Part 2: The Dangers of Prescription Ideas

A spiritualist, a dancer, and someone like me all walk into a bar. They take a seat. They indirectly exchange a few uneasy breaths whilst the alcohol and cigarette smoke loosen the cogs of conversation.  The dancer is the first to speak. The dancer has heard that someone like me doesn’t think anyone is special. This is what breaks the silence...

We could quite literally be walking on to the fucking end of days. The human race under tension is a not-so-funny thing to watch or to be caught up in. I can feel the nicotine from my last cigarette stretching out over my shoulder blades whilst the fan behind me blows cool air on to the back of my ears creating the short-lived auditory hallucination of being at the top of a mountain gazing out over madness. I quite fancied myself a lie down with a podcast discussing the links between trauma and addiction, but it would appear there are more pressing matters to attend to.

Did you know, every time I drive my motorbike around the streets of Phu Quoc, Vietnam, between the hours of 11 and 12 or 5 and 6, I better understand the physiological impact of chaos theory: To be on a path somewhere that inevitably eventually leads to somewhere else, whilst all of these other people are doing the same in a different way. Cars pull out, other motorbikes try to fit in the gaps between other motorbikes. Drivers and riders make sudden decisions to change their trajectories, and indicators do nothing beneath a 35-degree sun. You realize that you are part of a universal fragileness and shared state of unknowing. You just have to get to where you’re intending on getting to the best you can. Incident free; an elevated heart rate will calm itself in a short period of time, no need to write home about that.

But today has a gloominess associated with it. I once again failed an uninterrupted 8 hours of sleep. This time being awoken after five hours and forty-five minutes by a dream in which I was told I was seriously ill. Whoever told me was significant, but I can’t remember who. I’m not sure that I’m seriously ill, but I’m definitely knocked off-kilter. There are a few things I want to say. A lot that I don’t want to hear, and more than enough that I’d rather not have to be sharing my lifespan with, but c’est la vie. None of us are special, certainly not by proxy, so I guess we just have to deal with it.

I wanted to talk about identity politics, but I am feeling more inclined to waffle on about the digestive impact of my new 5000 calories a day diet. It's not really a diet; it just means eating meals in between my meals, and having a few snacks in the gaps. Did you know that Pablo Neruda once described his disabled daughter as ‘a sort of semi-colon’? Some of us are lucky to be far enough away from political correctness to recognize damn good writing when we see it.

There is an invisible list of what can’t be said, what should be said, what certain groups should admit to, what others should not have to face. I wholeheartedly abhor racism, I really do. I abhor it just as much as I abhor the concept of ‘white privilege’. And there’s a good reason for this... it’s the same fucking thing. By its very definition... If I can pull it up from somewhere..... as yes... a dictionary:

‘a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human racial groups determine cultural or individual achievement’

So, that basically means that to give an individual member of a community the attributes of that entire community on the basis of their racial identity is called racism, categorically. Now, I know we’re not saying that all white people are all inherently evil. Don’t panic. I’m not on the defensive. I’m not sticking up for my not-so-fellow brethren (or myself), who despite their inherited privileges can still be fucking stupid at times. What I’m saying is that an oppressor/oppressed mindset and any distinctions between human beings drawn from one single factor less than the entirety that makes up the individual is a further contribution to racism. And most of all, don’t start honing in on injustice just because it's fucking trending when last week you were showcasing your new leggings or whittling on about what a bastard that Cummings is. #bahbahwankersheep 

Look, my two-bits... The sooner we stop identifying as anything other than an individual, and the sooner we stop trying to label each other as anything other than individuals, the better. I don’t care if black lives matter or all lives matter or rainforests or forests or the admiral butterfly distracting me for a second whilst it stretches its wings on a newly erected concrete fence post matters. I don’t care for talk of collective priveledges or guilt. I don’t care for collective anything. The second you ask a human being to consider themselves as something other than themselves you are getting it dangerously wrong.

I’ve read the origins of ‘white privilege’ as a concept. It’s an almost well-written opinion piece and you should read it yourself. I do not disagree with the presence of injustice, but to simplify it down to one single factor... jeez!... emotions or logic, which will it be? As I said, it’s an opinion piece. Not only that but its an opinion piece that doesn’t cite any empirical evidence for a single one of her observations. It is how she feels.  So why are we to just bow down and accept it as truth. 

Of course we should better understand history. History has been a fucker for almost everyone at times, but the victim card is not a strong look, not as a collective or an individual. But history! All that ‘Those who don’t are condemned to repeat it’ jazz. Well, if we’re all busy learning from history then maybe we would better rationalize how the media has used and even manufactured events that they know will play on raw nerve endings to distract the masses, and that’s what everyone seems to be right now. You’re not activists or revolutionaries, you’re not spreading a message of love or saving the world. You’re acting as a mass, and I want to go so far as to say involuntarily.

I’m angry, I’m sad, and I’m glad I’m in a country where all of this bullshit feels an unfortunate parallel universe away. Whether that’s my privilege as a white male or an individual is up to everyone else but me right now, or so it would seem. Whilst you might feel enraged, infuriated, empathic, enlivened or even apathetic to these words that have now been and gone, I want to state one thing: I am interested in human beings as individuals and I will never look at one as anything else but an individual, because anything else is pig-headed ignorance. This is an incredibly testing time, and it would be impossible to send out my love and condolences to every single human being who is murdered at the hands of hate, fear, and bad governing on a day by day basis. Just like it would be foolish of me to pick out one in an attempt to highlight any opinion I might have of the human condition right now.

Please; initially treat others equally -you are allowed to diverge once you get to know someone.  Never feel tied to your past, but be aware of it just in case. Just because someone doesn’t agree with your ideology doesn’t necessarily mean that they automatically contribute to the injustice that it may or may not face, but sometimes it might. You are an individual with the freedom to be entirely responsible for who you are, and to try and become whomever you desire to be. Competition is rife, and we all have our own advantages and disadvantages as we navigate life. Some will make it, others won’t. Just try to do so with love. If I missed the point, then I missed your point, but I made mine.

Namaste