Rough

Seven years ago there was a news story about a nazi that was punched randomly.  The guy was recognized as a nazi and he was punched.  Seven years ago I got into a heated discussion about how violence is never the answer, I didn't care if the guy was a certified nazi, no one deserves to be punched.  Suffice to say, I am a very different person today than I was seven years ago.  

I remember on several occasions over the course of my life thinking that wishing people harm or even death just made me cringe.  I don't know whether it was something that was drilled into me by my parents - the whole "never wish someone dead because they may just end up dead and then you'll regret it" or if it was just something that was something that was just in my base programming.  Thoughts like that still give me the ick, but the fact of the matter is that I have them.  I feel like lately I've been having the feeling of wanting to "choose violence" as the saying goes more often then not.  I have a mental list of people that I would love to punch if given the opportunity.  I hear jokes about the rich getting eaten and I think they're funny.   I am a very very different person than I was 7 years ago and if I'm being honest with myself, I really don't know if I'm okay with that.  

Part of me still believes that I'm incredibly naive.  Another part of me is like "Okay, I see how it is."  I don't think I was necessarily naive.  In fact, I think if anything I have been and continue to be incredibly privileged.  I want to say that I feel bad about the fact that I'm privileged.  I want to say that I feel ashamed for feeling and being privileged.  I know I have been insulated the entirety of my life.  Even when I was in my early 20s, dealing with having a child of my own and not knowing what I wanted to do with my life, I have been incredibly blessed  privileged to have this huge safety net thanks to my parents.  Even now in my mid 40's I still have that safety net that they built, maintained and gave me.  That same net is there for my own children.  That net, however, isn't as safe as it once was.  I can't envelope my wife in the same net and think, like I did for so very long, that everything was and is going to be okay.  Maybe that's the naive part?  

It feels like the world is on fire and we are living in a shit show of epic proportions.  Just this week we've seen the French government collapse, South Korea's president declared martial law for a short time, a CEO of a company get assassinated and I'm over here doing something that I could not even have imagined doing seven years ago.  I'm laughing.   I am also seeing the writing on the wall and I know that things are going to get a hell of a lot worse before they get better.  

There are some days that I feel like I have the strength of a dozen people with the mental fortitude to fight for the little guy with every single fiber of my being and there are days when I just wake up, see what's going on in the world, sigh, utter a single "fuccccckkkkkk" and want to hide under the covers in my bed.  There are days when I say fuck it all and will fight with every fiber in my body towards building a community, all while realizing that while I have had friends since moving to Florida, I never really built my own community and being mad that it's taken me this long to do so.  Then there are days when I wonder if me and my family wouldn't be better off just liquidating everything we own with the exception of one of our cars, going and grabbing my Dad's camper and running away from everything and starting over somewhere new.  My brain is not a happy place to be on those days.  They tend to be incredibly unproductive, sad, and all I have the capacity to do is sit and stare at the walls.  The worst part?  Kacy is in the same boat as me.  Some days we both want to fight and build.  We love our home.  This house that we live in, the five acres we're on... it's home.  While we really loved our house in Indiana, it never really felt like home.  While we both agree that we could have lived there forever and would have been perfectly comfortable doing so, we both agree that it didn't feel like home.   This house, these five acres here in Florida, even though some days it feels like a lot of work that we really don't want to deal with.... It feels like home.  To me, it felt like home the first time I saw it.  I guess my brain wants to know if this feels like home, why aren't we happy?  Why are there so many days that are hard? Why can't we just settle into life here?  Why do external forces make things feel so... difficult? 

I want my home to be insulated against the bad, but the bad seeps in through the cracks.  It makes me feel very "stabby" as the kids like to say.  On one hand, I'm so much more forgiving of different things but on the other hand... If put into a room with certain people? I don't think I could just stand there and keep my head down, ignoring the idiocy.  I feel like I have spent so much of my life afraid of consequences.  I feel like so much of my life I was told that if I kept my head down and just did the right thing that the world would do right by me.  

I feel like I was lied to when I was told that all I had to do to effect change in the world was write my local newspaper, congressperson, senator, or even the president.  I was raised and encouraged that if I didn't like something that I should politely make my opinion known.    I have been operating under the impression that if I do things a certain way that the world would reciprocate by being a kinder more understanding place.  That's not how it is at all.  My single voice does not count for shit in this world and yet at the same time, I see proof that if enough voices get together you can change things.  Unfortunately, the world is not a fair place and even if those voices are raised and they ask for whatever it is they want, they're not necessarily going to get it.  It doesn't matter if it's a crust of bread or basic human rights.  

The only people who truly get what they want are the people that have money to pay for what they want and everyone else has to fight for the scraps.  How is this fair?  How do just a few select people get to decide what is right for everyone?  What makes my opinion less valid than someone who has a billion dollars in their bank account?  (I really want to scream that their money is all pretend and doesn't exist - it's all just made up and that I would trust a cockroach more than them.)

It's 2024 and I don't understand why people don't understand that there is no right or wrong way to exist.  I say that with a caveat that we need some societal rules.  We can't nor should we just randomly go around punching people (nor should we be unaliving them) but I can totally understand where some people are coming from now where they would punch someone.  I can understand how you can be pushed so far that you can lose it and just let your temper fly off the handle.  I am honestly starting to believe that the people that are just like "Now, now.  We need to cooperate and be nice," have never ever in their lives have been exposed to something that has driven them to actually need to stand up for themselves.  

How soon before I find myself in a situation where I do actually punch someone because of their beligerance?  How soon before I have to deal with consequences for actions that I was pushed to? How soon before I am dealing with a situation where I have to defend my family because we don't live how other people believe is the "right way?"  It's kind of funny - I kind of feel like Walter White from Breaking Bad... He is pushed and pushed and pushed and finally he becomes the one who knocks.  

The world should be afraid.  The little guys have been pushed too far and now we're standing up for ourselves.  I'm making a promise to myself that I am not going to go out looking for trouble, but I also promise that if trouble comes to my front door I will answer and I will fight back.  I will fight for my family.  I will fight for our rights to exist.  Tired, hungry, poor... I will always open my door to help people, but if you come into my house and you're a nasty ass piece of shit human?  You will be knocked down.  But, after I'm done knocking you down (and this is the difference between me and other people), I will extend my hand, help you back up and do everything in my power to help you realize where you went wrong and I'll probably offer to feed you or give you a place to stay while you're recovering.  I, unlike a lot of people out there, am not the monster you believe me or my family to be.  It's just not going to be easy.  It's going to be really really rough and no amount of sand paper is going to smooth out those rough edges.