Break Neck

"N*****."
"K***."
"F******."
The ice in my drink clinks as its structure gives, cubes collapsing and dancing against the glass. I am lit by the glow of my laptop and an open document, the smell of whiskey wafts up to me and an empty bottle sits at the foot of my desk. I had originally gone to my beautiful antique bar to pour myself a glass of whatever bottle was open but upon seeing the mostly empty bottle of Writer's Tears, slurs and vitriol whirling in my head, I opted to take the bottle back to my desk.

Small lights strung up around the sunroom flicker softly, gentle and warm, in great contrast to the cold blue of my laptop screen. Kafka sleeps on a day bed behind me and I take a deep breath, the nth sip of whiskey and dive back in. Unicorn Riot has leaked the chats from a myriad of white supremacist Discord servers and I have spent hours reading through the hate, the viciousness, learning new turns of phrase and slurs I never wanted to know. I know I should be horrified, but I don't feel much of anything between the whiskey and the now habitual intake of violent, hateful sludge. I read and read and the void washes over me. The world has gone silent, schools closed and lockdowns announced. The dread of sickness mingles with the research I have put upon myself.

"Tarrant."

The name hits me like a truck and for a moment the dam breaks. I shudder and my head drops to my hands. Clips flash through my head, my heart starts to pound and I try to breathe deep, try to push back the memory. A year prior, I had seen footage of the Christchurch shooting. I didn't want to see the footage but it floated online and it autoplayed before my brain put together what I was looking at. What I saw was brief, loud, violent. Something deep inside me broke. Everything after that had felt like a predictable horror movie, an onslaught you could see coming from a mile away. What I called a thick skin, a thing I needed to write my thesis was actually just numbness, normalization. I lift my face away from my hands, now wet from tears and knock back the rest of my drink. I stare at the screen, eyes out of focus and close my laptop. I sit in the quiet sunroom, now lit only by small, twinkling string lights and amid the horror, there is something close to relief that I can still feel the gravity of the violence. The void hasn't fully consumed me yet.

For close to a year I live with the switch born of the break. Off, I read old Klu Klux Klan documents. On, I smile at regulars and listen to their lockdown related frustrations. Off, excerpts of The Turner Diaries. On, I talk to my best friend on the phone while I walk to work. I feel like I'm faking my humanity, turning on some old, forgotten version of myself while black bile churns below the surface. I am not being radicalised to violence but to despair. I feel like if I look in the mirror, I'll see nothing staring back. I watch online as COVID lockdowns launch normal people into conspiracy. I watch social media companies and the grifters they incentivize dragging average people deeper and deeper into a violent, paranoid view of the world. I see the isolation sinking its claws into the fabric of community, speeding up the process of unweaving that silicone valley had been carrying out for years. The deadlines for writing, for submitting first drafts, second drafts, revisions kept me on an unhealthy pace of consumption while the world writhed around me. Suddenly my final draft was submitted and I stare at my computer screen. I no longer needed to open the papers on the damage social media is doing to kids, I didn't need to comb through white supremacist Discord servers, I didn't need to learn racist, esoteric memes that will work their way into the mainstream in six months time. It was with a dawning terror I realised I wanted to. Months of consumption had formed something more malicious than a habit, it felt closer to an addiction. I had to know, I felt responsible to know, consuming anything less than urgent felt selfish, unserious, a waste of time. I have always leaned towards the intense - horror movies, metal and punk, grim books - but this was something new. Despite having read equally as much on community based deradicalization it was the violence that clung to me like miasma.

I was lucky enough to graduate already employed in the middle of a pandemic. Beer was considered essential and rather than look for any employment related to my thesis, I stuck with brewing and selling beer. Writing a thesis and working full time for months on end had me exhausted but in the moment I didn't realise the brewery would save me from myself. The days were long as the tiny brewery couldn't accommodate the 6 feet of separation between front of house employees but leaving the house kept me grounded. Chats with regulars 10 feet away, dropping off cans of beer at the small bodega down the street, taking calls from friends as I walked back and forth between the brewery and home. As the world unfurled, patios slowly opening and people walking in the springtime sun, I came back to myself. Even the hard parts, like moving alone twice in six months, kept me tethered, kept me focused on life in front of me rather than spiraling into the depths of other people's conspiracies.

I am still not the same, but I am myself. I still know all the awful things I learned, but I refused to the let win. I clawed my way back from perpetual despair, I dug through the sludge inside myself to find my love and passion again. I have learned to maintain them despite the breakneck speed of the news, of a life full of once in a generation events. I write out my thoughts here and by the time I'm done, it feels out of date, overshadowed by new violence and absurdity. I understand how people want to look away, even fulltime journalists struggle to keep up with the pace of destruction. I think it's important to know what is going on, to fight for justice and safety for everyone but I also understand the toll it takes. I have been thinking a lot of what keeps me sane, what keeps all the conspiracies and hate at bay. I have been thinking of art, of friends, of nature, of walks and books. I have been thinking of the work it takes to find a source of truth, of knowing yourself well enough to know when the spiral is taking hold. I have been thinking about how to think with a broken soul.

Do you ever tell yourself you're going to write a lot and then immediately get vertigo for 2 weeks straight? September was pretty rough but I have been without dizzy spells for a few days finally and it's pretty remarkable how much energy being dizzy took out of me and having it back has been great. I want to expand on this series, balancing the news with the real, immediate world and the things that keep me sane. What keeps you sane?
Thank you for being here, friends. Having the energy back (and being able to look at a screen for longer than 20 minutes without almost falling out of my chair) feels good and my hope is to get back into the swing of writing and starting with a "series" is easier than working on new and different pieces all the time. If you'd like to buy me a coffee or Kafka some treats you can do so here. See you all sooner than a month from now.