THE REAL PLAGUE

I remember opening facebook a couple months ago, when I was getting my hair done. Mistake number one.
At the top: a half-dozen posts about Charlie Kirk’s assassination. “Liberalism is a disease.” “They’re murdering Christians now.” “This is proof the Left is demonic.”

I didn’t see compassion.
I didn’t see curiosity.
I saw propaganda in meme form.

And I broke.

I dressed in black. I posted ChristopherHitchens (Religion Poisons Everything) and Jon Stewart (listing all the shootings where Republicans stayed silent) clips. I blasted Nazi Punks Fuck Off. I went hunting for fights like I was twenty again. I even went to my cousin’s page, where she’d written “You can kill the messenger but not the message. Christ is Lord.” I lit her up. Told her her god was fake, told her she was following a ghost that never existed.

I was rage itself. Not rageful — rage.

And then I remembered the words of Marcus Aurelius, my Bible:

“The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury.”
“Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.”
“The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.”

That’s where I live now. At war with insanity.

The Poison

Religion is a plague.
Politics is almost there.
Social media? The vector.

We were never meant to have this much access to each other’s thoughts. We were never built to hold the weight of every tragedy, every bombing, every hate crime, every shooting, every miscarriage of justice, every smug thought-dump from the assholes you share DNA with.

The human nervous system isn’t built for infinite crisis.
And yet here we are, jacked in 24/7, bathing in poison.

And the sick joke? The very companies delivering the poison profit from keeping us angry. From showing us only the worst, over and over. Not the meals cooked, not the hands held, not the people who quietly make a life despite the odds. None of that trends. None of that sells.

Social media was supposed to bring us together. But it turns out that, back in the day, when you had to have conversations face-to-face, you selectively shared your thoughts. When you wrote a letter, you had time to slow down and think through how you wanted to say something. Even when calling someone, you worried about the cost of the call and knew their answering machine, if they didn’t pick up, would cut you off after a bit.

Now, when something happens, we immediately open our socials and react, without thought, without selective editing, without slowing down, and without worry. We hit post, feel righteous, and go back to what we were doing while the fire we just set burns outward.

It’s rage-bait or nothing.
And rage is killing us.

The Betrayal

I’ve lost a brother to war.
A mother to accident.
A father to neglect and shame.
Friends to suicide, cancer, and bullets that weren’t even meant for them.

And when I show up online to grieve? To process?
I’m told I’m crazy. Too angry. Too much.

I’ve always been that guy, though. The things I felt, the parts of myself I wanted to express, they were not acceptable in social normative situations. So, I retreated. Edited myself to be a version of someone else’s vibe. Didn’t tell jokes that might be great and might fall flat, and instead tell a middle-of-the-road one.

I’ve spent my life being felt sorry for, or looked down on like I’m some guy with issues that needs to be protected, or ignored.

Fuck that.

I don’t owe anyone my silence. I don’t owe anyone my calm. I don’t owe anyone a polite nod while Nazis march again — this time dressed like dads at Target.

You want my beliefs? Here they are:

• I believe education is the silver bullet. Schools should be cathedrals. Teachers should be paid like quarterbacks.

• I believe libraries should be temples. Free. Open. Untouchable.

• I believe everyone deserves food, shelter, health care — without a goddamn price tag.

• I believe your gender, your sexuality, your body is yours. As easy to declare as whether I’m “Chris” or “Christopher.”

• I believe in creation as the only antidote to war. Jonathan Larson said it best: the opposite of war isn’t peace, it’s creation.

• I believe Nazis — however they dress it up — are my enemy. Always. Forever.

I could go on and on. Maybe this will be fodder for future blogs. I have shitloads of beliefs. Not the least of which is that religion is a scam perpetrated on the most vulnerable and simplest of us.

The Reckoning

When fascism comes to America, Sinclair Lewis said, it will be wrapped in a flag and carrying a Bible.
He was right. I’ve seen it. I’ve argued with it. I’ve watched it dance at funerals and elections and in my goddamn Facebook feed.

But here’s the part they don’t want you to realize:
We don’t have to play this game.

We don’t have to choose between silence and despair.
We don’t have to doomscroll ourselves into paralysis.
We don’t have to swallow poison just because it’s served on a glowing screen.

Our choices aren’t simply to set ourselves on fire and run through the neighborhood setting other fires or freezing in place so we don’t do anything to hurt anyone.

We can put the rage into creation.
Into writing.
Into music.
Into building something that lasts longer than the bullshit cycle of tragedy and thoughts-and-prayers.

The Legacy

I missed the chance to show my dad I could succeed.
I missed the chance to make my brother laugh one more time.
I missed the chance to say half the things I should have said to the people who died before I grew the balls to say them.

But I’m still here.
And if I’m still here, then rage has to become fuel.

The opposite of war isn’t peace.
It’s creation.

And I’ll keep creating until I’m out of time.
That’s my revenge.
That’s my prayer.
That’s my legacy.

That’s my purpose.