Look man, I ain't gonna lie. I'm sitting here in my bed, and I'm finna to start a new job, right? I'm finna to start a new job, that's gonna pay me a lot of money. And this is, in any other scenario, a year, two years ago, I would be all about it. But man, all I can think about, you know, I get older, I have a kid, that kid gets a little bit older, he gonna ask me, he gonna go, "Pop, where were you when they was killing all them kids in Gaza? When they was dropping all them bombs. What were you doing?" And you know what I'm gonna have to say to my son? I'm gonna say, "I was stacking paper, son. I was getting some bread."
Could you imagine, it's Nazi Germany, and somebody said, well, they sending them to the gas chambers, train by train by train, day after day. I keep seeing them get loaded up on the news, but shit, I gotta stack my paper, I gotta get my bread. Sounds a little bit ridiculous, don't it? It sounds a little bit ridiculous. And it's got me thinking about a whole lot of things. And part of me almost feels like this job, the money that this job gonna pay me, okay, this money is a bribe. It's the system saying, hey, look, we know you don't like it, but here's some good money, man. You wanna get that paper, don't you?
Brother, I wanna get that paper more than anything I want to break the cycle. My kids ain't growing up ina dusty ass FEMA trailer park. That's all my life has been about. I remember selling snack cakes in middle school. I was selling test results in high school. I was selling whatever I needed to sell, okay? Doing whatever I needed to do. Things I can't tell you. I was working two full-time jobs before covid, 80+ hours a week sleeping in my car some nights.
But I've seen things in the last six months that would make a grown man weep. And that just is something I cannot stop thinking about. Like, what am I doing? What are we all doing? I saw a toddler melted, no skin, just sinew and burns. White phosphorous is only made in America, only in Arkansas. We did that.
We did that man.
You know, I run a website. I got a platform. I get like 5,000, 6,000 views, sometimes even 7,000 views a week. I've written article after article and I don't feel any less hollow than I did when it first started, when I first started seeing them videos. I've spread the word, I've gotten my social medias have been banned for spreading the word, but it's not enough. It's not shit. It's internet shit. That's not real shit. That kid, if I told him, well, you know, I look, I wrote an article about what they did to you. You think you feel better about what they did? It's many a nights I lost sleep thinking about the things I done seen. And I know the people who are doing these things, they sleep in the sound as a motherfucking bear in the wintertime.
I don't think I can say anything that hasn't already been said, but I can say, I do get it. I try to go by the idea that "I can't help someone else put their mask on if I don't put on my own first." But it's also not always clear what counts as that vs. not. And it feels surreal going about my day like nothing is happening, only to go spend some time amplifying more traumatizing news about ongoing genocide. I've been doing a lot of crying or close to crying these days and that's something I used to almost never do. Nobody and nothing prepares you for something like this. How can they? Genocide is hell and there's not a lot of precedent, I don't think (if any), for being in a position where we simultaneously know in graphic detail that it's happening day by day while also, many of us, being so far removed from it in locality that it's difficult to do more than make sure people know it's happening and that its perpetrators can't control the narrative. Which is something and people are trying to do more than that, but in what ways, I'm not super well-informed on the specifics.
I just know that even if it can feel trite at times, being kind to yourself is important; recognizing that you have limitations and taking care of your needs, and doing what you can within that. I know some can take that kind of mindset too far, to the point of luxury and indulgence and burying head in sand, but I think someone in your position, like me, would understand it's a warning about overdoing it and stretching yourself thin, that making sure to apply your compassion to yourself too is not going to stop you from caring about things like this and looking to do what you can.
I'm in this weird spot right now where, you know, I've been unemployed for three months. I'm basically out of money and out of things I can sell to get money, and I've borrowed money from, you know, a lot of friends at this point. And it's not a good look, though, because before I got laid off, they stole my last check, and by the time I finally got it, it was only half my pay, and then there was PayPal fees, because I sent it through PayPal, and it's a long story. But at the same time, I have been expended a job offer that if I can get this license taken care of and handled, which is going to cost me money I don't have, then I could potentially make a good amount of money, like more than I was making any job before this one. And it's such a weird feeling where it's like cabinets are empty, rent is short, but maybe, just maybe, we'll be okay. I don't know.
Basically out of options, and trying not to scream as loud as I can.