My mom never initiated attacks on anybody, in regards to anything. She never fought to ostracize anyone. She placed no impossible demands upon family or friends or strangers. If some restaurant messed up her order for example she’d just accept it, leaping to the conclusion that those responsible were probably having a difficult day. It was a graciousness on her part, but in the same breath was she making excuses for ego more often than not, though from the vantage point of simply not wanting to believe the lengths of depravity possible in all those not sharing her sensibilities or gentleness.
We perpetuate the need for a god’s salvation by giving unto those already possessing greater resources and opportunities than ourselves, but we compensate for the lack of god by helping those possessing lesser resources and opportunities than ourselves. The idea that anything wot comes of self-indulgence is actually needed by anyone, serves only as testament to the gullibility towards marketing and peer pressure. How arrogant influencers and content creators of consumer culture all must be, for never considering audiences will have dreams of their own but that parting with their time and money and attentions takes them further and further away from their own satiation.
I once attempted a long-form, epic poem detailing how Job’s Behemoth was a patchwork entity comprised of all the bodies of all the people who mistook the love they receive for personal victories over those angels and demons they wrestle for rent monies through good days and bad. Behemoth was the giant land-beast which the Judaeo-Christian god created for whatever reasons, but there was also Leviathan, the giant sea-beast and the Hebrews as well had the lesser-known Xixix, a giant air-beast. I had it mapped out how each was similarly a patchwork creation, like a jigsaw puzzle of countless corpses bound together into a greater though singular form and reanimated, each intended as a pointed representation of the monstrous destruction to come from accepting love or from giving love or from denying love altogether, in that it’s a no-win situation. Like a mythological response to Abraham’s conundrum of whether to murder his son or not. I progressed about 6000 words into my epic and I burned it, because as with my essay site it’s just me thinking out loud, with the full understanding that people make themselves incapable of seeing or hearing anything in terms greater then merely what does or does not service their respective fantasies.
Making certain that the narrative is portrayed and that continuity is conveyed, all of professional writing today is little better than informing consumers what their own thoughts and feelings could be and what their own thoughts and feelings should be, generally lockstep toward furthering whichever private interests of agency or ego. A fact of ago I remind myself about on occasion was how the East India Tea Company throughout its centuries of conquest and domination employed hundreds of writers and editors, no small curiosity unto itself as the Tea Co plunged its talons into everything but publishing, themselves. Rather were their exploits so controversial they required staff on hand to fathom up positive spins or deflective cover stories in real time. The Tea Co was arguably the world’s first NGO, and the product it sold was spin-doctoring, via what then were unprecedented controls over the import and export of information itself. Relative to the “alternative facts” prized by the MAGA-adjacent, although frankly, there is no such thing as paid writing without selective influence. No matter the circumstances of our times and places in life, the less we help ourselves to controlling other people, the more we leave for self-control. As people fundamentally hand away control over themselves for the promise of also relinquishing responsibility for it, then the more self-control one maintains, the less of a void others might find in need of filling. Even if only in terms of which thoughts and feelings are worth reacting to, how to react and the conditions of repetition aligning with Eldritch chants to mesmer listeners into mistaking their confines for identities but their dreams for vocation.
As microcosm and macrocosm are ultimately one and the same, when it came out about 7 or 8 years ago that my mom’s twin sister had been borrowing money from the Saint Gregory’s community and peoples up and down the family tree purportedly on behalf of my family, going all the way back to when my elder sister Rebecca died almost twenty years prior, but keeping every single penny and never telling my mom anything about it, the response from one of their brothers was that it was okay because my mom was bad with money. And turning daggers, it would seem that the realization of proceeds not in actuality going to the Caldwells prompted folks to give all the more, like some grotesque rendition of the keep-away game. There was a lot of financial support to get me out of the state however, although it has always felt they were paying for silence on my part. But how exactly could my mom have been misspending money she never got, thousands of dollars across many years which she was never counting on? The gnarled branches of that tree just have it fixed in their heads that we are somehow beneath them, when nothing ever warranted such a conclusion. I told my lil sister Catherine it was because we intimidate them, that a typical month in any of our lives would absolutely break any of their people for the duration of theirs. We have known much more intensive tribulations for we were not as inclined towards using and abusing others or justifying such conduct in ourselves or from anybody else. Because the members of my immediate family never afforded to hide within any comfort zone or echo chamber or safe space or news bubble or gated community physical or metaphysical. And that the great thing about pity is that it can be done from afar, which I thought liberals were tremendous fans of, to say nothing of the conservative Christians and their fetish for the bleeding heart’s symbology but never its practice.
As I posted on mom’s facebook account in the weeks after her passing, it’s pitifully telling of all the different persuasions of Christians my mom ever associated with that the one non-Christian she knew was the only person she could depend on for those long days of long weeks of long months of long years of what proved her deathbed. It was to the detriment of my own physical health and I wish I could have continued it for the rest of my life, I’d do it all again in a New York minute, but her spirit was pulverized. She’d have long series of dreams, with basic common components, her back at the old farmhouse, trying to organize help to prepare the meal for the 100 people present all family and their friends, and the teens were snotty and the adults were drunk and it was tense and she’d say after recounting each tale how she wished she could be there in the middle of the mess for real. I myself prefer to be alone, but she absolutely never did. She came back to KY with her three kids dirt broke in the early 90s thinking the family she loved would lend an ear if not a hand, and her sadness only grew from there. We’d love to visit mom’s grave as often as we visited Rebecca’s over the years, but the natives were right- Kentucky is the bloodiest of grounds, and the first element to this resignation on my part was accepting I will see none of it again no matter how long I live. But I know it’s everywhere, if we are not lockstep with others on politics or religion or pop culture faves, Americans see their own as subhuman. Jokes on them though, there are no prizes after the human race. Nobody’s preferred branding of church or state or industry gets to take credit or be otherwise enriched for anything I say or do.
My mom died in government housing, which kills me, but she died owing no bills, no debt whatsoever and was never hit by the IRS in her life. She kept clean books most of her adult life, very frugal with her meager pay and then her meager social security, etc, but always found other uses for any excess on the rare times she did better than break even, like financing the X-mas parties for her fellow Nazareth village residents who were with no family or friends left to holiday with. Though in the 16 years she lived there she was visited by any from among her baker’s dozen or so living siblings a grand total of twice. There were plenty of occasions where she had to bail out one of her kids so we could keep our lights on or whatever, and sometimes she borrowed from her twin or whomever to be sure she herself could see the end of a month, like if that sister wanted a ride out to eat for the fifth time of a given week, mom wanted to be sure she could cover herself, but was always charged interest though, by the same Rush Limbaugh fanatic unironically following business models of the Clinton foundation. If mom had anything extra she passed it on, over the years we had more relatives staying with us and depending on our nonexistent resources than did any of her siblings with land to spare, because when people need assistance you foremost go without luxuries of comfort and pride. Helping to keep anybody alive does not require explanations, or applause. I was always drawn to the modern lepers, whores and thieves, sure, to understand their origins and points of view, largely because of my parents learning to make do with the people who would give them the time of day around inhumane work schedules. Their experiences are always more individualistic than what is more palatable by the masses competing to conform with whichever nonsense. My essays linked to from elsewhere the most concern my experiences of homelessness in the Bible Belt, I’m presuming because domestically nobody wants to accept the heartland’s coldness, so nobody will publish on the topic. But then, with paid media, the real story is always what goes unsaid.
And as much as I loathe social media facebook was an outlet for her, to assist compensating by way of strangers for the family and friends who couldn’t make a 20 minute drive to visit but could go an hour away to be seen at Whole Foods. My mom was as smart with finances as was her own. It’s where she got it, from that wise country woman and her hard-working husband who together managed to raise the first half of their 15 kids without city water. I’m no victim, I’m not jealous of anybody, but it astounds me how clearly jealous my mom’s relatives were and continue to be, despite lesser resources or opportunities she was the closest thing to an angel that everyone who met her might ever know, with no urges for nice clothes or a cool car for unlike the modern world she never thought she deserved something simply by wanting it. When she was gone, I saw that all but one of her sisters had her blocked on facebook, the same ones who against my mom’s wishes just had to have a funeral so they could tell us if we ever needed someone to talk with they’d be more than happy. Catherine still waits for callbacks, such as from the one who defended herself by saying she could not be there for mom as she was going through her own issues which obviously were not on par with deathbed status, and who upon realizing that my sister’s own concerns were not trivialized matters necessitating further belittling, outright stated there was nothing she could do for her, like not even a brief phone chat to help sooth the agonies of the moment. The assistance offered to my sister in the months after mom’s passing is no different from the assistance offered by the same relatives in the early months of my mom’s decline, so dramatically ignorant of all circumstance that it comes across as deeply insulting. It reveals they have no concept of how to go about fighting unless success is handed to them by unbeknownst suckers. Despite being a vegetarian most of her life my sister is a big girl, but not because of any over-eating or from eating the wrong things. She had a series of botched surgical procedures following a car accident in her high school years, making any and all movement a matter of bone grinding bone in her knees and hips and up and down the fused units of her spinal column. So for a well-to-do uncle to call and suggest she eat more veggies, even while not malicious in intent it strikes her like a solid punch to the gut, from this man who cares so much he seems at times to not know thing one about her or her life, as if she were just so stupid as to be unaware of the basics of dietary health. In reality, my parents spent so many hours working for shady bosses that all of their kids were highly adept in the kitchen before any of us were out of puberty. Catherine and I are never more than 10 minutes away from a suicide pact anymore, she for all of her dreams being stomped into the sod by everyone she’s known, and me for never wanting anything to do with this world or this life. Somehow, my never having asked anyone for help with anything in my life came across as invitation to all for me to serve as scapegoat for every occasion, pulled relentlessly into the melodrama of every passerby whose deliriums always come undone explicitly from my lack of contribution.
But one of my biggest regrets was allowing the funeral home to use such the stereotype of an obituary for my mom, just name-dropping locals without saying anything about who she was. I was in no place to write such a thing myself although professionally I’d written several obits in the past. On some level I knew I could not handle it emotionally, and on some level I knew whatever I wrote would just upset people, so I declined and it eats at me still. The official record has her down as a statistic, and her memory will fade with us, while her relatives endure nothing that discomforts them in the slightest. By the same logic have I before asserted that were homeless anywhere remotely as nefarious as the masses want desperately to believe, then they would not be homeless. The lack of success by society’s standards for me and my sister must be due to our being really dumb and really lazy, and never about us simply not deigning to bully or influence persons with their own angels and demons to wrestle for rent monies. How dare I return .ooo1% of the judgement leveled at me throughout my life, instead of just taking it with perverse gratitude. I’ve never wanted love or friendship from anybody, I’d rather not know them at all than this life-long onslaught of gossipy disdain for not identifying their pride and comfort as my sole priorities in life, especially as I have never leveled the same demands upon anybody, anywhere. When I go years shutting them out, their disapproval never grows past itself, it grows to mythic proportions within their expanse of a void to cast me as terrorist or junkie or killer, all because I do not share their faults. When it comes to eternal damnation, the gods lack the imagination of their followers.
It is incredibly egocentric to charge me as a failure or a crazy drunk simply for not pursuing your goals. My mom went to movie theaters all of 5 times in her life, because persons she barely knew needed to eat, that is my role model. I do not castigate anybody for praying to the wrong things or voting for the wrong people or supporting the wrong products, I am insisting you are all destructive morons for not giving that time and space and energy to the many, many persons made to suffer by those very same tenets of ludicrous faith or partisan selfishness or industrial-strength pipe-dreams. Plastic divisions such as the right to life debate versus abortion rights, Pro-Lifers and Pro-Choicers could be encouraged to kiss off and join forces, combing their resources to develop the means for removing living embryos faster, safer and cheaper than dead ones, and with no lingering strings attached financially or legally. At least the kids might stand a chance, which I’d align with the most fundamental of basic human rights, self-determination. Both sides it would seem prefer blood on their own hands. Ego is so incredibly unnecessary as to be anti-life. The two sides could in fact be encouraged to see things this way, but the majority of egos would rather mistake real life for the pathology of DIY segregation made popular by online social media platforms, where only the familiar and comfortable can be true.
I don’t want to be rich or famous, I’m just saying that every problem of the world would disappear overnight were people to not accept the harms they render onto everyone around them as being fundamental to survival. If your heroes and icons can do no wrong you are an idiot, and all it takes for evil to prevail is for everyone to keep thinking of themselves as well-meaning. I have hurt people and I know I’ve had a better life than most of humankind past and present, but the predominance of problems I face result from the arrogance or ignorance of well-meaning cunts walking all over the inferiors in hopes of winning a ribbon from self-elected demigods welcoming illusions into their own lives for the shear pleasure of swapping out empathy with obliviousness. Ask not what your country can do for you, ask why you are so fucking down with huge swathes of its population having less rights or resources or opportunities contrasted with one’s entitlement for concert tickets.
As such, the conclusion I draw is that what devours us in the end is others choosing not to be decent people no matter the breadth of truth’s disfavor, which always arrives under the guise of feeding the right ego or indulging any hysteria of fantasy. Whatever remains of my own time will indeed be wasted doing the work they are both unable and unwilling to accomplish, freeing them to fill the remainder of their lives with all the fast food and sitcoms they project our way. The greatest disinfo, most effective propaganda and biggest lie ever shared, comes from every single person who justifies the suffering not only of others, but of those they claim to side with, each and every last one far more interested in shielding their own skin from day’s defeating light, mislabeling their utter cowardice as the smell of roses.