Barcode meds

Can’t say where it started, but like most beginnings, it was quite a fuzzy sequence of events. An uneven tune of T.V static echoing across the expanses of time. Or it was a long time ago, pick one. Flowery language is always one way to adapt to the times of uncertainty that might bother somebody, or covering one’s ears until the noise goes away, or maybe mistaking it for something that you like. The whole “fake it until you make it” comes to mind. You’ll definitely hear that alot when it pertains to self-improvement, as if the skills would come to you in a dream, a sudden epiphany, or perhaps in a spontaneous alignment of the cosmos meant to connect with you the ancient knowledge forbidden by all but the most elusive of beings, chosen based on how special the people in your lives convinced that you are.

Yet, it takes into the account that it is a necessity to learn how to lie to themselves, to learn how to see things within themselves that may not be true, but to be bridged together by the experience of trying to get there, that maybe what you’ll run into during your journey is something you can comfortably call “you”. In theory, it’s a good foundation to start with, to move forward towards a single goal within a horizon that you can visualize with increasing ease. Yet, at least in all of my years, no one can tell you when to stop.

Rather, the platitude at that point may be “be yourself.” As young as I was, I always learned about how acting on your interests, hobbies, and thoughts in your mind, so long as it didn’t hurt others, was validated. Until it wasn’t, of course, but how would one describe social etiquette to a child? To know how there will be children, teachers, elders, relatives, adults, or even systems that would resist who you are? One can posit that these discussions aren’t serious, but as a child is ostracized in a such a small classroom, bullied for their differences, handed consequences due to the strict or lax nature of some educational systems, or even beaten through word-of-mouth by other ‘trusted’ guardians, what can they take away from it in such a crucial phase of their mental and emotional development?

I can recall nearly all of it, only snippets of the achievements remain, with a fraction of their impacts being even smaller. Consequences, problems, situations, issues. It’s akin to attempting to grow crops from scorched earth, only the ash and destruction will flow through your fingertips, as growth becomes that much tiresome of a process. Back as a child, apparently my affinity towards games started strongly, an uncle being a serial collector of them being an extreme factor in such a decision. The times of playing the best christian game in my opinion, Doom by ID software during the times where shovelware was active. A tradition that saddens me from it being lost to time, but I digress.

Descent, chex, Turok, countless other games that introduced me into this new world of escapism. I recall breaking a plate or smearing lipstick over a window would grant me new red markings along my legs and back, yet blasting lifeforms to pieces in indistinct corridors and hallways, metaphorically ending their lives with a smile on my face would earn a sigh of relief from my caretakers. Even as a kid, the incongruity was not lost on me, as every holiday was now an excuse to wear them down over the latest entertainment system or game. Of course, this form of alchemy required in exchange for giving my best behavior during school days, which upon retrospect was akin to filling a water balloon as far as it can go, instead the balloon was a child and the water was the flooding of intrusive thoughts. People love to say kids are smart and encourage them to be curious, but then when you dump a little of every hair care product into the toilet to remake a cool, looking mystery concoction that you thought looked cool on the last saturday morning cartoon, suddenly you’re being a “Bad kid”. One can easily get mixed messages from it. Though there was a bit of disapproval from some of my family, I was relatively even allowed to play mature games like resident evil, silent hill or metal gear solid. Hilariously, It wasn’t the themes, horror or violence that would stop me from playing, but the boredom.

One thing that I would give as advice from this when it comes to raising children is simply giving them the experience in a way they understand. With games, what they see is what they get, but knowing it was a choice of their making can get them used to consequences that can come with their decisions. Of course, depending on the game, perhaps the loss is just of their time. No seven to nine year old child would absorb the multitude of elements that would make most games as adult unless it was as loud as your local carnivals clown posse, like swear words and gore, but they can be explained away as just being a show you can interact with. Even with the moral panic of violence in video games during that time, being told from the outside about it was like telling me that because I play grand theft auto, eventually I’ll end up snatching up someone’s subaru at a red light and run over someone’s grandmother. It almost felt like a boogeyman concept that I had no way of grasping, every attempt at its explanation eluding me like rain sliding off of a poncho. Though, eventually at the age of eight, I’d definitely be able to internalize it.

It was when I was taught in great detail about the fate of Emmit Till, flashed across a projector within an auditorium of about 150 of my other classmates.

His body was bruised, scarred, inflated beyond recognition from all of the water it absorbed, his eyes swelled shut and his face could have been mistaken for aged leather if it weren’t for the clothes on his person. All for the crime of whistling to a white woman, which turned out wasn’t even true, as admitted on her deathbed. Head and skull fractures, pieces of his brain falling out, still a third-grader by the way.

These grisly details, as told by my teachers and family were of a simple reminder, that despite how fair you want things to be, how equal you wish to see others and how much you want to believe the world is just:

You are black.

On virtue of the color of your skin, you were judged and predetermined by companies, police, strangers, politicians, doctors, nurses, judges and juries to be more impulsive, inferior or insignificant than your lighter counterparts. Good luck explaining this to your kid again, also. It wasn’t that I didn’t get it at the time, but it did make me aware enough to be cautious being outside for late hours, doing my business quickly and privately and be wary about who I interact with. I did know that there was another shadow that stood behind me besides my own, one that I knew would never stop following me as long as I lived. The possibility of being a statistic. Even where I lived, I can’t describe the surreal feeling of seeing a murder victim of someone you grew up around, or even hearing the actual gunshots that would later be connected to a murder that could have been seen from my window. Hearing of it and experiencing it was both so different, yet was tough to describe.

That was when a certain dissociation happened. Even through the countless demonstrations of senseless violence that I’ve witnessed, experienced, and heard about, nothing about it surprised me as I got older. There was a sense of unity in the different elements of oppression that was present around these neighborhoods, and as one got older, the consequences that remained a possibility were subjected to apathy. Perhaps it was an environmental adaptation, as social creatures it is an crucial evolutionary trait.

Much like Homo sapians forming groups to tackle bigger game to support larger communities to outlast the neanderthals (though that was due to us sweating better, to be fair), black people, as well as I, would decide to not let such conditions claim our need to survive. At least, it's how the kid in me saw it, anyway, as I burdened the ear of my grandfather and other elders who actually lived during the time Emmet was alive. Turns out his death was crucial in galvanizing the civil rights movement, which explains his importance, also giving it to mine. A soldier freshly recruited for the culture war effort 250 years in the making, where apparently some would still deny it is taking place to this day. All my failures felt like a ripple afterwards, reverberating through my neighborhood, my ancestors, my fellow black people and even my family.

Overthinking became a common habit, every variable needing to be considered, what if I wanted to be something but didn’t want to in the middle of it anymore? What If I failed to achieve the expectations that were placed on me? What if I did succeed but didn’t like it? What if I never felt like doing it and was just doing what others told me to? What if I just disappeared, time permitting me to return to history so I can stop thinking so damn much about the future?

What if?

What if?

What if?

It’s never ending, exhausting, draining, but not fatal. It can be excellent if given direction, but of course those events are but blips upon a sea of cosmic space of what can feel like an eternity of life. What, when, why, where, and how? The five questions of the literary process. Considering a life akin to writing a story, It does well to structure a fraying mind weighed down by indecision. Helps to find different perspectives when trying to separate the wheat from the chaff, as with most gossip, rumors and hearsay, in between the opinions lies the truth of most matters. As with most social patterns, where one would say humans aren’t predictable, wisdom would slowly prove one wrong.

Only issue with wisdom is that to a mind unprepared to contain it, like water through a sieve, it will flow right through it, leaving it only damp with regret and failure. They say things get better, but there's always the possibility that it won't. We live in a chaotic world, after all.

Maybe it just takes being able to change at any given moment in a limitless string of opportunities.

Who's to say?