What a cruel world we live in! For every installment erected in remembrance of the innocent dead, there should be one more dose of true justice served to those who have suffered, but alas, that is not the reality we live in. Supposedly, in order to commemorate the fallen, we need to continue perpetrating the cruel systems that resulted in those lives being lost. Wouldn’t Veterans Day be the best argument against ending useless wars across the planet? Apparently not.
Fighters in the endless and honorable war against idiocy and division oftentimes throw punches by virtue of staying alive. How else will their traditions of plain and simple empathy continue to exist? They really do deserve a break, and it’s nice to see when they are allowed time to relax, to celebrate what has been done. Yet I can’t stop thinking about how so many witness such acts and smile without thinking anything of what work still needs to be done to ensure true equality.
How come we live in a world where people still belittle and abuse others over such arbitrary attributes such as the melanin concentration of one’s skin cells or what one chooses to do in the privacy of their own bedroom? Where is the world where people are judged by their morality and the moralities of those they associate with? How many more people have to suffer and die for the most absurd reasons before justice is served?
Break time is valuable and necessary to remain sane, but never forget what you are fighting for.
The five hour drive was worth it. Kent was a success!
From exploring the town Wednesday night to touring the campus the next morning, my time in Kent was a fascinating and eye opening experience. I was not sure what to expect, as judging a location’s current condition when most of your knowledge comes from its history can be difficult. Yet I was overall extremely satisfied while I was there.
Twelve beaming floors of library at Kent State.
My primary gripe: leaving so early. We stayed just one night, and a large part of me wanted to do nothing but continue wandering the campus in the burning heat, taking in the brutalish buildings and towering trees, fantasizing about undergraduate life. Chances to escape from my usual surroundings are often scarce and always short lived, making every drive home something to dread. Too often these excursions seem to zip by in a flash in retrospect, which is what I guess results from savoring something so much that you let go of some of the uptightness you’ve grown accustomed to and start living in the moment…not that’s a necessarily bad thing.
This temporary change of scenery extremely refreshing for my psyche, but it was also enlightening to spend time in a place that holds both historical significance and increasing relevancy, especially since learning of the massacre that occurred on campus in 1970 left a large impact on me. It was a genuinely sobering experience to walk where four young innocents had their futures obliterated decades ago, the same grounds where modern youths currently prepare for their own postcollegiate lives to unfold. Seeing markers for where protesting students were shot and the sectioned off areas in the nearby parking lot showing where the four were killed seemed unreal in the moment, and my emotions only began to really hit home after leaving. I was able to leave that campus with feelings of actual hope of an actual future. Allison, Jeffrey, Sandra, and William suffered a very different experience than what I would envision for myself or anyone else.
A memorial for the four slain students by the parking lot where they were murdered. The lot is still in use.
The abuse of illegitimate authority that resulted in the May 4 massacre remains the same today, albeit in more refined form. At Kent State, the memorials and informational placards are the most blatant reminder of why the good fight is still worth fighting, though the somewhat seedy wooded areas on the outskirts of the town that we got lost in upon our initial arrival also seem to serve that purpose. I remember reading that, during that period of turmoil and pain, Kent State’s liberal students considered the campus an “oasis” from the surrounding deep red territory. Living in an area where I am constantly bombarded by Trump 2020 signs alongside various less explicit methods of bigotry, I can’t help but feel for them. If only life was just and everything was easy.
Despite this, the chances of me joining their ranks as a “Golden Flash” have only become more likely since my visit. Kent State genuinely felt like a place I could worm my way into and find plenty nourishment. Brand new things and brand new places often have an atmosphere of impenetrability and intimidation, as they are associated with breaking out of one’s comfort zone and embracing a new world. But I didn’t feel as much like a fish out of water in Kent. Actually, my visit felt more like I was entering a comfort zone of sorts. It was a comfort zone formed by both the assertion of myself as an independent person and constant reminders of history and the experiences of others. But isn’t that a fundamental—albeit complicated and looming—aspect of the human experience?
In examining the world around me, I constantly find myself longing for something more.
Over time I’ve become extremely tired with my current, mostly static environment, one that I still have around a year to revel in before the onset of college. Example: I went on a spur-of-the-moment excursion today for a nearby town’s annual neighborhood yard sale. The majority of that time was spent marching through a small town sidewalk hell hole in overwhelming heat spying nothing but baby clothes and grimy rom-com DVDs. Such a scene serves as a textbook example of what I hate about my current location, the fuel for my daydreams of mid-century minimalist abodes and illuminated action cities. (Don’t get me started on how today’s sights support my attitude towards society as a whole, or we’ll be here all day.) I insist that my reveries are not entirely selfish, though it is impossible for any human being to truly escape their innate ego. All human beings have the right to live life in the way most fulfilling to them; cruel societal barriers say otherwise.
The only items I acquired on my misadventure were found far away from those goons in a completely different part of my area, in the much shadier suburban driveway of an older yet lively woman who was inviting and didn’t have a vengeful Trump sign hanging outside her residence. My finds screamed of hope chest material: A classy button jacket for when the weather gets chilly, a simple red and silver necklace to spruce up dinner dates that I’ve never been on, and two matching cummerbund sets for when me and my future hubby want to have some fun at fancy dinner parties. All this investment for six dollars. If you couldn’t tell, I’ve thought out what I’d like my future to hold quite a bit.
I am fully aware that, in order to make my hypothetical future happen in some capacity, I’m going to have to work. No matter my determination level, I’m still going to have to negotiate with everything else happening around me. Both roadblocks to progress and unexpected opportunities are guaranteed to emerge and run me off track. My plans could very well become fragmented or shattered entirely.
It’s also hard aspiring to resemble one’s heroes in life, even though the circumstances they gained their success under have gone extinct. Comparing the past to the present is a natural reflex—for me, at least. Too many assume that our present is automatically better than our past solely because, according to some, the forward movement of time always signals a positive societal progression. This is not the case in a world as chaotic as ours, and if anything that trajectory is burrowing deeper and deeper into the pits daily. While I do witness many notable changes occurring on a societal scale, these changes are rarely positive. Bigotry and idiocy continue to be normalized, causing most attempts at progress to function as largely meaningless, superficial pandering. Knowing that the world you live in is a much tougher sell in a multitude of ways than it was even ten years ago isn’t comforting, especially when it feels like the end of the world is always just around the corner. Time machines don’t exist, and the flying cars that were promised to us decades ago are nowhere to be found.
I’ll be in Kent, Ohio in four days to observe the grounds of its college campus. It will not be the Kent, Ohio it was years, months, days, seconds ago, despite being probably best known for its undeniable history. Maybe Kent State will fulfill the hopes I’ve set aside for it. Maybe it won’t.
I finally did it. I found a Chick tract in the wild.
Chick tracts, for the uninitiated, are small illustrated religious pamphlets originally created by one Jack T. Chick, who hoped that his comics would convert America’s populous to fundamentalist Christianity. Despite the downright hateful views expressed in some of these booklets and the controversy they still attract, they continue to be distributed by various means across the globe, carrying Chick’s messages beyond the grave (he passed in 2016). They have become a frequent target of lampooning by those infatuated and infuriated by their existence; they have been immortalized in films, CD booklets, and songs.
I have always found these tracts fascinating for their sheer lack of subtlety in their messaging as well as their iconic and immediately recognizable graphic style, which has inspired many a budding punk graphic artiste hoping to subvert the Mainstream. To me they serve as fascinating, living artifacts from America’s fundamentalist side, just one example of the persisting influence of the religious right in the west and beyond.
“The Word Became Flesh” is not as interesting as some of the other, more well known tracts—instead of an absurd cartoon story of a lost soul/dirty rotten sinner being miraculously converted to the Lord after a short conversation with another cardboard cutout of a person, it’s an illustrated retelling of portions of the Bible regarding Jesus’s word. But that doesn’t make it any less intriguing.
Actually, my first encounter with a Chick tract was in the wild, though it wasn’t as a found object. I was casually browsing the pants aisle of a local thrift shop hoping to find something tolerable in my size when a mysterious woman armed with a shopping cart manifested beside me. With long pale wavy hair and dark, flowing garments, she resembled one’s kooky, Wicca enthused aunt who always bakes a mean batch of cookies when you visit her every summer. However, her religious affiliation vastly differed from what her outer appearance implied, which I would soon learn.
She was feuding with an overwhelming armful of clothing hangers which she eventually lost control of, dropping the collection on the ground in the process. I naturally glanced over, expecting her to be bending down cleaning up her spill. Instead, she just stood there, looking somewhat bewildered. She may have been old, but she didn’t look so frail that she wouldn’t be able to pick up the mess. It was almost as if she had committed the act on purpose as a test of my will to help a poor old disheveled woman experiencing obviously monumental peril. Concerned but willing, I bent down and began to help pick the hangers up for her, placing them in her cart.
She thanked me for my help and asked me a few questions, with the most potent question being, “Do you attend church?” The moment my brain processed the inquiry, I knew something was different. I replied that I do not, as I would be lying if I said otherwise.
She made her exit by gifting me a “comic book” from her bag, immediately recognizable to me from it’s horizontal format and monochrome cover. Next to a crudely drawn image of a wailing nuclear family with “666” imprinted on each member’s forehead, bold white text spelled out “The Beast;” “J.T.C.” lingered in smaller print in the lower right corner. Baby’s first Chick tract.
Upon realizing what gold I was currently holding, I slipped it into my back pocket as discreetly as possible as feelings of unreality and ecstasy began to boil within my brain. There was no way I would ever have such a seemingly once-in-a-lifetime encounter—right?
But it was real.
Since then, I’ve found numerous religious pamphlets while shopping at Christian-run thrift stores in my area, usually lying on a table of goods or a bookshelf, including this amusing vandalized item. However, none of these had been a Chick Publications product, and all of them were much more generic. There’s something about the cartoony malice of a Chick tract that still holds, a blatant propaganda tool turned cultural icon.
It’s such a shame that succumbing to hero worship is becoming more and more common within human society.
The concept of putting faith in one individual is flawed in itself, yet it remains almost necessary for survival. Change can only be made via group efforts; putting one’s sole faith in a single individual makes it impossible for anything to get done, as one person cannot be a master of all trades. Some do hold many talents, yet there will inevitably be some area in which they flounder. In order for a group to work successfully, each member must play an active role in whatever region they happen to be specialized in; a machine needs many parts to operate.
However, everyone likes to cheer on a lead singer, a pretty face, an icon. Some need to. There’s a reason why monotheistic religions are still such a large influence in today’s world.
If one gains a significant amount of faith in another, that faith can become difficult to completely let go of. This erects a moral concern should the hero fail in some regard.
Once one obtains power, the urge to maintain that power by any means necessary takes form. Paranoia sets in, instilling a fear of others who may try to take the crown. Prestige and glory must be defended at any cost. The football player who uses steroids and the CEO whose workers are severely underpaid have similar reasons behind their actions. If eyes are not on them, they are nothing.
A hero does a Very Bad Thing, the Very Bad Thing is publicized, and criticism arises. Those with faith can take one of two routes: they can accept that their so-called hero is a flawed human being just like anybody else and make a decision regarding whether continued support is worth the effort or not; or they can continue to view the hero as superhuman, elevated. By choosing to maintain the myth of the superhero one opens up two more paths: they can spiral into a depression at the realization of anything that contradicts with the hero’s preconceived facade, not unlike the preteen girl bawling over her favorite pop star getting married; or they can wage war against the slightest criticism, as the superhero is to them impenetrable and any negative analysis is the untruth. Common sense too often takes a backseat to blind worship and obsession. One’s brain must maintain a healthy amount of skepticism alongside a degree of openness in order to cut through the crap and see things for what they really are, not what one desperately wants them to be.
It’s Earth Day today, which ironically coincides with my recent contemplation of world “suckage.” Pardon my language, but as beautiful as our planet is in it’s natural state, the society we humans have built on top of it overall really, really sucks.
Alleviation of such man made suckage most often comes in the form of small victories, such as, say, a court case outcome, while large scale victories—abolition, revolution, the like—are extremely rare. Large victories take even more strenuous amounts of effort to achieve than the small, and they require the sacrifice of the participant’s personal comfort. In a world as individualistic as ours, no one wants to give up what they have grown so accustomed to, no matter how harmful the underlying factors may be; those who do are looked down on as insane. Simultaneously, large victories are so often associated with past cultural shifts that many believe that movements of similar magnitude are not needed anymore; the work was, in their eyes, already done before they were born. Under these circumstances, small victories are enough to satisfy any rebellious blood lust that still lingers.
And as for the people making everything suck in the first place? They’ve just gotten better at convincing the masses to get on their side. Modern society provides just enough comfort to quell the spirit of rebellion in the vast majority. A roof above your head and a cell phone in your hand are all you need to be “okay.”
Actual change takes mobilization and determination in the face of adversity, and despite how fun talking about societal revolution is, we’re simply not at that level of mass mobilization and determination yet. Looking at how tight conformist society has its grip on the populous, we may never reach that goal. Will the majority of the people whose lives have been unjustly ended receive true comeuppance on a societal scale? Most likely not. I’m not trying to be pessimistic; I’m just being realistic.
And I wish it didn’t have to be this way.
But giving up in the face of such adversity is the coward’s option. Take some time out if you need, but leaving the fighting spirit to wither and rot just makes the tyrannical grip tighter for all of us. Keep the memory of your fallen comrades alive. Walk, talk, and breathe in their names. Get out of bed. Do something.
I was recently able to schedule an appointment for the first of my two COVID-19 vaccinations.
It’s a somewhat strange feeling knowing that the day will be soon upon me, and I perceive my relative youth as a large factor. Since vaccine distribution began with the elderly, I’ve gotten used to hearing news that the older adults in my life have received their jabs. Having the opportunity bestowed upon me, someone with relatively less life experience, feels odd, despite that there are many ways that I just do not feel young. I find myself in a liminal state: not quite old, not quite new.
Emotions like this fuel my disdain of generational divides. I have never understood why one would restrict themselves to consuming solely products of their own generation, nor why the media would stereotype generations and pit them against each other in endless, mindless cultural catfights. But what draws more attention than a conflict that doesn’t actually exist or is warped out of proportion?
I experience positive and negative echos of the past daily: I listen to songs released years before I was born on the regular; I read news stories that call to mind history class discussions about the extinction of Jim Crow laws and lynchings—oh really? If someone hopes to stand a chance in today’s world, no matter their age, they have to know their history. Learning from the past is the only way to make actual progress; repeat your mistakes, and that’s one more dollar in the GoFundMe campaign funding complete societal downfall.
Speaking of history: after we’ve all got our shots, will the rest of the twenties be as roaring as they were one hundred years ago? I’d say they’re already pretty roaring—with absurdity and obscenity, that is. It’s pretty absurd that back in the day vaccines were viewed as miracles and now they’re viewed as microchips. Being in good health—mentally and physically—just ain’t cool anymore, it seems.
Well, I don’t care about being “cool.” I care about having common sense.
