Thoughts on Incivility

Did it make a grand entrance or did it ever go away?

TW: Sexual abuse, suicide, genocide

For almost a week, I couldn't sleep.

I couldn't understand why I didn't sleep more than two hours a night.

Five days after it started, I realized why. Aaron Bushnell had self-immolated.

I had this article as a draft for almost two years. At the time, the catalyst was reading about someone being sexually assaulted in a Philly train while people watched and did nothing.

At the time, this was going to be the start of my article: "Anyone would agree that the world as it is today is not very enticing. Truthfully, it's probably been like this for longer than any of us would care to admit."

I had no idea how naive I was then. Is our tired humanity in shreds?

I couldn’t finish this article when I picked it up back when martyr Aaron Bushnell died, but today is a good day as any, in my opinion. I am physically sick, mentally exhausted, emotionally drained, and spiritually unfit.

It doesn’t seem right to me to even laugh at this point. Not with the state of the world. Not with the genocides in Gaza, Sudan, and Congo. Not with the student protests being ambushed by the ones who are supposed to protect us. Not with the powerful living in dystopia and enjoying the fruit of the exploitation of others. I can’t even begin to understand how anyone would feel joy.

Closer to home, we’re being displaced by colonizers left and right, and internalized colonialism is rampant.

I’ve been back home for just three weeks and the hardship of living is astounding. Yesterday I was calling the suicide hotline in crisis, and after that, someone whom I thought was a friend blatantly attacked me.

The world is not okay and I don’t understand why people are not outraged. Well, I think I do understand what’s going on. People are so tired of living, too.

I mean, how could you not be fed up of knowing that by November, the American people will have to make an impossible choice between two criminals?

Maybe this is what we deserve for killing the world. But I don’t think it’s solely on me.

These might be my last words to close out this piece that is as scattered as I am right now.

Rafah is on fire and no one is stopping it. Children are beheaded and charred and news outlets are justifying killing children legally.

The president of the first empire of the world is denying what everyone else sees: A genocide, a holocaust.

You cannot tell me that the same people who died in the Holocaust would have done the same today. Not to Palestinians who have done absolutely nothing to them. In fact, they have received Jews with open arms in the past.

I cannot condone the actions of the true demons that walk this Earth today, who are killing with impunity and support.

I cannot wait for the D-Day of this genocide. I cannot wait for all the war criminals to atone for their crimes. I cannot wait for the tide to turn on all of us: The silent, the complicit, the corrupt, the cowardly.

Karma law is real and I believe it. Whatever anyone does will come back to them threefold. No good deed goes unpunished. I know this will happen sooner or later.

And this is what I need to tell myself as I lie in a comfortable bed, fed, clothed, safe and comfortable because I was not born in Palestine, Congo, Sudan, or Haiti. But I was born in a colony that hasn’t forgotten their own ethnic cleansing, or at least I haven’t forgotten it. In fact, I’ll make a point of remembering every single day of my life. It’s the least I can do. These are called reparations.

If anyone remembers the movie “V for Vendetta,” there’s a turning point in which people say enough is enough, and that’s when an innocent child is shot as a consequence of evilness. That’s when people took their power back and fought.

However, there are some key differences in the Rafah scenario:

• The ones who can do something about it don’t see Palestinians as human beings.
• The countries with most power are ruled by the same type of demons, so they will obviously protect their own.
• Imperialism and colonialism seek to isolate in order to weaken resistance. And there’s no sense of community at all; not really.

With that being said, what can we do?

I don’t know. I really don’t. I’m trying to live my life in freedom, honesty, and integrity, and at the end of each day, I am exhausted and depleted.

Do you know how long it took me to write this piece? Close to three years. Coincidentally, my PTSD nightmares started around the same time.

Now, I don’t remember my dreams much, but I’m sure the nightmare of our planet makes up for great nightmare materials.

As my eyes close involuntarily, and my day is over, I’d like to use this opportunity to share something that was shared me:

The way in is together. Salvation was never meant to be individualized.

Thanks for reading. I usually put some links here, but for the sake of the topic and the state of the world, please think about how can you make a difference in your locus of control today.