I Respect Your...

Preface

I am supposed to tell you: What to do. What to think. What to say. What to believe.

You are supposed to: do and think and say and believe. Not according to your freedom to be. But according to your faith without qualification.

*

At least, if I am your... God.

Otherwise, I am supposed to tell you: nothing.

You are supposed to: everything.

At least, if I respect your... right. 

*

But that's not true, is it? Not really.

I Respect Your...

I respect your...

right to the truth so:

that is not how it works and you know it.

*

After all... you won't leave me be. What to do. What to think. What to say. What to believe. You're full of it: full of telling me everything.

What's happened to my everything? Or is my right to everything, like respect:

a one way street where you make a mockery of mutuality like you own all the lanes?

*

I respect your...

right to respect:

that's how it works and you not only know it, you pear-shape it.

*

Without me affording you the benefit of civility, you couldn't: Attack what I do. Ridicule what I think. Dismiss what I say. Vilify what I believe. You're full of it: full of doing everything but being real.

Because passing around a hat to fund indulgences isn't being rich. Because gaslighting real lives of real people isn't being powerful. Because pumping nightmares on steroids isn't being influential.

*

I respect your...

right to believe that:

I am supposed to say nothing while you do you. 

*

If it weren't for the timid, the people who think and believe 'fairness' means you exercising the practice of wronging with impunity -

if it weren't for the apathetic, the people who think and believe 'liberty' means seeing, saying, and doing nothing here -

if it weren't for the wrong, the people who think and believe 'happiness' means the will of God, that is: destiny, is in the eye of the beholder -

you couldn't do you without qualification. Not really.

* 

I do not respect your...

immunity to consequences and

I am not supposed to worship your pear-shaped make believe, where the timid and apathetic and wrong are supposed to manifest riches and power and influence

over my self-respect.

Whether you lie for happiness - whether you defraud for faith - whether you deceive for your right to wrong -

you're in a lane you don't own:

mine. 

Addendum

People make much ado about 'respect'.

In the context of generational differences - or entitled versus earned - or that which is owed or due because its expression or measure is not enough - etc.

But all such ado - is not always about respect.

*

When 'respect' is unfurled like a flag that incites and provokes rage from the wounded and aggrieved -

the truth is:

that is not respect. Period.

*

And insofar as contempt of respect has been, is, and will be met with disinterest and inaction,

basic b$tches and basic s$gmas have been, are, and will pear-shape respect:

to @sshole without consequences.

*

Such that normative @ssholery and prescriptive @ssholery are not only a reality because basic b$tches and basic s$gmas are @assholes -

but also because people make much ado about not giving a damn. After all, people have been, are, and will surrender to basics playing at being God, because the alternative is giving more f#cks than zero.

*

Needless to say, I am not supposed to see, hear, and say nothing when basics play at being God and I respect neither the basics who are @ssholes nor the people who see, hear, and say nothing while a dumpster fire sucks all the oxygen out of everything.

M

*

Postface

When basics 'win':

You don't win because it's your choice. Because basics aren't in it to win it for you. Nor do you win because you don't care. Because basics never win without the tacit cooperation of people who'd sooner sell their organs for a magic bean or two than invest and engage in civic action.

When basics 'win':

This isn't good people here being good. This isn't God's will. This isn't inevitable. This is:

you playing at being God 

like God's on team @sshole.

M 

The Not-Mystery of the Basic B$tch

I cannot say what makes a mystery...

or doesn't...

except to say: 'formulas' are not 'mysteries'.

The Not-Mystery of the Basic B$tch

There are no mysteries. You know: unknowns. There is only (a) what's known, hidden from you, (b) by a stranger or a someone not a stranger (c) or a you, yourself.

*

So there's a woman knocking at the door. Why? Why not no one? Why is there a stranger at the door?

But I don't ask the someone at the door: why. Because I know something the stranger doesn't: she won't tell me the truth. Not because the truth is unknown. Not because the truth is a 'mystery'.

Because the someone knows. Why she is knocking at my door.

I don't ask because the truth is her secret. Withheld from me to keep me in the dark. As if darkness is hers to impose.

*

So there's a man who sits accused in a courtroom. Why? What's happened? What compels a man to be so publicly addressed?

Who's to say? The accused? I don't ask the accused: why. Because I know what everybody knows: the accused won't tell anybody the truth. Not because the truth is unknown. Not because the truth is a 'mystery'.

Because what's happened, happens: not by everybody squeezing their eyes shut; not by everybody tying their hands to their sides and fixing their feet to the ground; not by everybody zipping their lips with tossed invisible keys.

Because see-nothings and do-nothings and speak-nothings do not exist except insofar as fictions that secret the truth behind nothings.

*

So there's someone who starts 'it'. Why? Why not no one? Who, after all, starts a war?

It's unjust and terrible and of all wretched human acts, the worst. Every. Single. Time. Still: why? why? why? we ask.

Not because the truth is unknown. Not because the truth is a 'mystery'. Because life is fragile and cheap. As for sacred:

What's sacred about molecules? Their mere existence? Still: we profess 'our truths' like knives of blamelessness at each other's throats. As if grace forgives us... our dishonesties.

*

There are no mysteries. You know: unknowns. There is only (a) what's known, hidden from us, (b) by a stranger or a someone not a stranger (c) or an us, ourselves.

Addendum

I am, on the one hand,

disappointed that The Not-Mystery of the Basic B$tch is not a familiar 'story', much less a 'formula' 'mystery'. 

But I am, on the other,

not confounded.

By the time its audience appreciates the thrill of its puzzle: not only is it the case that a familiar 'story' was never a 'mystery', not really, afterwards, it will never 'again', dumbfound its audience.  

*

Such that what we enjoy

is not-mysteries after all.

*

But life, unlike a genre or procedural or category, doesn't present not-mysteries as 'formulas'. A woman. A man. A someone. A knock. A trial. A war. The telling that entertains

is make believe.

In reality, to know what's known, hidden from us, by a stranger or a someone not a stranger or an us, ourselves -

is our not-mystery to solve.

*

The not-mystery of who to trust. With ourselves. With our honesty. With being kind.

The not-mystery of who to vote for. Because lives worth living are not created by human beings who don't give a f*ck, sh!t, or d@mn.

The not-mystery of who to stand with. As if standing 'as one with our own' without a moral compass... is who we are and what we do.

Because the 'formula' for 'basic' is, in the end, unoriginal and...

unexceptional.

M 

*

Notes

(i) The title of this post is The Mystery of the Basic B$tch. However, I appreciate that such title is, in a sense, misleading. With that in mind, the published title of this post is The Not-Mystery of the Basic B$tch.

Note that my title references Lisa Jewell's None of This Is True: A Novel for reasons that are plain and self-evident. 

(ii) The not-mystery of the 'basic b$tch' or 'normative @ssholery' isn't why.

Id est: (a) ignorance, delusion, and rejection doesn't make conventional antipathy, hostility, and wrongdoing not exist; (b) blaming everything and everyone but oneself and one's own doesn't make oneself and one's own right and everything and everyone else objectionable; (c) deciding final solutions are the only way to act doesn't make such decisions the only legitimate means to acceptable ends, etc. 

Which is to say, the not-mystery of the 'basic s$gma' or 'prescriptive @ssholery' is what. we. make. so.

(iii) My 'truth to power'

to the powerful who are teeming masses is: there are truths to be told; to the powerful who are inheritors of aristocracy, who govern institutions and legacies is: there are truths to be told; to the powerful who are extremists, who employ cruelty and malice is: there are truths to be told

because power is not above truth.

My 'truth to power'

opposes the reasoning that there exists an inherent 'right' to power through (a) a so-called 'divine right' that abuses the conditions and exploits the loopholes of representative government, (b) corruption and contempt of truth, and/or (c) the 'will' of make believe, whether such make believe is a so-called 'privilege' of (i) 'ideology' or (ii) 'faith' or (iii) so-called 'right' to lie with bona fide 'impunity'.

(iv) There is no 'mystery' to a future that furthers goodness; there is plainly:

action that advances such future or action that ensures such future is dead-on-arrival or inaction that robs the future of its potential to be more than

basic.

M

The Quiet Part Aloud

Leaving [fill in the blank] on the table

does not say the quiet part aloud, but rather,

is the quiet part aloud.

The Quiet Part Aloud

What?

Which is to say,

in other words:

a) what am I talking about, b) why does it matter, and c) what in the Sam Hill does it have to do with you?

*

If you really have no idea, ask Alexa or Siri or Google: "I leave $5 billion on the table."

(attribution: Brian Cox as 'Logan Roy' in the Season 3 finale of Succession (December 2021))

That

is 'leaving money on the table'.

*

But 'leaving [fill in the blank] on the table' isn't about a pile of billions on a pile of billions. It's about fear of missing out. On steroids.

*

It's about the lengths of the hustle.

If you really have no idea, ask Siri or Alexa or Google: "This city, this whole country, is a strip club: you got people tossing the money and people doing the dance."

(attribution: Jennifer Lopez as 'Ramona Vega' with the last word of Hustlers (September 2019))

That

is as if not hustling is 'leaving money on the table'. 

*

As if only fools walk away from [fill in the blank].

*

If that 

is 'this whole country' as 'Ramona' quips - if that 

is 'winning' as 'Logan' crows -

the quiet part aloud

is the real world

where you and I live.

*

If you really have no idea, ask Google or Siri or Alexa: 'ProPublica Tracking PPP'.

(attribution: over $800 billion U.S. Small Business Administration 'forgivable loans' ('closed' June 2021) appropriated by the 116th U.S. Congress (2020) and the 117th U.S. Congress (2021))

[fill in the blank]

For some of you, an election is far from your mind.

But

for some of you, a consequential opportunity to exercise our vote is asking us: who to trust and what to believe and why this or that matters.

Where we live,

everyone knows leaving anything on the table is not an option.

*

Winning is why 'Logan' leaves nothing on the table. Everyone's a hustler is why 'Ramona' leaves nothing on the table. Me?

Do you wonder what kind of world 'Logan' lives in? Or 'Ramona'? What kind of world 

yokes everyone to self-interest, exceptional and exclusive? What kind of world

makes paying for greed, indifferent and swollen, 

the price of living?

*

That world is the real world -

but 

that world is not the whole world.

*

Here, 

we leave nothing on the table because elections matter. And

we leave everything on the table. Because

walking away from what does not matter is the difference between believing in that world and making that world -

not the whole world.

*

If you really have no idea, I ask:

bailout beggars: what kind of world,

hustlers: what kind of world,

cut throats: what kind of world,

you:

what kind of world

do you believe in? And what kind of world

are you making? Because the real world 

is made by you.

 

 

Preface to the Addendum, a Case

As for: a) what am I talking about, b) why does it matter, and c) what in the Sam Hill does it have to do with you?

A case.

Addendum, a Case

In the real world, an ova bearer is at the mercy of reproductive potential

only

insofar and when

the law forbids

advancements in reproductive knowledge

from being exercised by the will of an ova bearer.

As if

'the mercy of reproductive potential'

nullifies the agency

of an ova bearer,

because the law forbids

all potential but that of reproductive potential

be afforded 'agency'.

As if

each and every single-celled ova possesses,

in the absence of real material will, 'agency'

per a right

denied each and every multi-celled ova bearer actually possessed of free will.

*

This is the real world,

where we live.

Here,

where ova bearers are nurses and teachers, military defense technologists and national security operatives, presidents and prime ministers. Where, moreover,

each and every ova bearer

matters less than a single-celled ova,

according to deciders of opinions who would rather 'we the ova bearers' not be free of the prison of reproductive potential.

*

As if a prison is not a prison, because a prison is

'a welcome joy', 'a divine favor', 'a gift of servility',

with a coin toss, a millisecond tap or swipe on a mobile device, a game of Russian roulette, that is to say, 

'sacred'.

*

To oppose the multitude that would throw away my dignity for their 'belief', is to leave nothing on the table.

Because there is nothing 'reasonable' about the prison of reproductive potential,

here,

where the so-called 'reasonable' theft of my dignity is the 'choice' of so-called 'faithful loyalists'.

*

To wit:

Vote for nurses and teachers, military defense technologists and national security operatives, presidents and prime ministers. Vote for not holding ova bearers back from their potential. From opportunities and accomplishments. Beyond reproducing reproductions. Vote for not upholding deciding opinions that strip ova bearers of their dignity to possess agency over their organs.

Oppose a world that yokes everyone to the inevitable and unsurprising consequences of the quiet part aloud. The kind of world where bailout beggars and hustlers and cut throats, live. The real world. Where we the people pay the price. That is me. And. That is you.

M

*

Postface to the Addendum, a Case

To be unafraid of the quiet part aloud,

is not shameless crowing: 'I am the victim!'

that is audible and visible,

everywhen and everywhere.

To be unafraid of the quiet part aloud,

is seeing the naked emperor

and knowing 

The emperor is a fraud. The tailor that the emperor employs to prove the unparalleled virtue of the emperor, is a fraud. The coterie that spins trifling spectres tirelessly in service to the emperor, makes this world, 'real'. The ruled who go along with this world, make leaving nothing on the table, 'what matters', everyhere and everynow.

*

After all,

the quiet part aloud is clear and present.

Neither a lie nor a fraud, is sacred;

only the truth, is sacred. 

M