I. Interruptions
to be driven mad by a maddening society is a measure of clarity.
fragmentation and plurality are technologies of survival.
dissociation as necessary adaptation. trauma as the essential character of capitalist society.
>what kind of power might lie in the pronoun “we?”
political consciousness is a rupture. it is traumatic. it is the violent deconstruction of a certain cosmology in favor of a different one. political consciousness requires that we face the lies of the old world, cast them aside, in favor of the searing light of truth. political consciousness demands facing the real with no defense. to know the truth must mean to know it without qualification. this is the only way.
>does anybody else feel like maybe we aren’t supposed to live like this? guys I’m starting to think that we aren’t supposed to live like this.
nostalgia is a dirty fascist who tells you that the past could have saved you. it is a lie that you are safe in the past. this was always the world. the world did not change, only your awareness. the world was safe and became unsafe? no. the world was always a horrid and horrible place. the brief moment of light you had from birth until horror - that was itself the fluke. this present darkness is the current state of affairs.
what then will you make of it?
II. Dialogue with a Lover (an Intra-System Discourse)
<The past cannot save you. It holds an infinite amount of wisdom to be mined, but that wisdom can only be put to use in the present, as a way of directing the course of the future. You cannot go back. The inevitable march forward of time is a trauma that every single human in history has had to contend with and either overcome or succumb to. Will you march into the future, stalwart, unyielding, into that roiling unknown? Will you take those brave steps into the void of absolute possibility? Will you free yourself from the chains of your sentimentality? Or will you perish like a fucking dog?>
It is so hard, and I am so tired.
<Say that you are tired. Say that you need to pause. Pause but do not stop. Rest but do not waver. Stumble but do not falter. It is by love that I hold you to a higher standard. It is by love that I expect more from you. By love I am disappointed when you fall short. By love I am frustrated when you are petty. By love I ask you for your kindness when you are cruel, for your wisdom when you are slipshod, your patience in your haste, your bravery in your fear, your strength when you stumble, your love when you are hateful, your anger when you are wronged.>
You ask too much.
<If I did not love you, I would ask nothing. What is it to love you? To allow you to rot and fester like a wound? To watch as you make of your heart a hard and narrow place? Am I to love you by letting you bleed out on the floor? Or am I to love you by begging you to live? By demanding that you grip hard onto life, despite it all? Grip hard to hope, beloved.>
I am so tired of empires. I am tired of trying. I am tired of being let down.
<Despair is poisonous to the revolutionary struggle. It taints the whole well. It starts in the little seed in our hearts, that seed which says “I cannot change the conditions of my life.” Who else but you?>
Will you not let me simply surrender? O love, I am so broken yet.
<It is an act of love to say, comrade, chin up, there is still hope, and you are better than this.>
<I love you.>
<There is still hope.>
<The future comes hither unchallenged.>
<Come, let us face it with claw and fang.>
<Let us break this future into one which you would give to your children.>