self-assurance is a chemical; catalysing human flesh to transcend the confines of social constructs. it is not that being self-assured rips down the fences of anti-blackness, rather that being black and self-assured fashions you into a key that can unlock untold universes.
charisma is the art of finding keyholes.
it is beautiful, in a way. to know artificial incarcerations can be bypassed. it was anaïs nin who said, “life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage”. you might be a woman in a man’s world but who knows what can be achieved if you’re just a little more confident? you might be ugly in a world worshipping beauty but who knows what you can do if you’re just a little braver?
change is simple—all you need to do is rearrange your own insides.
be resolute. stand ten toes become emotionally immovable. typhoons are known to blow round here. the unsure are doomed to be swept away in the madness.
plant your feet in the soil of yourself.
one day, an external factor will expose an inner contradiction and, as the floodlight glares on your hypocrisy, you’ll have to remind yourself that you needn’t be swayed.
you have decided the trajectory already. just double down.
our reality is built on doubling, tripling, quadrupling down. the figure has multiplied so many times that if it were folded paper, it would be a bridge to the moon. these unconfronted contradictions coalesce into a grotesque forest where no one admits they’re fucking wrong. the air is too slick with punitive cruelty. better to wait for the memory to die down than accept wrongdoing (legal expediency depending).
politically, doubling down is sapping nutrients from the earth. a toxic conviction compounded over generations. praise reagan on the inhale, lament about the cost of living on the exhale. pretend trickle-down economics didn’t set the pace for wealth to pool at the penthouse suite of society. why the fuck would you think there’s any connection between yesterday and today? just keep breathing.
hyperfixating on the mormons inspired and undone me. a functioning civilisation in the dust of utah, its dogma coughed out to reach even the corners of africa, begun as the brainchild of some violent 19th century thug with spiritual psychosis who mostly wanted to fuck other people’s wives. the thriving existence of the latter day saints is living proof that truth has no intrinsic value.
if changing the fabric of reality requires a fossil fuel of delusion—the hypocrite is god’s most powerful engine. whether they metabolise shame or simply have none, the hypocrite is blessed with the otherworldly skill of effortlessly traversing disparate planes of existence. they’re immune to gotcha moments because their mistakes aren’t terminal. being wrong is a negotiation. the edgelord supreme of the debate-me-bro’s can get clapped in the neck like amanda in saw 3 and everyone can pretend he wasn’t an online youtube comment troll made flesh. he was doing politics the right way. because when the hypocrite is caught out, his psychic abilities don’t need to be sophisticated enough to bend spoons.
all he needs to do is make enough people question whether the spoon is straight.
peewee hermeneutics thinks there’s something more libidinal happening. there’s freaky bunch he calls “hypocri-sexuals”, you’ve probably come across them before. they’re the stereotypical racist who’s into cuck porn or that one florida congressman who captioned “the left must be stopped” on a video that was obviously fresh out of his own browsing history. the thrill of concealing one’s private desires behind public rebuke is what peewee hermeneutics calls “the juice” — the tingly ichor that pumps through your veins when you’re doing something you know you shouldn’t. it’s the zing. the psychosexual euphoria. he describes it better than i.
whether they’re edging themselves through their contradictions, gaming reality to see how much they can get away with, being blackmailed, or simply basking in feral delusion for the vibes—it is clear that we are, and always have been, governed by maladjusted hypocrites. their incapacity to take responsibility is how they gain responsibility in the first place. what is the point of remedies? just double down. or if the lie is too big, resign.
(the walls of perpetual diagnosis close in, compressing the air. just keep breathing.)
i have seen searchlights shine with sniper-scope precision on the glaring contradictions of the wily hypocrite. one of my biggest fears is that they’ve been left to run amok for so long, that we’ve entered an era where no light is bright enough to compel a rectification of their errors. journalistic whistleblowing in the modern era has seemed to hit an inaudible pitch. snowden fled to russia for revealing invasive government surveillance—now we joke casually about the fbi spying on us. the panama papers revealed a global network of corrupt politician and financiers and barely anyone got fired, let alone thrown in jail. those are just the examples off the top of my head. i fear no light is bright enough to force the network of hypocrites in power to recalibrate their ways, submit their careers to the same fate of a late-stage game of jenga, or have them tried for disturbing the peace. or if i am to speak more candidly: it concerns me that the epstein files might drop and reveal every western elite is a filthy nonce but no infrastructure will be able to hold them accountable.
if truth has no intrinsic value then it isn’t enough to catalyse change through revelation: the prevailing option is to construct delusional reality shifts of our own or, at least, understand there might need to be sprinkles of ruthlessness to supplement what vasily grossman dubbed “the powerlessness of kindness”.
those who believe the ideological battleground is one of sense trumping nonsense are sorely missing the forest from the trees. pragmatism will only work if its applied in service of radical change. incrementalism will only work if it is building towards a world-changing dream. there is no going back to normal. our fate might just depend on who’s delusion is stronger, wider, more investable, more persuasive and, paradoxically… more true.
I deeply appreciate that -- after your forensic analysis of exploitative and protean hypocrisy and the political/media incapacity or paralysis of mechanisms of accountability-- you nonetheless provided some hope and action options on the lyrical final paragraph.