Thoughts

The thoughts in my head are mostly not my thoughts. Some of them belong to other people and have wriggled their way deep amongst the folds in my brain over the years and intend, as far as I can tell, to stay there forever, or at least until I die, and to infect as many unsuspecting strangers as possible. Some of them are imaginary thoughts created in response to my not knowing how to properly conduct myself; my questing mind seeking feedback from the world and, in finding none, simulating a best approximation. Some of them are beamed into my brain, as if by some powerful cosmic being, or maybe the satellites HBO comes in on. There are some that I would lay claim to, if only I weren’t so ashamed of them.

We all share thoughts. That's part of being a human being, don't you know? We all have heads, and in them brains, and within those we keep thoughts. Our thoughts are all very similar, yet infinitely unique, if only at least in their metadata - precise details that tell of the form but not the content. I think the same thoughts as you, dearest reader, and I can prove it if you don't believe me. I don't know if we're getting our thoughts from the same satellite, or Elder God, or alien spaceship, or CIA broadcast, or other external input, but I know what they're doing to us and that's what really matters.

You've heard that silly right-wing talking point where they say that mainstream culture is feminizing our men, teaching our subgroups self-defeating beliefs, turning our kids queer and secretly spreading Satanism, right? I know I have, and it's really a frustrating conversation to have. Not only because those things are absurd, not only because they are used to spread and justify all types of bigotry, not only because they're just wrong, but really because they're actually almost right, about some things anyway. Some very few things indeed, but therein lies the rub.

We are all in fact being bombarded with techno-programmatic-extrasensory-brainwaves, and they are in fact destroying what little is left of our culture, since the Neoliberals ravaged it in the previous several decades. And we are in fact being brainwashed to be docile little sheep. The right-wingers get wrong, however, the important parts of this earthshaking truth, and it is leading them into their doom, and us right along with them as we don't have a fucking choice in the matter! These techno-cosmogrification brainwaves aren't coming from The Cabal, or the transqueers, or the Satanic anarchists, or anything silly like that; they're coming straight from design committees at your friendly neighborhood corporation. And they're not perverting and degenerating beautiful European morality and all that is good and right in the world, they're simply putting us all into a state of depression.

"I'm simply not good enough"

"I'll never be as good as them"

"I've just got to have that new thing!"

"It's okay that my boss treats me like that, I'll just keep putting up with it long enough to show them I deserve a two percent raise"

"Look at those people, at least I don't live like that"

"Look at those people, I wish I could live like that"

These thoughts, and many more like them, are the thoughts you and I, and all the other humans on this planet (save a few) share. They make up our days and nights. They have come to replace all other thoughts, squeezing out the simple joy and terrible love and frivolous pastimes so that everything is no longer an individual pursuit of life but a collective resignation. We are no longer able to see the world in anything but shades of green, nothing has meaning. That's why we try so hard, we try to force it through with attempts at identity "Yes, I am human, and I do matter!" We lose the ability to see others as valuable beings because we don't even see ourselves that way.

That whole Cultural Marxism thing is legit a Nazi Conspiracy theory, but so many unwitting bigots, and otherwise decent people, cling to it because it feels better than wrestling with that emptiness inside. The fascists took the legitimate work of philosophers, inverted the facts, and threw a shitload of money at it and voila, we have a new narrative! It really bothers me that there are so many people who are willfully ignorant, but I understand why and, though they've done, and will continue to do, horrific things I cannot help but feel for them and wish for healing. Not just because we share the same thoughts, because ultimately the goal is to destroy those secret space lasers and cause us all to think our own thoughts; but because we are all human and I know that I feel hurt and hate so much and I don't want anyone to feel this way.

We share thoughts, and everyday more and more of them become the same thoughts, the very same thoughts beamed into our heads from somewhere outside, and those thoughts are replacing our humanity. Those thoughts are capitalism at its zenith; gaslighting, convincing us that this is normal, wasting your entire life for a few fuckin dollars is normal, hating someone who fucks different or sings different church songs or looks different is normal, abusing and debasing oneself just have the chance at accruing more debt and neglecting loved ones and relationships and slowly killing yourself trying to escape, capitalism would have us believe that all these things are normal.