, NY. Inside of that cell lied the dead body of a pathetic coward, a pedophile, an accused sex trafficker, and someone so corrupted by wealth and power, that he himself became the human equivalent of a flesh-light for the worlds corrupt elite. This vile creature was none other than Jeffrey Epstein.

It’s never a somber day when someone like Epstein, who stripped the innocence from countless children, solidifies his well-deserved spot in the pits of hell. But there was a heavy note of sadness in the air that day because we knew that Epstein was just the beginning of something so much more important. But once again, the evils of this world had seemingly escaped justice.

Epstein (who at this time was already convicted of sex crimes with an underage women) was being held for an upcoming trial regarding his involvement in a child sex-trafficking operation. This operation was supposedly tied to a private island owned by Jeffrey Epstein. But to make matters even more interesting, a “little black book” that belonged to the accused had been leaked. This book was for all intents and purposes, a log of all the people that had visited and attended “special events” on Epstein’s island. Inside this book were the names of some of the world’s most elite; this includes athletes, actors, politicians, even the 42nd president of the United States.  

So this man was about to be on trial for a case that could potentially blow the lid off of all sense of order in the free world, and you want to tell me that he just couldn’t take it anymore and hung himself? Oh, and he supposedly did all of this in a maximum-security jail cell, while also being under twenty-four hour surveillance. I’m sorry, but that just seems to reside a bit too heavily on the side of coincidental.

Of course, I believe in coincidence. It’s unique and inexplicable nature is, in and of itself, proof that coincidence occurs all the time. However, I’m not so naïve that I will let you shit in my face and call it coincidence or tell me it got there by happenstance. And no one should be so naïve to the fact that Jeffrey Epstein under no circumstance, probability, or snow ball’s chance in hell, actually killed himself.

Jeffrey Epstein did not kill himself. He was murdered in the name of deception. He was killed so that the trial would never happen, and one of the largest cover-ups in the history of mankind never saw the light of day. And that would have been the case, had it not been for some brave young Americans and their affinity for memes.  

I’m as serious as a heart-attack, when I tell you that it was memes and a lot of them, that saved the Epstein story from falling into obscurity. For weeks on end, it was impossible to log on to any facet of social media and not receive the immediate and glorious barrage of memes, tweets, and posts that all contained the simple reminder that Epstein was without a goddamn doubt, murdered. This level of constant saturation finally became so powerful that even the mainstream media was forced to acknowledge its existence. It was so amazing to see so many people constantly reminding those that had eluded justice, that we know the truth and we will not let this lie.

But at the risk of seeming less than hopeful, I don’t know what will come of all this in the end. I have my doubts that the people guilty of committing and aiding to the underage sex crimes will ever see the justice they undoubtedly deserve. But at least, at the very least, they know that we the people are not so easily lied to and silenced after all. This is a sincere thank you to all of you that never let go of the truth. And while it may seem somewhat trivial to thank people for sharing memes, it was so much more than that.

The American people recognized and called bullshit on a tyrannical slew of lies, injustices, and suppressions. They refused to let this one go, and for a brief moment, a true sense of patriotism came flowing through this country like the river Nile. While it was brief, it was still a reminder of the raw power that the people of this country possess, and how volatile it can get when they really feel like exercising that first amendment.   

In keeping with the central ideas of political and social unrest that was derived from deception from the worlds most elite, I felt that there was only one adequate way to end this piece. A simple reminder from the angriest political group to ever jam in the name of eradicating corruption. A reminder to remain steadfast in the pursuit and maintenance of honesty.

“Hungry people don’t stay hungry for long, They get hope from fire and smoke as the weak grow strong, Hungry people don’t stay hungry for long, They get hope from fire and smoke as they reach for the dawn.” – Rage Against the Machine, 1999.

May the truth and all of it's stewards endure, always.

Purple Pinecones 

            There I stood a mere Private in the United States Army, being yelled at about a new tattoo that had mysteriously appeared on my leg, sometime during a period of summer leave. The person yelling at me went by the name of Staff Sergeant Russo. And Staff Sergeant Russo was the same individual, who was responsible to ensure that I maintained and exercised the upmost professionalism and military discipline at all times. So, you can probably imagine his dismay as his soldier showed up to a morning PT formation with a brand new, quite unusual, and most certainly permanent tattoo on his leg for everyone to see. He was unhappy to say the least, and he voiced his thoughts to me in an adequate fashion. I mean, honestly there was a lot to be upset about. First off, I got the tattoo about 1,500 miles away from where I was supposed to be on leave, it was (and still is) a matching tattoo with another person, and most importantly it is a tattoo of a purple pinecone. Yes, you read that correctly, I have a tattoo of a purple pinecone. So, I stood there and took my ear full (as privates do), and upon being asked by Russo “What in the hell does that stupid tattoo mean?” I responded by saying, “It’s just a purple pinecone, Sergeant.”

            Inside of a tattoo shop in Oceanside, California, my best friend Jace and I were drunkenly explaining to the confused tattoo artist as to why two grown men were in his place of business asking him to permanently mark their bodies with a pair of matching purple pinecones. As we rambled on and on about how long we had been friends and how much we wanted these tattoos, it turns out that the only explanation that that gentleman was looking for was cash. Because two hours and several hundred dollars later, Jace and I walked out of that shop with bright purple homages to the pine tree on our left thighs. As we both realized the unusual nature of these tattoos, we understood the meanings and motives would be heavily analyzed by all of our other friends and our families. So, I looked over at Jace and asked, “What are we going to say about these?”

            “It’s just a purple pinecone? What does that even mean? Is that the supposed to suffice as some kind of an answer? What kind of reputable tattoo shop would do such a stupid thing?” These are the types of questions that Staff Sergeant Russo was looking for the answers to but because of a promise made to my best friend years prior, I just kept responding with “It’s just a purple pinecone, Sergeant.” Eventually, Russo stopped with the third degree, made peace with the fact the pinecone wasn’t going anywhere, and let me go on my merry little way. What he didn’t understand, was I had told him the truth every time he asked me what the tattoo meant.

            Jace and I were eighteen years old, sitting on the side of the road waiting for our friend to give us a ride home. As we sat there waiting, both of us engaged in the kind of nonsensical conversation one can only have with their best friend, it happened. From the mighty tree above, a purple pinecone fell between the two of us. We remarked at how neither of us had ever seen a purple pinecone before, and how interesting of an occurrence this was. So, naturally we kept talking about it, long after our friend Tyler had already picked us up. So, when he finally (and rightfully) asked his friends why they were talking about a purple pinecone; for reasons I cannot explain to you, Jace and I decided to keep the purple pinecone and the wonderment of it’s unveiling, a secret from Tyler. This was nothing but a trivial effort to slightly frustrate a friend of ours. But as he grew more and more frustrated at the lack of an explanation he was receiving for the two of us, he kept digging deeper and deeper to discover what significance a purple pinecone could possibly hold for Jace and I. And even though we kept true to our vow of secrecy, we never lied when we told him repeatedly, “It’s just a purple pinecone, Tyler.”  

            “I am not asking you. I’m telling you. I need you to slap me in the goddamn face before we go up there or I will not be able to do this.” Jace said this to me as we were being ushered up to the front of the church, where in a few moments he would be delivering a eulogy for his older brother, Zachary. Zachary was taken away swiftly and without notice, and the grief I witnessed his younger brother go through while trying to cope with this insurmountable loss, was like nothing else I had ever seen before. So, when Jace asked me to stand by his side as he did one of the hardest things he’s ever done, I obliged. And if he needed a slap to the face to be able to stand in front of what seemed like a crowd of thousands, and read the words he had written for his brother, then who in the hell was I to deny him such a  wholehearted request? His father introduced Jace and I to the congregation of people and told them all that Jace had prepared a statement for his brother. We both stood to our feet and took a deep breath. I grabbed his right shoulder, and with my right hand I struck his left cheek just about as hard as I could. The crack of the slap echoed through that church until we reached the podium and Jace began to speak.

            While the tattoo was absolutely a derivative of our alcohol consumption that day, it was however not the brainchild of our drunken spontaneity or the result in a lapse of judgement. It was absolutely a planned event. It just so happens that Henry Mckenna helped us pull the trigger and just do the damn thing. There was and continues to be a level of mystery and frustration that exists around the purple pinecone tattoos. People seem to have an incredibly difficult time grasping that the tattoo is not nearly as meaningful as they try to make it out to be. On the other hand, it does require some form ideological or sentimental motivation to go through the purely unique experience of having a cluster of needles tear your skin apart at a rate of 3,000 punctures per minute.   

            When shit hits the fan and your life is utterly torn to shreds, people seem to comfort you with words. And even as some of the words are received and their sentiment of love and positivity are understood, sometimes they do little to ease the gaping wound that is in your soul. Sometimes, it is just the simple act of someone being with you and nothing more. They don’t try to rebuild you, as the pieces of what you once were, are now scattered across the floor. Instead, they just make sure you don’t lose track of the good pieces while you reconstruct yourself. They provide solidarity in the form of just being present. That is what Jace did for me when we were young. Long before the passing of his brother, long before the slap heard ‘round the church, long before the tattoos had meaning, Jace was there for me as my pieces were scattered. 

            “Blood is thicker than water.” Everyone has heard that expression, and most have mutilated the meaning over time. The real saying is “the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb.” What that means is that the relationships you make in this life and the ones you choose to keep in your inner circle  are the ones of the upmost importance. If you’re looking for a tattoo with meaning, look no further than the inside of my left forearm. 

            “Bair, I just simply don’t understand you.” My commander said that to me, one morning as he saw the buttstock of my rifle, which was labeled as “the property of: Purple Pinecone Bair”. Our unit armorer, who was also my next-door neighbor in the barracks, thought that my tattoo was something extraordinary and he had decided that it would become part of my title. And he was not the only one. At this point, the tattoo had gained a good amount of notoriety, infamy, and popularity amongst the ranks of us lower enlisted soldiers. Some saw it is as downright hilarious, some saw it as a way of “sticking it to the establishment”, and others shared the sentiment as my commander. Regardless, the purple pinecone had become more than just a physical part of who I was.   

            There is no ambiguity, yet there is still confusion. There is no grey area, yet the meaning seems lost in the fog of bewilderment. The pinecones exist, endure, and reciprocate exactly as they were intended, and that is beautiful. Do not become so immersed in the search for meaning that you ignore the blatant proof in front of your eyes. The meaning may not exist within the tangible ink stains of this paper or even between the lines of this text. But I can assure you, that I have never lied to you as I have said time and time again “It’s just a purple pinecone.”

Thought Provoking Thursday: Response 1 

“Are people losing their manners or are they becoming more precautious of one another?” 

              When I was growing up, my Father used to always tell me, “You can’t have two sets of manners.” And what he meant by that was, you should always be on your best behavior no matter who you’re interacting with. As much as I love my old man, and as much as I appreciate the sentimental message that he passed onto me, I must disagree. I must disagree wholeheartedly and for one reason, the very existence of my “customer service voice” disproves this theory. Through years of working through the gauntlet of customer service jobs, I have developed a way of speaking to customers that is so far detached from how I would normally communicate with people in my day to day life, that it’s not just an additional set of manners, It’s a whole other personality. And anyone that has ran through that tumultuous gambit of customer service, food service, and/or the dreaded call centers, know exactly what the hell I’m talking about. This new persona, this alter ego, it’s a gradual transformation that is developed over years of dealing with countless Sunday church crowds and Black Friday shoppers, who are quite honestly worse than rabid dogs. At least dogs don’t know how to ask for your fucking manager or leave scathing reviews on yelp. But eventually, you get used to getting screamed at over someone’s under-cooked food or a billing issue that was not your fault. So, instead of coming unglued and murdering someone in front of their family inside of an Outback Steakhouse, you learn to say insincere yet empathetic bullshit like “Oh my God! I’m so sorry that the plate of food that you ate, in its entirety, was so disgusting, I’d love to give you all your money back.” “What can I do to make sure you come back again and enjoy our fine Australian cuisine again? You’re a valued customer.” And then you walk back into the kitchen or the break room, you spit the fowl taste of corporate conflict resolution out of your mouth, and the real you comes out with a fury. You proceed to curse the entire lineage of an absolute stranger, you wish ungodly things to happen to them, and say borderline unspeakable shit about them. But, like the insincere fool you are, you smoke a cigarette, put on the same happy face, and do it all over again. That duality, that split between being sincere or being disingenuous, and how easily it can be done is, all be it, a little frightening. But I think that kind of ass kissing behavior correlates more with the idea of being on the side of precautious than an overall loss of manners. Because once you’ve had someone threaten to burn your house down over an increase in their internet prices, you know that some people are limitless in their irrationalities and are just not worth entertaining. But this precautious style of dealing with people can easily morph into a sense of “standoffishness”, that eventually finds its way into your day to day behaviors. And overtime this level of cynicism can overtake your worldview because you have to reserve your common courtesies for specific scenarios. Basically, we have faked ourselves out of manners.

              When I posted this “Thought Provoking Thursday” question on Instagram I received a barrage of responses in my DM’s. Everything from, “You should take your clothes off”, “No and yes”, “Feet pics?”, and let’s not forget all the penis related answers I received, but that’s what happens you ask the internet anything. Nonetheless, there was one diamond in the rough. A great friend of mine responded with “It’s not a matter of people being less polite or avoiding interaction, I think that it’s related to a misconception of entitlement.” He explained that some people feel as though they are entitled to some form acknowledgement, and he disagrees. For example, why do we have to feel obligated to “give the ol’ head nod” or “fake smile” whenever we pass someone that we barely know or don’t know at all. My friend views those social norms as disingenuous, and as a result he does not adhere to them, and that I can vouch for that one hundred and ten fucking percent. My friend is a no-nonsense Puerto Rican that can undeniably come across as a complete and total asshole to those that don’t know him. (Don’t get worked up, he’s my friend and he most likely read that description and was very flattered). But to those of us that do have the pleasure of calling him a friend, know that he is one of the most honest and caring human beings’ around, but he will not hesitate to tell you that you are fucking up in a major way. And his lack of patience and non-existent filter is, quite frankly, super refreshing because it’s not everyday you see someone being that true to themselves. 

              In conclusion, I don’t think that we have necessarily lost our manners, as much as we have misplaced them somewhere between shallow insincerity and a lack of basic human decency. If you can take anything away from this, be a little more like my ferocious Puerto Rican friend and be true to thine own self be true.

Demonize the Conversation, Ignore the Problem

              “There I sat, alone and vulnerable inside the confines of my home. I was attempting to process this new gaping wound that was growing ever deeper into my psyche. I had just witnessed the worst possible thing imaginable; it was so deplorable though I can’t seem to even gather the words to describe it. It was fundamentally fucked, fucked on every plausible level. I will never be the same after having those images and those sounds forever seared into my brain. And the last thing I want is for any person to ever have to witness the atrocities that I did. I will do all I can to make sure that this man, if you can call him that, and his actions linger and echo on forever in infamy. I’m referring of course to Dave Chapelle’s new stand up special Sticks and Stones.”

              

               That opening quote was taken from Vice’s actual website, only three hours after Dave Chappelle released the aforementioned comedy special on Netflix. OK, that’s not even a little true. The quote, the Vice news portion, the gaping wound in the film critics psyche, it’s all purely fictitious. But you fucking believed it for a second, didn’t you? Yeah, you did. And why wouldn’t you? Critics and journalists alike, lost their ever-loving minds over an hours’ worth of jokes from a comedian, a comedian that had an existing reputation for being controversial. But that sure as hell didn’t stop people who apparently have the emotional fortitude of a toddler, from getting online in droves and ugly crying all over the fucking place, about what a stranger said, on a program they watched on their own volition. And in all honesty, if you went onto Vice, Buzzfeed, or the Huffington Post right now, and searched for anything relating to Dave Chapelle, that little made up quote of mine would not seem made up or out of place in the slightest.

              Controversial or not, that special was outstanding! As far as relevance being communicated and examined through comedy, it does not get any more poignant than Dave Chapelle’s Stick and Stones. And even more important than all that, that special was fucking hysterical! Now, if you haven’t seen it, it must be mentioned that the subject matter was undeniably atrocious. Chapelle opens the special by making a joke regarding the suicide of Anthony Bourdain, and it only gets darker as he goes on. Everything from gender studies to school shootings received some spotlight during Sticks and Stones. So, let’s see here, we have suicide, outrage over gender, and gun violence particularly by and towards young people, yep, that sounds like America. Sounds a lot like an American comedian got on stage and told some jokes about what was going on in his country. That should not be controversial, but it is because we live in the Golden Age of censorship.  

              Welcome to the era in which we have devolved so far as a society, that we have replaced the facilitation of conversation, with the veil of safety and comfort that is provided by silence. Why, if we live in such trying times, do we seem so fucking adamant on remaining oblivious to it. Our country sucks right now, and that’s why Chapelle’s jokes hit so many people in the gut. That was his intention. We will never see resolution if irrational anger and painful shrieks are the only things we can provide during and unpleasant discourse. Our country sucks right now, but that’s right now, and we can fix it. We can fix it, if we are able to take a minute and acknowledge that we live in very dark times, times where we are forced to find the light in things like school shootings and sexual assault. But that’s all we are surrounded with on a daily basis, that is the reality that we have constructed.

However that’s the same reality in which a guy that used to jump around on Comedy Central saying things like, “I’m Rick James, Bitch!” and “What do the five fingers say to the face?” just made sixty million fucking dollars for speaking the truth disguised as jokes. What a time to be alive.

              Just remember, take the time to examine not just the content but the overall message, you may be surprised what you are able to discover.

Here We Go Again

              So, there I was, yet another young black man who had fallen victim to the gang culture of early nineties South Central San Andreas. My Christian name was Carl, but I was known on the streets and among my gang as CJ. I had been brought into this life by factors and influences that seemed out of my control at the time. But by the grace of God I had escaped that death trap of an existence that I was once caught inside. However, my new life suffered a massive blow when I found out that my mother had been murdered. She had been killed in what they were calling “a gang related shooting”, and I knew that this was a direct repercussion of my running away from home with so many things left unfinished. But no longer, I swore that I would get my ass back to San Andreas, avenge my mother, and clean up the mess I left behind. Before I could even get out of the car, I felt myself devolving right back into the same gang banger I thought I had left behind. I was boosting cars, I was murdering any mother fucker in the wrong color, I was senselessly  and mercilessly gunning down people on the streets , I was killing cops like it was my damn job, and most importantly I was getting fucking paid. In between all this brutality and bloodshed, I somehow found plenty of time to run a drug empire, be a ruthless pimp, and reclaim my spot as the OG of my neighborhood. Now, you may think that living a life as violent and reckless as I did may have worn heavy on my conscience, but to your dismay, it doesn’t even phase me one bit. And that’s primarily because I did all those things not as a young black man in San Andreas (which is the entirely fictional setting of a Grand Theft Auto video game ), but as a twelve year old white boy in Colorado Springs, Colorado. I committed all these atrocities digitally, in my friend Nate’s living room, through a Playstation 2 controller, and most likely with Cheeto dust on my fingers.  

            

I am a product of violent video games. I grew up playing some of the most ultra-violent video games the world has ever known. From a young age, I witnessed the ruthlessly graphic finishing moves in Mortal Kombat at the end of each fight. I remember playing a samurai game called Shinobi, that was a just a brutal gore fest of chopping other samurai to bits as you saved the world. I played every single grand theft auto game, I had notebooks filled with cheat codes that would make these games even more sinister at my own volition. I played them all growing up, and never, not one damn time, did I feel compelled by those games, those works of fiction, to go out and murder because I had lost my ability differentiate between reality and fiction. It’s just downright fucking absurd to say that video games have the level of influence required to create a mass murderer from nothing.   

              We love nothing more than to blame the inanimate. And why not? It’s so much easier than to grasp onto the tangible evidence of our shortcomings. Modern day America is the poster child for depravity and degradation, and we seem to be in a perpetual state of ignorance to this fact. We are a country that has become drastically more violent for decades, and instead of figuring out what in the actual fuck is causing our fellow man to continue to murder in cold blood, we have launched multiple campaigns advocating the damnation of objects. Congratulations American politicians and self-righteous soccer moms alike, for making such a profound fucking impact on the world and the safety of its people. We have put the blame on everything from cap guns to hip hop, as potential reasoning for why children are growing up to commit such putrid acts of hate. But all this is for not, because the reason is us. The prevalence of violence on video games, movies, and TV’s is just a direct response to our society. The games are only getting more violent because the consumers thirst for those senseless video games has only gotten stronger, because they need it, they crave it, they know nothing else. They have already been desensitized by real violence for most of their lives. So, what is a video game compared to the real thing? After all, these are the kids that grew up around television sets that were constantly exposing them to footage of the attacks on September 11^th, the active combat zones in Afghanistan and Iraq, police shootings, and countless school shootings. All of these examples of such prevalent violent factors weighing on young, developing psyches, and you want to say that it’s a video game that has caused these young people to have massive mental breakdowns that result in murderous outbursts? Seems a lot like people ignoring mental health problems because they’re the big scary monster that we like to pretend doesn’t exist. 

              It just seems so fucking audacious to claim that a sequence of moving pictures, covering a narrative and following a story, could really drive someone to a dark enough place to take the life of another human being for no reason whatsoever. That place is vile, that place is void of redemption, and that place is dug into deeper and deeper over the years. Years of being berated, abused, and violated by every medium life has to offer.

Just imagine a life where your only association with the rest of humanity has been persistently negative. You were ridiculed and bullied as a child and into early adulthood, shown nothing but disgust and rejection by the opposite sex, and most likely you’ve been horribly abused by someone you once trusted. As a result, your mind wanders to some pretty dark places and you begin to welcome ideas of vindication through violence. You know that these ideas are wrong, so you seek help. You are asked some generic questions about what people your age are supposed to be feeling and based on your answers, you’re given pills for an anxiety disorder. But the pills only change your perception and put a spin on reality, they don’t do anything to change how people treat you, and now you’re in the same rut as before except now you have some really neat little chemicals swimming around your brain. So, there you are confused as to why you even sought help in the first place. That feeling is called hopeless. That is when your final slip into madness begins. That is when you put your guard down and let those vengeful thoughts encompass your mind. You’ve written your manifesto, you’ve researched military tactics online, you’ve bought all the necessary equipment to carry a proper load of ammunition and supplies, you’ve got yourself a firearm, and most importantly, you’re out of your fucking mind and ready to become a killing machine. After you commit your massacre, and you are undoubtedly killed (either by your own doing, or you got plugged full of holes by law enforcement), rest assured that nothing will change, and your death will have been in vain. See, despite your overwhelming background and history with terrible circumstance, that has been proven over and over to be the building blocks for violent behavior, your face will be on the news next to a picture of some camouflage clad, assault rifle toting, militant looking mother fucker, all because the FBI found a copy of Call of Duty in your Xbox. Then parents with children that have symptoms just like yours, won’t have to face the fact that they have a  potential monster on their hands, and they can just ground him from video games instead of dealing with his demons.

 As long as we keep objectifying these acts of violence, resolution and peace will remain nothing more than fallacies.

             

Nothing is sacred

If there was even an attempt to shed any form of human decency on the victims of the Dayton and El Paso shooting sprees by the mainstream media, it was fucking microscopic at best. The overwhelming need to expose just how audacious these scumbags must be, to desecrate the fallen, the innocent, and forever cement their legacies as political propaganda is paramount now more than ever. Journalistic credibility has reached a monumental fucking low in this nation.

In a matter of seven days, thirty-four innocent Americans were gunned down in cold blood. Two of these massacres occurred on the same day, only hours apart. When news of that nature and severity, news that carries the weight of the fucking world upon it, when news like that needs to be delivered to the rest of the world, as a major media outlet, your first reaction should not be to take advantage of the dead before they’re even cold. You should offer condolences, sincere unbiased condolences to those affected and remain silent in regard to those that were senselessly murdered. But that’s not what happened, these spineless bastards made a circus out of dead bodies.  

While all the usual culprits of the media had their share of overt pieces of propaganda, CNN has been the ring leader of this shit storm of utterly appalling news coverage, making some of the most far reaching and asinine arguments for gun control to date. For example, there is an article in CNN’s “Opinion” section. Quick side note, CNN’s “Opinion” section is truly something to behold, if you enjoy reading the unfiltered thoughts of some over-privileged grad students, as they take you through the blunders of real life in America and a whole slew of other shit they just don’t understand. Some of the articles they publish are truly hilarious in all the wrong ways. Side note over. The article is literally and word for word titled “Mother brings ashes of child lost to gun violence to interview”. First of all, what kind of blood-sucking leeches would even want to be apart of something that intimate? The kind of leeches that have an unfathomable amount of money to be made off political persuasion. Is your political gain so great from something like this, that it’s worth forfeiting your soul? The title to that article alone is infuriating, but it’s the unflinching exploitation of the loss of a little girl at the expense of her grieving mother. And for fucking what, so you can write another piece on gun control, stir some feathers with some controversial subject matter, and literally make no fucking difference to the actual political landscape of this country? But the most disheartening aspect this whole mess, is this is only one of thousands of articles, by thousands of repulsive excuses for journalists. I sincerely hope that each and everyone one of these degenerate parasites is preparing for their special place in hell.    

These most recent mass shootings haven’t been the first massacres to be mangled to bits by the media, and they most certainly be the last. But hot damn, the coverage has been especially outrageous in this instance. But why wouldn’t the media be at most depraved right now? After all, the smell of election season is in the air. That special time when the country is most in need of the likes of Anderson Cooper and Sean Hannity to tell them where to cast their votes. The time when informed reason and logic are thrown to the wayside in the name of a party affiliation and morals are hung up for the season. And this media fiasco that we are caught up in right now is just the beginning. Prepare yourself for the onslaught of lies and dishonesty, all delivered hot and fresh to the American people in the name of the greater good.

As fucked and as blatantly cynical as it may sound, the harsh reality is that these will not be the last mass shootings in this country, and these kinds of wrongfully motivated exploitation pieces will follow closely behind each new tragedy that we encounter as a country. But if we can remind ourselves that we are not conservatives or liberals, we are not just Americans, we are human beings then we can remember that we have the power to limit the exposure and ramifications of the pointless dribble that the mainstream media forces down our throats. We are human beings capable of dissociating ourselves from all this political bullshit. We are able to walk without our chosen partisan crutch. If these attributes are properly exercised, then maybe, just maybe the next tragedy won’t have to be raped, mutilated, and ultimately forgotten. We can stop wasting our breath on futile arguments like gun control and address the real issue at hand, which is a blatant disregard for our fellow man.

The People V. Lenny Bruce

              The cornerstone of all privileges afforded to the American citizen is the right to free speech. The Founding Fathers described this right as inalienable, meaning that under no circumstance, is it to be stricken from the possessor or infringed upon by an outside entity. The ability to publicly express one’s ideas, convictions, and beliefs without the fear of censorship or punitive repercussions from the government is paramount to the preservation of our liberties and freedoms. But the provision of that liberty has been violated over and over again by a government that speaks at great lengths about the necessity of defending our freedoms, but their statements lack the ability to resonate because they are void of any truth. The US government has been a forefront proponent for censorship for nearly a hundred years now, and instead of realizing the hypocrisy of their violations of a constitutional right, they continue to market their attempts to silence the outspoken as doing what’s best for the country. Once the mediums for challenging authority are made unavailable to the public, the power shift is complete, and our rights become nothing more than ink on paper. 

To put it in terms that are a bit less eloquent, yet still just as prolific, American comedian Lenny Bruce said it best, “If you can’t say ‘Fuck’ you can’t say, ‘Fuck the government.’” Due to the nature of hundreds of statements like that, Bruce was under constant scrutiny from multiple law enforcement agencies during his career as a stand-up comedian. He was not only a brilliant storyteller, with an ability to convey poignant and eye-opening topics to has audience in a very specific form of social satire. He was light-years ahead of his time in terms of pushing the boundaries of what free speech really meant. Bruce’s mission was not to maliciously attack or offend through his comedy, his motivation was exploitation. No level of hypocrisy or underlying pretense was safe from the beautifully cynical mind of Lenny Bruce. He was outlandish, foul, obscene, disrespectful, but most importantly, he was a fucking champion in the fight against censorship in the United States.

Before an adequate understanding of the cultural shockwave that ensued as a result of his stand-up comedy can be established, an understanding of the time in which all these events took place is vital. Lenny Bruce began performing his signature style of boisterous, raunchy, yet undoubtably insightful comedy in the 1950’s. It was an odd period in time for a voice like Lenny Bruce. The American people were still incredibly conservative, rooted firmly in Christianity, and unflinchingly loyal to their government. Bruce was an outsider to the majority; he did not fit any of those classic American normalities. In other words, if America was still apple pies and white picket fences, Bruce was raw meat and ghettos. If America was still church on Sundays and subservient to the same, Bruce was a black mass of disobedience. His bits on stage were different than his predecessors because he was conscientious to the fact that he was belittling the sacred and speaking on topics that people viewed as forbidden. He was stirring the pot and he knew it. As the years went on, despite multiple arrests for obscenity and being involved in a congressional battle to determine whether or not he was in fact obligated to express himself. Bruce never eased up on his subject matter. If anything, he became more vulgar, explicit, and angry, yet he simultaneously became more socially conscience and articulate. His ability to provide factual backing to his comedic cynicisms was his greatest attribute as an entertainer, but also the reason he was viewed as an enemy to the state.

The coup de grace of Bruce’s metaphorical middle finger to the establishment came in the form of one of his final performances entitled, “The Berkeley Concert”. During the seventy-eight minutes that he spent on stage that evening in 1965, he shed light on every false virtue existing in American culture in an even more “no holds-barred” style, than ever before. To get up on stage at this point in time and tell a joke in which he compared the Catholic church to the likes of the Communist regime in Vietnam, based on the idea that both entities are struggling for an institutionalized way to control those around them, was considered far beyond taboo. He stood upon this stage and further exploited those who were suppressing his first amendment right. In an unprecedented manner, he went after the US Supreme Court. Up to this point, Bruce had been arrested on eight separate misdemeanor obscenity charges, been through six trials in four cities, spent four years in and out of court and jail, he had been represented by over a dozen different attorneys, had carried his case to the highest appellate court in the United States, and remained unphased through it all. He addressed his issues with the Supreme Court in his typical blunt fashion by stating “Now the Supreme Court, right now there’s some bullshit now with obscenity. There’s an obscenity circus that’s been going on for five years… A lot of the confusion maybe with the obscenity laws is this: it’s that the judges who are confused just didn’t read.” That statement carries a substantial amount of weight, because here was a comedian that was basically saying he was more well versed in obscenity laws than the members of the Supreme Court. After establishing himself as a superior subject matter expert than those attempting to silence him, he presents two arguments that were detrimental to any remaining opposition that he was facing.

First off, Bruce stated, “If a guy can tear off a piece of ass with class, then he’s cool.” Meaning that it’s not the subject on which someone is vocalizing a personal view upon, it’s the manner in which that point of view is delivered. To expand on that idea, the reason Bruce was always in hot water was not necessarily his context but the colorful language in which he used to get his point across. Bruce was basically saying that not one member of law enforcement would give a damn about his comedy if he wasn’t so profane. Bruce was of the mind that his use of foul language was protected under his right to free speech, and there were obviously many in agreeance, as he was still performing for a large fan base. That brings us to Bruce’s second argument toward the unconstitutional nature of his arrests. He said, “the court has no hostility for me, they have hostility for the people that defend me.” The truth behind that statement is absolute. The US Government would not have bat an eye if Bruce had no following, because without people who were interested in or influenced by his words, they presented no danger of altering the existing ideals, beliefs, and rules of society. Bruce was criminalized by the government not because of what he had to say, but because of what he represented. He represented a clairvoyant type of citizen that was not only aware of his or her rights, but also intellectual enough to exercise them in such a way that would inevitably cause that person to question the powers that be. And if there is one thing that a government fears, it is an inquisitive population. Inquisition evokes progress, progress impedes tradition, and when tradition is found useless, the need for new leadership is brought up.

Take a moment and reflect on the fact that the US government, during a time in which the country was in some of its worst civil unrest ever, they allowed the Supreme Court to pursue an unconstitutional conviction on man who made his living telling dirty jokes. That right there, is the raw power that is free speech.  

Fast forward to 2019, and the effects of Lenny Bruce’s will to continue utilizing his freedom of expression can still be felt today. He laid the groundwork for future generations of outspoken Americans to challenge their government and use the first amendment as it was intended. Throughout the years, the American people had become increasingly more brazen in their vocal opposition of their elected leadership, and Lenny Bruce is amongst the ranks of those that made that possible. However, the government has also become overtly shameless in their attempts to censor our voices. Their immediacy to invalidate and label any opposing views or points as hate speech is outrageous. Subsequently, the American people have become fearful of the repercussions that one could face for simply possessing an unpopular view or conviction, thus they have become silent.

One of the only mediums of personal expression that has remained somewhat untainted and unafraid is stand-up comedy. Honestly speaking, you could gain more cultural insight to what’s actually going on this country through listening to the routines of a great deal of stand-up comedians, than you would receive through any major news outlet. For example, any major network’s program that is supposed to be reporting a factually based new cast to the American people, is so hindered by stipulations from organizations like the FCC, that you will never get the whole story on fucking anything. It’s all watered-down dribble. But the beauty of stand-up comedy is that nothing is sacred, and nothing is safe.  A joke, even if it is controversial, is purely an interpersonal expression on a certain topic provided to you by someone else, from which you can process your own ideas  from, and that is called inference, something you used to be able to do with the news. 

It is a goddamn crying shame that we can gain a better contextual understanding of our current events from the likes of paid entertainers, than we can from those whose job it is to provide said context. This is censorship and an overbearing government firing on all fucking cylinders.

In conclusion, be more like Lenny fucking Bruce and express yourself. You are an American citizen with a cemented right and an ability to speak your mind. You can be controlled and constrained in various facets of life, but the one goddamn thing that you possess entirely and free from all restrictions is your intellect. As our liberties are rapidly diminishing, never forget that you can only be silenced through submission.

                                                             Man Inherits the Consequence

     The wilderness is the only true sanctuary for mankind. There is a certain and untainted feeling of serenity that is only attained, when you are in nothing more than the presence of nature. The raw majesty that this world has to offer us is nearly indescribable. The sense of clarity that overcomes a person when they detach from the tribulations of the modern world, and return to their roots is like none other.  The connection of man to the dirt from whence he came is a paramount personal development. However, these astounding, prolific, or down right spiritual experiences that we have available to us are ultimately finite. There must be cohesion between what the earth provides to us and what we take.

     This planet is splendid, and what a blessing it is that we have this gorgeous place to spend our existences. However, and this obviously comes as no surprise, some people have taken their home for granted. How many times must we be reminded that the earth, as resilient as it may seem, is only as durable as we allow. In other words, we need to start taking care of our planet or we will reap the loss.  

     I have recently moved back home to my hometown of Colorado Springs, Colorado. I have never been more ecstatic to be anywhere, knowing that I can once again call the greatest place on God’s green earth my home. I have a deep love for this city, but from a young age, my parents instilled me with a fascination for nature. They made sure that I understood how incredibly lucky I was to have the opportunity to grow up in an environment where my backyard was heaven on earth. I grew up a stone’s throw away from destinations that some people spend their whole lives dreaming about. I grew up in a state that has inspired legendary works of art. But this lovely slice of nirvana has become victim to laziness and blatant disrespect.  

     One of the very first days that I was home, I went on a hike in an area called Old Stage Road with a great friend of mine. It was beautiful, it was refreshing, and most importantly it was everything I had missed about Colorado. I was home and I was at peace.  But as the day progressed, a somber feeling of disappointment was cast over us. As we continued our trek through the mountains, my friend showed me several areas that were not only littered with tremendous amounts of garbage, but there was visible damage to the landscape that was the result of both negligence and malice. The damage done to an area that had been maintained in such a pristine manner in my memories was surreal. It felt like I had been gone for hundreds of years and I was being shown some kind of post-apocalyptic wasteland.

     When vandalism of this magnitude happens to something that is loved by so many, it does not go unnoticed. And normally drawing attention to an issue like this would be a good thing, except for the fact that the Sheriff’s department was the one tasked with cleaning up this mess.

     The El Paso County Sheriffs department is posted up all along the main access points to various sections of Old Stage Road as they are on the lookout for hood rats, who are trying to do hood rat shit. I for one am grateful that they have put a foot down, and that they have made a presence in an attempt to police up the unruly out-of-towners, the mouth-breathers, the abusers, the straight up idiots, and anyone else who is destroying our wonderful mountain ranges. Despite my respect for what the sheriff’s department is doing up there, I must admit that I feel conflicted by their presence. I keep referring back to the freedom and serenity that one can feel in nature, but those feelings get a little harder to come by when the 5-0 is monitoring your hike. It’s kind of difficult to feel at one with nature when there are camera’s that are normally reserved for monitoring wildlife, that are now being used to ensure that you don’t leave your clif bar wrappers and your empty beer cases on the ground, a place that a great deal  of people have somehow mistaken for a dumpster. It seems like we’re at a catch twenty-two; on one hand we don’t want the po-po sticking their noses in our times of exploration, but we also can’t keep letting simple minded shit heads destroy what we love. What are we to do with this situation? Well how about for starters, we clean up after ourselves so that the police don’t have to monitor yet another facet of our lives.

     The problem that we are faced with here is grand in its magnitude and potential for irreversible damage, but the solution is elementary. With just a little bit of physical effort we can begin to make a tangible difference on the way that we will leave this earth. The time for ideologies is over.  

     The very grounds that we love to worship as our home have been desecrated, and we have done nothing about it. Sure, we’ve talked about it… A LOT. As a matter of fact, the condition of the earth is one of the most talked about issues in the American media.  There are more commercials, more ads full of guilt, and more self-indulgent political agendas that are all based on the idea of saving the earth than we have heart strings to be pulled upon. Yet our actions remain stagnant. We remain the steadfast, stewards of nothing. The trend of caring has become more important than the actual act of caring. So instead of talking about changing the world, or relying on some other entity to do it for you,  go get your hands dirty and start making a difference. For those of you in the Colorado Springs area, The Bearded Bastards Off-Road Club has set aside time on this upcoming Saturday June 8, 2019 to pick up garbage and do some restoration work along Old Stage Road. If you are interested in helping or have any questions at all, please refer to any of the links or contacts below. For those of you reading this anywhere else in the country, whether or not you are a disciple of the outdoors, I hope that I have peaked your interest and your cognizance, in the importance of caring for this wonderful home that we have.

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                                                       The Necessity of Progression

Complacency will be the death of us. We must never forget that one of the only things that we are entitled to in this life is the pursuit of happiness. We are given the ability to create our own destinies. What a remarkably romantic idea, the idea of true freedom, where the only parameters on your outcome in life are self-made. Through the years, the pursuit of happiness seems to have been replaced by a bland chase for steady comfort. We tame and subdue our aspirations for an ideal of success. The beauty of the American Dream is the appeal of the seemingly flawless success narrative that has been told generation after generation. School. Job. Work. Retire. Die. Repeat. However, that path is void of creation and hinders on the principles of free will. Freedom is our favorite word, but are we in an environment in which we are able to actually reap the benefits of freedom?

Indeed we are! Even though there is an overbearing sense of pressure on those who strive to stray from the pre-destined expectations of the aforementioned narrative of the American Dream. We are able to chase any light we so choose. Never forget that, and never concern yourself with the sea of voices coming from those who have lived a life of complacency. They are always the first to demonize the dreams of someone who longs for more than the norm. But those people are stagnant, and nothing good comes from a lack of motion or progress. Constantly be moving forward, be forever evolving, and never succumb to the fear associated with venturing on your own.   

When you make a drastic change in your life, it violently disrupts the norm of the day to day. The ripple effect that can come from the consequences of a huge decision is profound. It causes a whirlwind of different emotions. The back and forth of happiness and sadness may have you so far beside yourself, you feel completely detached. Henceforth, the paranoia comes in to frame. Yet we must embrace this particular episode of anxiety and know that we are moving forward due to our own will to progress. 

Change is complicit with fear. The two go hand in hand. But when you feel a deep, guttural feeling of an abrasive sense of nervousness, that’s the good fear! That’s the kind that is onset by leaving behind the comfortable state of life that you have become so grossly accustomed to. And that’s the kind that usually means that you’re on the right path. We as a species have an inherent desire to take the path of least resistance. It’s in our DNA. And that’s precisely why embracing these crashing waves of overbearing anxiety is implicit to our development. When you do so, you stop dipping your toes into the water; you take that leap, and flip the script on your entire life. And it is fucking terrifying. You are thrust into a seemingly brand new existence, starting from scratch, and all alone. But then, once you’re entirely committed to your new path, the terror turns to euphoria as the realization of your new freedom cascades over you. It is at that moment you realize that your life is truly in your control. You have nothing left to fear. 

Never suppress your purpose for a comfortable life. Constantly be aware of your mortality and the finite changes we make in our lives, in contrast to what we speak about accomplishing. In other words, fucking be about it. Make this life into whatever you see fit.

                                 Seek and Restore 

It’s an overwhelming sense of doom that lies dormant inside your chest. While it remains still, the world is yours, but when it decides to stir, it can reduce you to a mere speck of yourself. It labors your breathing as the palpable sense of paranoia creeps in along side. It jacks your heart rate like cocaine, while it makes the walls feel like they are getting closer and closer. It puts you in a place devoid of all hope. And before you know it, you think that you’re looking death straight in it’s hideous face. You are forced to begin a process of rationalizing with your own psyche, as you attempt to regain control of your mind and body. At this point your pupils are dilated, you’re sweating, you’re afraid, and most of all you’re completely at the will of this beast called anxiety. 

For a lack of better words, anxiety is a mother fucker. It reduces you to your most feeble and vulnerable state at the drop of a hat. And the only thing more terrifying than actually sticking out episode after episode, is simply asking for help. Those that suffer from anxiety tend to characterize a need for help as a sign of weakness, or may feel that no one is able to empathize with the chaos in their minds, no matter how present or willing someone may be to do so for them. It’s an ultimately humbling experience,
 having to tell someone you know that (to a certain extent) you’re not in control of your own emotions. It feels like you’re admitting defeat towards the slightest adversities of daily life. It feels like saying “I just fucking suck at living”, and that’s a dangerous feeling to have. Because from there you start to compare yourself with all of your counterparts, who seem to flawlessly execute day to day life without these draining little episodes chipping away at their inner stability. The embarrassment that comes along with uttering the phrase “I need help”, is such a deep and painful kick in the pride, that it’s no wonder people continue to just “ride the lightning” and deal with this state of mental deterioration on their own terms and in secret.

The term “ride the lightning” comes from the sense of dealing with something so profoundly difficult or ridiculous, that you have no choice but to just hang on for the ride. And in some aspects it’s a good little mantra to live by, in the way that it reminds you that somethings in this life are just out of your control. It’s imperative to that understand that some situations that you encounter must be faced with a lackluster attitude of “fuck it”, and should be quickly laid to rest, so that you don’t become a slave to your past misfortunes. However, some of the shit that happens to us can reach far beyond the scope of our own fortitudes and understandings. The nature of this life is not a delicate one, and that can be made clearly evident in the blink of an eye. Anxiety does not announce when it’s coming towards you, it appears expeditiously and aggressively. Once it has found you, it can rip you to shreds on the inside before you’ve even had the chance to process what the fuck just happened. Anxiety can find an opening and burrow it’s way deep into whatever wounds have been left open, the ones we were too afraid to express to others. And this is where the real dangers of an untreated or repressed mental condition can begin to take shape. 

Once more, and a little bit louder for the people in the back, anxiety is a fucking mental condition. It is not a feeling that can be turned on and off like a switch. It’s not just a bad mood. It’s a chemical imbalance that has an incredibly unfortunate stigma of weakness and blatant misunderstandings attached to it. Those without anxiety seem to have a difficult time empathizing with those who do because from the outside looking in, it’s like watching someone you love get caught up in a tornado while they do nothing to save themselves. When someone has an anxiety disorder they can quickly go from being the happy go lucky loved one you that you know so well, to being unbearably irritable, carelessly self-destructive, abruptly distant, and completely fucking irrational. This combination of behaviors and mood swings causes a misunderstanding, that subsequently causes a severely damaging way of treating anxiety. See, the person without anxiety can’t understand the intricacies of the one that has it, because most of the time the one suffering is too afraid to open up and show someone else these demons that they carry within, so they bury those mother fuckers deep down inside of themselves. From there, they normally hop on one of two paths; a path of self medication, via drugs or alcohol, or a path of loneliness so that  they don’t have to burden anyone else with their struggles. But nine times out of ten, these paths are going to converge at a similar point, and it’s hardly ever inside of a therapists office or with an introspective epiphany. Instead it seems that when loneliness and self medication come to a head after years of denial and repression, they tend to show up when the person is surrounded by nothing more than the thoughts in their head. Thoughts of dread, worry, pain, sadness, anger, regret. The thoughts get more boisterous and over powering every day and as a result, the self medicating gets heavier and heavier in attempt to suppress the noise inside of their heads. The walls that they have constructed, in order to remain in isolation, have grow taller and taller. Then one day when the thoughts have become too powerful to run away from and the walls are just too much to get through, a glimmer of relief creeps in and presents to them a resolution. It seems frightening and painful at first, but any reprieve from this current state of life is welcomed at this point. They sit there in a moment of contemplation, with the sharp edge of a knife held to their wrist or the cold steel of a gun barrel pressed against the roof of their mouth and in a moment of desperation and irrationality, they free themselves from their tortured lives.  

According to a study by the National Center for Biotechnology Information there is a correlation between anxiety/panic disorders and suicide attempts. And statistically speaking, roughly 123 Americans take their lives everyday, averaging about 44,965 suicides a year according to the Center for Disease Control. Those numbers increase every single year without fail, and will continue to do so until we get a fucking grip on how to handle mental health issues in this country. 

Before we go any further, I want you to know that I am very aware that there are many more mental disorders than just anxiety. There is a plethora of disorders that are mislabeled and left untreated, that can also lead to suicide. But I needed somewhere to break the silence and start the conversation on mental health, so I chose the one that I know all too well. For years I was petrified to open up to anyone about my anxiety, because I had succumbed to the idea that even just having these waves of fucked up emotions that I was engulfed in, or God forbid sharing these feelings with someone, would somehow make me less of a man. And thank God, I have a support system of friends and family that assured me that is not the case. But not everyone who suffers is always fortunate enough to be afforded that avenue. It’s time to change that once and for all.

The fact that having a disorder or asking for help is still demonized in this day and  age is so ass backwards, it makes my head spin. The progressive need for hyper-sensitivity towards everything and everyone, seems to be oozing out of every facet of today’s society besides mental health. We have come leaps and bounds in the realm of psychology and psychiatric treatments, but for the most part we still act like cavemen when it comes to helping our fellow man in times of need. When we can’t get through to someone with any kind of disorder we resort to telling them to “act normal” or “fucking get it together”, instead of “I love you” or “I’m here for you, even though I do don’t understand you.” And sometimes we just jump right into the good old American approach of sedation through medication. This mistreatment of mental health is the greatest problem we face in the United States. Larger than the devastating suicide rates. Larger than the growing rates of violent crimes. And even worse than the rampant opioid crisis. Because our deplorable handlings of those with mental conditions, is the roots from which all of the others stem.  

Look I’m not a one man army with a mission to make the world a perfect place, where there’s a total absence of suicides, violence, and drugs. All I’m trying to do is break through the static and get people to start talking about how to handle the root problem, to a multitude of other issues so that we might see some actual resolution. We’ve exercised all of our methods to try and “fix” the people, everything from legislative disasters, prescribing heroin disguised as medicine, institutionalization, but nothing has caused any reformation and we are worse off than ever. The only thing we haven’t tried, is addressing the big embarrassing elephant in the room, and that’s the fact that we’re all a little fucked up. And that’s ok, as long as we make it ok to talk about. So please if you are suffering from any kind of disorder, or someone you know is, then please, please, please reach out to someone and reach out quickly. In these circumstances, time is of the essence and a simple gesture of kindness towards someone in pain can create an entirely different outcome, one that doesn’t involve someone you love becoming another statistic to a failed system. 

The Suicide Hotline: 1-800-273-8255

The Crisis Text Line: Text CONNECT to 741741