the and times

Woke up

So angry today. Eyes crackling dusty, spring allergies whispering under my lenses. Toes sore from stretching and clenching in fear, balled up in frustration like Arthur’s meme fist. Upset for the thoughts of: 

• hate crimes against Asians on the rise, 
• do I say Asian-American? I don’t care for America but my belonging to it is like my whiteness, a shield from globalized violence I resent and despise because it’s only protection because others have used weapons first and killed for generations, my white American identity is a shield held in the left hand that’s only powerful because of a stolen gun held in the right hand. 
• do I specify Southeast Asian? I don’t have a sense of what to say. I don’t know enough and I could. I don’t read enough written by Asian writers. I don’t learn enough about Asian history and I probably do know more about western racism against Asian people and the internment camps in the US and internalized white supremacy but I Could Know So Much More and I Could Ask but I don’t! And I’m angry because this isn’t about me, but I’m thinking in circles about how I could write the right thing and post it on the internet and for what? Because
• If nobody is looking, are you antiracist ? If nobody is looking, do you believe in human equality? 
• I believe in human equality at my core, and it makes my days very difficult to live because I have to believe I deserve something more than someone else and I – am talking about myself again. 
• If nobody is looking, are you a socialist? If nobody is watching, are you a communist? Or do you just tweet about communism without the legacy of people who *“looked like you” being killed and declared enemies because they spoke for communism? (*they don’t look alike. They just also were not white in the same, previously decided category)
• When you’re alone, do you wonder how you can ever fathom the endless nonbinary nuance of collective human existence? Or 
• Anti-Asian hate crimes are on the rise, that’s the headline. But there has been vitriol for so long that so many of us never questioned, never investigated, never thought of as happening currently, never thought of the life-or-death everyday stakes of it all as we closed a CNN window where Trump calls it the China Virus and post “anime aesthetic” to Instagram when the threat of a white man walking into a place of work in Atlanta to kill people he’s decided are both dangerous and vulnerable because they are Asian. 
• If it’s thought generalized beliefs about a group of people are not harmful because they can be interpreted as positive qualities and/or punchlines, it’s critical to rethink where harm starts and what harm is.

I always felt I was destined for greatness. As a child, I imagined myself famous. I imagined myself a leader without courage, a beacon of hope by existence. I said I wanted to grow up to be a princess. When I got older, I started feeling like a savior. I started self-sacrificing for others, bending my shoulders to my ears, carrying invisible belongings to destinations unknown to their owners. I started acting like one of those invisible packages, a weight unseen but so heavy, and I belonged to everyone but me. I am here for you, I am here to serve. I thought I was not great, but if I saved someone great, then inevitably, the prophecy would unfold — I was destined for greatness, and someone great was going to save me in return. I’m older today, everyday, and I have been suspecting what I have really been saving up is myself. Saving me like an overflowing second bank account, when the checking is in the negatives. Money under the mattress, the princess might never be able to feel the pea, but I have back pain from being hunched over my iPhone so much. 

I have often felt unconventional. I used to think that made me be better, but feel worse. 

Capitalism has been weird. I was able to enter at a higher level in the game, but every time I tried to advance, I couldn’t figure out how to. Instead, I found myself running around and shouting the game was rigged. It was a game nobody should be playing, but we all are, and I guess I’ve been losing, sliding down levels, as I try to convince myself everyone else can play but I don’t deserve to. Capitalism is a game we play alone, and if nobody was on my team, then I was not worthy of earning, of living, of being. I’m older today, everyday, and I have been suspecting that I’m just as worthy. I think I have a cheat code to another game, and it is — knowing that nobody is better than anybody, and nobody can assign true worth to anybody. 

I just don’t know what this other game is. But I do know, I’m here to figure it out. It’s not a solitary game, and nobody is going to win without their team. I thought I could decide my own worth, but I’m no different than anyone else. 

I know I love the world. I hate how it is mistreated, the illusions and delusions we confuse for being the world itself. Maybe I am too attached to being the Good Witch of the East, but I just don’t believe the world is an inherently evil place. But I don’t believe it to be an inherently good one, either. I believe the world is inherently beautiful because it is some never-ending swirl of both good and bad, so intricate that when you look closely enough the origin of their links become indiscernible. 

Late on the night of December 18, 2019, a time which now seems so long ago, I was searching for the appropriate response to the breaking news that the House of Representatives had voted to impeach President Donald Trump. As I watched the live-stream of the votes being tallied, aware I was witnessing history while cynical about the moment’s potential impact (I knew this did not mean the president was immediately ousted from office), words uttered by this very controversial figure from years ago echoed in my popular culture saturated brain. As a consistent viewer of NBC’s Must See TV Thursday night line-up through my middle school years, I knew what aired after Friends, and then Will & Grace. By the time I was 12, it was The Apprentice. I didn’t always watch the reality competition show, but I was tuned in enough to know the catchphrase that came at the dramatic elimination segment — “You’re fired.” I knew my duty as an American citizen that night. I knew I had to post a clip of Donald Trump saying, “you’re fired,” to give us all a relieving laugh that now he had been technically fired from the highest office in the land. 

But, somehow, I found something even more special. I found this. 

Not just one video clip of “You’re fired.” Seemingly endless clips of “You’re fired,” “Yuh fiyuhed,” *bangs the table* “You’re fired!” I couldn’t stop cackling. It was like if the United States as a concept could take acid, this would be a part of the trip. It was absurd. He was so self-serious, thriving on making judgments of who belonged in this imitation world of financial success, mocking the concept of the ideal American businessman in his suits & ties and occasionally tuxedos. (The slight alteration in details through different cuts particularly amuses me, reminding me of the almost-numbing repetition of it all.) 

As the months went by, the Covid-19 pandemic surged, the amount of Americans with secure incomes plummeted, and President Donald Trump stayed right where he was. He didn’t get fired. He didn’t rush to initiate federal economic relief nor increase the accessibility of healthcare. He mainly talked and tweeted. This YouTube video started to strike me as painfully symbolic. 

In quarantine, stuck in our homes with little to no human contact, time became an endless loop. Beginnings and endings and days of the week grew to mean less and less. We have had to rely on the Internet, with its constant buzzing and individually catered algorithms, for our sense of Real Life more than ever. 

Even as we’re inundated with horrific statistics of Covid-19 infections, deaths, murders of and violent attacks on people by police officers (or self-appointed defenders of a mythical American virtue, often associated with Donald Trump), and actually spoken statements from Trump & co. on how they are chipping away at whatever imitation of democracy we had left, everything is meshing in a cycle. The unpredictability of pain, loss, fear, confinement, isolation, cruelty — they’re becoming somehow predictable.

We might find ourselves laughing at how our political figures and celebrities behave in the midst of this all, their foolishness, brazenness, blatant fictions. Because whether we try to ignore what’s happening or drown ourselves in it, we need release. We can’t process this all at once. It is truly absurd! It follows none of the rules our society previously claimed to rely on. 

But it is happening and it’s starting to feel endless. A supercut of tragedy and ignorance, created by President Donald Trump and his administration, his team, and his behind-the-scenes bosses. The repetition of it all slowly quiets down the buzzing, the “You’re fired”s.

Personally (and I know this is an appalling statement to many), I find Donald Trump’s voice to be often soothing. Sometimes, especially when giving a “prepared” speech, speaks somewhat slowly, breathing heavily but not laboredly. I hate what he says, but the sound of it can physically relax me. My friend Nicole pointed out to me that, with the exception of some words (“Chi-Nah!”), he doesn’t put much emphasis on his consonants which answers some of why his talking affects me the way it does. 

Maybe it’s also because it feels like it could go on forever. But ultimately, the video only lasts roughly three minutes. In time, with effort and awareness and solidarity, we can make this end too. 

Or, we will all get fired. 

Content Warning / Trigger Warning! for rape, depression?, anxiety?, PTSD?, thinking about death… spoilers for I May Destroy You… but yeah the sexual assault.

This is written in response watching the I May Destroy You episode “Line Spectrum Border”. I did have plans to eat proscuitto I bought earlier this week (with some tomatoes and mozzarella cheese) before I knew Italy was going to be a part of this episode. Thank you endlessly, Michaela Coel. And the employees at Trader Joe’s. I have tried to stop eating pork, but I also think we won’t be able to eat pigs at all in 10 years so I’m trying to be present, enjoy the moment. And on that note:

As I wrote to in a furious Twitter message after watching the fourth episode of this same show:

“The week you raped me one day it took me all my energy all day to take a shower. And as i laid on the tub floor hysterically crying, i suddenly saw my choice. I could metaphorically drown in this or I could pull all the strength in my being together and do my best to live. So i’ve been doing that.”

This has been one of the hardest years of human life since I’ve been a part of it. A barrage of loss, suffering, fear, illness… It’s not Saturn and it’s not Mars, it’s suffering and it’s malice. I don’t even think I fear death like I once did; not my own. Maybe I don’t even quite fear the death of others either, but instead I fear the experience of loss, the way we lose others’. And I fear a painful death. But if snap, cut to black, I were to die? I don’t know— that doesn’t scare me as much. Because I’ve been here. I am here. What will here be in a day, a month, a year? A flower in sidewalk cracks or an endless dried up sea of trash? 

And… I have gotten up when I have felt the weight of an unseeable, seething, lethal bomb. Perhaps when I stood up, it encased my body in its lethal nature, and perhaps I am cycling with that nature, a part of the atomic bomb fog that seems to grow stronger with every fiery car crash dying and every fascist flower blooming and every coin disappear from every wishing well and every monster under every bed in every house making its residence known, screaming, “I have always lived here with you, and you must see me now but I will not be paying any of the rent, damn it!”

But I stood up, stayed wet. And sometimes… a lot of the times, I find myself laying down again, crying hysterically, tears becoming a sea. But I make the choice. I choose to swim. I am wet, and I will stay wet, moisturized and hydrating, until the day I dry up into dust. 

A tribe is a family. A society is a mafia.

Sometimes I kind of feel like I’m already dead. like, I kind of feel the dead, something spiritual, something lovely, something Godly. 

“Another fuckin year another cake for my mom“

It’s such a cosmic absurd joke that I’m a writer in a dying civilization, and I’ll just be dust when the punchline hits. 

Sometimes 

These days, what is there to live for? 
We’re not touching each other —
We’re not even seeing each other like 
We used to 
We’re becoming nothing but air
Running
Out of water 
Scorched earth
Skin sheds aflame 
He said, I did not burn down your “She Shed, Cheryl”

———————

Stop saying that, you’re making me so mad —
I’m gonna be so mad at you if you kill yourself I’m going to kill you 

———————

How do you live in the present when it’s just one large eternal knot?

I can’t believe the will I have to live. It’s almost a disappointment.
I want to run, no I don’t, I want to burrow. I want to dig a bunny hole in my own bed. What am I afraid of? 

He called me
Out, like
“you feel bad cause you haven’t really done anything with your life?”
It hurt my feelings (as if they’re ever not)
“Excuse me! I went to graduate school for filmmaking and I’ve been sexually assaulted like 5-6 times.” So 

on my tombstone you may write
LYLAS – MFA – PTSD – G2G

———————

Outer space would be cold as fuck. I guess I’d be more comfortable melting to death on earth. 

Life is such an annoying oxymoron like I don’t want to be dependent on anyone and I don’t reaaaallly trust anyone but the most meaningful thing I can find to live for is love.

How can I swim in love all alone? 

Maybe I can get two cats. And one dog.

What a strange question of performance element there is to being white on social media at this very moment in time.

In roughly the past decade, posting imagery of attending a protest was a way to challenge the (sometimes unspoken) accusation that you “aren’t doing anything” to contribute to the antiracist movement. Maybe you posted “#BlackLivesMatter” or even “#AllLivesMatter” (let’s not get into that one right now), but you felt shamed for not “doing more,” so you publicized your protest attendance. Maybe you did it with the intention to be defiant, to bring the rebellion to authority to the digital sphere. But maybe your ego was at play too; it’s social media, after all. While a lot of people have still attended in-person gatherings, a lot of people are not going to show up right now because we are still in the covid19 pandemic. 

I have found myself confused and paused when it comes to what I post on social media in a wave of publicized racial unrest. If I give in to the thought to not post anything because, “oh I’m not going to virtue-signal,” aren’t I just staying mum out of some kind of contrarian response to what is still my ego? I critically reflect for myself, asking “what is actually helpful? Where is my place? What can I say or do to contribute that others aren’t or can’t?” The other day, scrolling through the darkness of many #blackouttuesday posts, I couldn’t help but see so much blinding white silence, even amongst good intentions and some links to action resources. I can only speak with complete honesty to my own experience, so yes, this is about me and my ego. But in doing so I intend to demonstrate to my white peers how they can interrogate their own experience, their own social performance and projection.

So how much of current social media activity is about our (my white peers’) egos? Do you have it inside you to admit that deep down inside… maybe sitting right next to or even deeper than your internalized racism, you’re absolutely craving for a black person to say “hey, it’s okay. You’re one of the good ones,” to pardon you for your participation in white supremacy by existing, by functioning? I used to consider getting rid of my life because, well, I hated myself and didn’t see my self-worth, but on top of that because I’m white and had some wealth behind me. These privileges, these resources at my disposal felt wasted on me. Being at an Ivy League film school compounded this; it felt so wrong that I was in a position to tell stories when so much of that opportunity came out of my aforementioned privileges. 

Isn’t it strange how these things intertwine? Isn’t that the whole lethal angle of it all, how deeply and intricately “it’s all connected”? Instead of asking “yikes, Carly, are you ok?” (yes, I have a really great therapist who talks about internalized racism and sexism and homophobia and capitalism with me!), please ask yourself similar questions. 

Wasn’t that commitment to putting myself down for privileges that some manifestation of literally self-centered unproductive white guilt? Do I give in to dehumanizing attitudes towards black people and people of color out of learned white-liberal-style racism? I remember on an episode of Broad City, Abbi says to Ilana something like “Sometimes I think you try so hard to not to be racist, you actually are racist.” How is racism internalized for you? What about white supremacy? How do these monsters feed off your own personal struggles to grow stronger?

Even with the cycle of unrest when an unarmed black person is murdered (often on highly-circulated-video and/or by a police officer) brings a flood of “what are going to do about it?”s, too many of us feel no genuine hurry. We’re scared to look at ourselves — and that is a truth for everyone about everything. So to cope with that fear, it’s as though we (unintentionally) give off the illusion that we’re doing just that; even now a common line in the social media posts of white people at times like this is “talk to your family members about racism, have these conversations in-person.” Like, the attempt to break through the performance and conjure authenticity is now also a part of the performance. Do not get me wrong, I’d really rather everyone say and do something than nothing. 

So “What are you going to do about it?” the internet asks, and so many of us post links, articles, quotations, images of pain, donate money. 

Those actions are unquestionably good, yes. But maybe you can’t do them. Maybe you have no disposable income. Maybe you’re physically or mentally unable to attend an in-person protest. When you’re asking yourself those painful questions, also ask yourself, “What am I good at? How can I contribute that to the effort to protect and uplift black lives? How can I, being me, work towards defeating racism?”   

And now, we can follow-up that question with “What am I going to do about it? What are we going to do about it?” 

I think we’re absolutely terrified because we don’t know. It’s a human survival tactic to solve problems, but in answering too quickly, too thoughtlessly, we endanger the survival of others. Please, don’t erase the very-real and very long-term problems we’ve been facing and are facing today with empty boxes, as good-intentioned and symbolic as they may be. Don’t be afraid to face your own painful truth. And while we’re looking to others and to the past as a blueprint for antiracism, remember that we are in dire need of progress – don’t be afraid to innovate. 

It’s getting harder and harder for me to write and send text messages, and I think that’s because it’s not in-person connection and it somehow reminds me just how very apart we all are. As lucky as we are to have it, digital communication does not deliver the same type of energy as “real life” (what’s that?) does. Maybe social media doesn’t feel quite as difficult for me to use because there’s an inherent performance to it. In text messages, the idea is only the people present are involved in the conversation. You’re meant to be expressing yourself as you otherwise would with only them. But what is privacy without intimacy? If there’s no true intimacy in this exchange, then what is there instead? 

Lately, I’ve been really emphasizing how much we just do not know about Covid-19, or really about anything, as a way to find calm. There’s something somewhere about naming your fears to help face them, isn’t there? Perhaps the harmful things that come to us in a disguise of helpfulness do the most damage. Calling a monster “a monster” doesn’t stop it from eating you alive, but at least it makes you less likely to invite it to sleep in bed with you. 

So, maybe the open knowledge that social media is not “real” makes it easier to express ourselves on. And maybe the pressure to be “real” and “present” in a text message exchange is harder to bear when our concept of what genuine social interaction is more distant than ever. 

But then again, nobody knows anything and everyone knows nothing…. I think.

When I post online, it is actually a way for me to exist, to connect, to see myself without the reality of existing, connecting, seeing myself. Instead of taking up space in The Real World, our Universe, I have carved out a little room for myself. There’s unlimited space on this server; nobody will be upset if I claim this area as my own, for me.

My social media content is my way of looking in the mirror, but instead of a reflection in glass, it is a reflection I have hand-painted, constructed, crafted from my own materials. But the framing is just the same as everyone else’s. It’s less about others seeing me than it is about me seeing me. 

I am terrified to be real. I am so afraid to exist. Afraid to make decisions and stand by them. Afraid to share my vision of the world around me. Afraid to be responsible for my own life, for literally my living. I’m scared to make a living, because what if I do it wrong? 

But there, out there, online, it’s safe for me to be. Because, to differing extents and at different times, I know it is not real. I want to be, but I don’t want to be real. That’s commitment. That’s true vulnerability – taking actions instead of making statements or giving impressions. 

I wrestle with my personal contradiction of wanting attention and praise while being so terrified of receiving attention and praise. Even when something I’ve posted on social media gets a lot of attention, I suddenly regret it because I feel… I suppose I feel exposed, but I also feel… seen? But seen through a judgmental view. And that’s the same with my writing, with my opinions, my feelings, my social interactions, my efforts to sustain and support my survival… all of these things are illuminated by various tinted bulbs, in alternate gazes, the lighting so often uncomplimentary, unflattering… and the brighter a bulb of judgment gets, the harder it is to see anything under it and the harder it becomes to discern whether it’s someone else’s lightbulb or my own.

My ideas of what others may think about me, negative so much more often than positive, are so difficult to crack open and escape from once I believe in them. Ultimately, they’re my thoughts, right? But I really believe they come from other people and I value their judgments over mine, even though they’re about me and I know and understand myself best. But I have struggled to value my own opinion throughout my life – it has not felt substantial. So I claw for and cling to others’ opinions to define me because they have that value. But I don’t want them to see me too closely… because the times the people closest to me, even including myself, casted judgments that made me feel small, wrong, bad, unworthy of existence have stuck out so sharply in my mind that I try to build up some kind of defense to dull their blades.