It’s 8:06pm on November 11, 2024. I’m writing this out on my phone in bed, which is where I’ve spent most of the past week due to my body being a garbage bag (again.. and again and again)
I started pondering this meme I saw recently which really hit a nail for me:

After election results were announced earlier last week - I had several weird interactions with ppl in my surroundings. But to be honest- these weird interactions were an extension of the past year’s weird interactions with everyone, and by another extension - the whole pandemic. One client at work said: “wow did u hear? So shocking” to which I could only say “you didn’t see this coming at least for the past year??” She said no and it made me so sad I felt it in my bones. One person even messaged a loved one, someone who has always been outspoken in their criticisms of american government/politics, accusing them of putting black & brown folks and queer & trans folks on the chopping block for criticizing Harris as a candidate. Quick reminder that of course trump, but also neither Biden nor Harris have ever cared for these lives. But I guess some people are too distracted by colors such as red or blue to investigate who they are truly voting for because for them, politics seems to happen once every four years (???)
I’ve seen a lot of persecution of the left- blaming them for another trump term. Maybe if the cognitive dissonance here wasn’t so tragic, I would laugh at the absurdity of their comments. But it’s not funny. And it wasn’t the past year either. Nor since the pandemic started. Nor since the birth of this ugly “country”. Why would you blame the very ppl who were pointing out the problems you actively chose to ignore? I am now wondering how I would explain all this to one of these people in terms they could understand without myself sounding accusatory or ignorant (the way they sound to me).  Also, this point is not in any way glorifying or making a monolith of leftists - I critique us too.  I have problems with many (mainly wondering why most of them don’t believe in masking anymore ???)
You should always criticize the government under which you live. It’s (supposedly) your right, but more importantly your DUTY. How else do you call out human rights violations? While I’m at it- u should always Question Everything. This will always do you good. It’s a good muscle to exercise. Anytime there is a hierarchy involved - I don’t care where you are in the hierarchy, but ESPECIALLY if you’re at the bottom of it - you should critique and criticize what you see, hear, feel and most importantly- what you experience in your daily life.
Last fall, I remember a couple old friends came over for dinner. We discussed the genocide in Palestine and it quickly erupted into a screaming match. One of the friends claimed that fighting back against your oppressors in any militant manner is wrong. That war and guns and death are always wrong. My loved one retorted with- if everyone YOU loved was being massacred and everything YOU ever knew was being destroyed- would you not eventually pick up a gun? Someone who has never had their life threatened by an authority will likely see that as extreme - because it doesn’t relate to their experience of life. But that doesnt mean that all the ppl who do experience this (on a daily basis) aren’t valid and don’t deserve a human life just as much as you do. You’re just occupying a different space in the hierarchy.
I’m thinking of all the ppl in america who felt they didn’t need to know what was going on in other parts of the world (even at the hands of their own government) because it “wasn’t their problem” and “none of their business”. For context- I also hate politics. Always have. I much rather go play music with my friends & watch a dumb VHS movie than debate the lives and morals of a bunch of rich candidates that I will never know personally and who absolutely have proven to me that they could not care less if I live or die. Like most other ppl- I have better ideas of what I want to do with my time here. The reason everyone needs to be political, however, is because it affects all of us. In a conversation with my dad recently, he asked me “when did you get interested in politics?” I couldn’t help laughing, because the word “interested” implies that I had some kind of choice. I told him I was forced to, against my will, when I became disabled in america. Politics is everyday- but ppl of privilege usually don’t find that out until it’s too late. They don’t mind tho- they can likely still purchase their own safety when shit hits the fan…
Which leads me to ponder the aggressive individualism in this country. Some lives are obviously valued more than others here. I hear liberal, privileged friends say : “go vote for the lesser of two evils”. But isn’t everything relative to your experiences? So my question is: Would YOU go vote for someone who was actively trying to kill you and your loved ones? Probly not! Basic survival skills tell us not to. That’s y I would never vote for trump. But it’s also why I could never vote for a dem again either. My point is- the other rich person won because anyone with a conscience literally didn’t have a candidate to vote for. There was no opposing candidate, as far as american political strategy dictates. But this is not new or a unique moment in time. And now everyone wants to point fingers. Why are we never pointing them at the two evils tho? Evil is evil no matter how u cut it. Look at what they wrought, continue to do, and will execute in the future. Just because your life wasn’t on the chopping block that day doesn’t mean you shouldn’t care about those people who were, and that your ass isn’t next for the block. You are them and they are you. And nobody’s life is worth more than another’s. This country clearly has never cared about foreign bodies unless they were white. Same is true for how they treat domestic bodies. Is it really shocking that young ppl in this country, raised on the pandemic and the 2020 uprisings, had no faith in a democratic candidate that explicitly stated they support israhell and preferred to continue this empire’s reign of terror domestically and abroad? We all watched how the dems quelled the George Floyd protests by further militarizing the police. After all that, are you really gonna tell those young ppl to go vote for a cop who is intent on building “the most lethal fighting force in the world”? Why is it shocking that a white supremacist won another term in a country founded upon genocide and racism that continues to operate under genocide and racism?
Ignorance kills just as much as apathy & politeness. You could either point your divisive finger, searching for a scapegoat (I’m sure both trump & harris would LOVE that, plus all the other oligarchs they dine with) or u could start having those difficult, uncomfortable but necessary conversations with the humans around you & build unity instead. I know that we are all taught not to have those conversations- but do you ever question why that is? And who benefits from this silence?

It is Saturday, November 9, 2024.  6:22 PM.  Its pretty warm out for a New England November, so I am sitting in the backyard with some candles and its already been dark outside for an hour.  Been spending more time writing lately (typing as opposed to my preferred hand written format), because it’s more easily accessible than other therapeutic forms right now.

Been working on a piece of writing for a while about space, or, all the spaces we’ve inhabited throughout our lives and what gave us meaning from these spaces. I couldn't finish it (or maybe this post is what it turned into, idk), because I ended up with too many questions instead.

Is the meaning of spaces derived from the people who we inhabited them with? Was it the decor/colors/layout/structure? Was it the smell? Usually when I time travel to various spaces I’ve inhabited, I remember the vibe more than anything- and I think for me the things that constitute a vibe are a combination of these sensory input: the sounds of daily living (what that door sounded like, what were the outdoor noises that were always present), the quality of light at various times of day/seasons, the colors around me. But I wonder what constitutes this vibe for other people since our internal experiences are all so different.  For example, I've heard other people talk a lot about smells of spaces past having a profound effect on them when revisited or encountered later in life. 

I feel like most ppl don’t really choose where they end up - it just happens as a matter of circumstance. But some ppl do hav a choice to an extent, or maybe at various times in life. So what are the differences/similarities between these two scenarios? And how does that impact how we interact with our current spaces?
When someone doesn’t have a space to call their own (especially against their own wishes), and/or: never did, how does this impact them and their internal world? Or what about people who are violently and forcibly removed from their spaces? The ppl of Palestine come to mind immediately.  Also ppl in countries of empire like here where ppl lose their homes because of WaRz of cAPitAL™ R-US ongoing.  Or this morning I saw a post on the working class history ig about the ppl of the Chagos Archipelago, who were all removed from their homes to make way for a US military base to occupy that land instead.  What does that do to a person's internal world? Furthermore, how do these internal worlds then get reflected into the collective experience of their communities, and then our world at large?

I started pondering spaces when I found this footage in a box of my old videotapes.  This video is from a trip my family and I took to Poland back in 2004. I was 17 years old and we had been living in the US together as a family since 1992. I had visited as a child, but this was my first trip back during my teen years. We were clearing out our apartment in Warsaw because it was being sold. I had decided that I would be a filmmaker, so I was obsessed with filming everything ever on my precious miniDV camcorder. But I also knew I would never see this space again, and being weird about spaces I’ve inhabited- I had to record everything and save every little treasure I could possibly fit in my suitcase. Please excuse baby-Alex's poor analysis of economics towards the end lol, I was v young!

This apartment was about 180 square feet - but it contained so many lives within its walls.  When I was born, there were 9 of us living there: me and my sister, our mom and dad, my mom's brother and his wife plus their kid (my older cousin), and two of my grandparents.  It was a common practice to put your bed away every morning to make space for daily living.  Lots of people in cities lived in apartments and situations like this so I did not think it was strange until I moved to New Jersey.  The town I grew up in there had lots of mansions (not an exaggeration) and this style of American excess was very much normalized.  It felt very weird going over your friend's house and seeing how starkly different your spaces were.  Their moms were home to pick them up from school.  They had their own rooms and even one just for the activity of watching movies.  There were cookie jars, staircases, and entire basements to do whatever you and your co-inhabitants wanted to do.  I was too young to verbalize what I felt, but I think this was the first time I became aware of the concept of class?  As a child, I was wildly embarrassed about having friends over or sharing details about my home life.  Luckily I discovered punk at some point between 6-8th grade and made the necessary adaptation to stop giving a fuck lol. Bless. I am still grateful for all the stress this has spared my future self, and is why I continue to say *long live rocknroll*.

I spent my childhood being very confused by my external surroundings maybe because nobody explained to my child self the How&Why of what we were all experiencing. For example, I used to think there was something inherently wrong with my family which must have been why we didn’t have mansions (lmao ???). Instead, I often retreated to my internal world for comfort and support and distraction. I’m actually thankful for this because I still do this as an adult. I think it’s called having a vivid imagination and it’s one of my favorite parts about human consciousness. It comes in handy a lot as my physical body ages and becomes more difficult to inhabit as a space itself.

Living in a country where the acquisition of wealth, power and status, even at the cost of other human lives, was considered normal and even encouraged as a “survival strategy” is still weird and definitely one of many reasons america is so hopelessly fckd & shameful.

I'm curious to hear what other ppl's first conceptions of space were and their reflections on how that impacts their relationship with spaces now.  I imagine it's wildly different for everyone because everyone adapts to their situations in various ways.  In my immediate family alone, I noticed that some ppl adapted by adopting a nomadic way of living while others adapted to being hopeless homebodies (me, lol).  Anyways, I need to have a yard sale soon, because current adaptation requirements are demanding that I interact with less stuff.  (I am nervous because I hope it doesn't require any bad decor.)

It’s Saturday August 3, 2024. It’s 5:30am and I absolutely wish I wasn’t awake right now but I don’t really have a choice in the matter. I’ve been battling a stubborn low blood sugar that has been haunting me all night. It’s gotten to the point where the fake hunger pangs of the low blood sugar have merged with the real hunger pangs (because I’m legit hungry for breakfast now) and the combo makes my stomach painful. Got a busy day ahead and was hoping to maximalize on rest tonight but ***U CANT ALWAYS GET WHAT U WAAAANT***

Tossing in bed, I kept thinking about that 1979 movie The Warriors, which was a huge fav for me growing up and still is. I won’t go into it, but there is one particular scene I am fixating on right now: When the meeting of all the gangs in NYC is held, a leader from a prominent gang proposes a city-wide truce among all the gangs. He even boldly suggests that they far outnumber the cops- and in their numbers combined- could realistically hold power over the city alone.  But first- he says they would all have to get over this petty business of feuding over “pieces of turf”.

My mind reels at the thought of concepts such as nations and borders. Like don’t get me wrong- cool things come from other countries. There’s things like different languages, cuisines, fashion, art, music, ideas ETC But these aspects of culture have been around as long as humans began to evolve and they are more regional differences to me than anything else. Regional differences make sense because depending on where you live- you deal with different shit.  It is natural and logical that eventually the regional culture of that space will reflect this. I’m sure winters in Siberia are tough- which probably in turn affects what people eat and dress like when they live there. Conversely- northern New Jersey promotes a lot of sad home decor choices, big hair, and even bigger nails. (Still unsure why but we’ll get to the bottom of it someday!)

Maybe it’s less apparent to americans, but people from around the world, especially dense regions of empire such as europe, have probably noticed from history class that borders don’t really hold any real importance at all. They are completely fluid and especially arbitrary. They change all the time, usually at the whim of some ruling man and his silly, petty turf wars. When I went to that polish saturday school growing up, we studied the history and geography of Poland a lot. I found it so hard to concentrate on any of this, not just because of undiagnosed ADHD, but because it was hard to care or remember about all the details involving how that one country was carved up, divided, erased, reinstated constantly over the course of a 1000 years. Just endless dudes drawing new squiggly lines over old squiggly lines after every feud with some other dudes. I could not care less. Also, I refuse to believe that all of these people lacked the imagination to do something better with their time and energy while on this planet.

So what is a country? And what is patriotism if not thinly veiled nationalism? When you kill in the name of a country or a border- what are you actually doing? Are you truly defending a people or your dear beloved home? Or are you simply protecting the capital of the ruling class of that country (they’re the ones who sent you to do their dirty work, after all).

I recently met a person who expressed confusion and anger at the current state of politics in the USA. Whenever this conversation comes up these days- heads are hung low and shaken from side to side, almost as if to rid the afflicted of the demons that accompany these thoughts inside their brains. But I heard remarks that it truly shocks me to hear from any reasonable adult living in the USA today. They said - I can’t believe how far downhill this country went. They said it used to be a good country- but now it’s bad. (This was the expressed sentiment anyways. I have the memory of a peanut and can’t remember their exact words used, forgive me.)

Whenever people comment about the sadness of America’s decline, I do get annoyed (to say the least). That is because these comments usually operate under the assumption that this is a legitimate country that was organically founded. That it deserves to exist. That this land promotes freedom and democracy and that you can actually encounter these concepts at work here. I am not a historian AT ALL, promise youuu, but I don’t have to dig too far to see that this country was in fact founded upon genocide of the indigenous populations, slavery, coercion/extraction/exploitation, war, and greed.  And nothing has changed much - the plantations where enslaved people labored for hundreds of years turned into modern-day for-profit prison systems and the laws of this land still criminalize poverty- the same poverty that the law has created itself.  Those at the bottom of the economic ladder will always be abused and extracted from first. This land was taken from people who tended to it for a very very long time. This country is a settler colonial state and simply put - should not exist. Should any “border” exist though? Men have fought over these petty lines since the beginning of time and all over the world. Every country was founded on the spilled blood of regular folks who are just trying to survive their small blip in time here. What a waste of human potential and precious human life.

Would you ever build a house for yourself or even future generations of your loved ones on an unsteady ground? Can you construct a solid foundation when inhabiting quicksand or a swamp? I don’t think these foundations will hold. The house will fall down and eventually nature will swallow the ruins whole. 

 I truly believe if people began engaging with their inner artist, their inner child, and employed some creative imagination in a collective manner - I do truly believe we could overcome these obstacles to a thriving human civilization. But instead, we veer in the opposite direction - we are told to remove ourselves from the vulnerability of the self and others. Whichever way it goes in the long run- a quick scan of human history will prove several facts, an important one being that: empires always FALL. I will celebrate the fall of this particular empire rather than mourn it.

“The problem in the past has been the man turning us against one another! We have been unable to see the TRUTH, because we have been fighting for ten square feet of GROUND. Our TURF, our little piece of turf…

THATS CRAP, BROTHERS!” 

- Cyrus in The Warriors (1979)