The transgender focus of the Democratic Party means that ...

 ... if you are an adjective-less woman, the Democrats do not actually care about YOU.

Transgender Women Do Not Have Wombs,

thus, it's much easier to (seemingly) put up a fight for them than it is to actually fight for all of us.

Tales from a Community of White-Jesus Subscribers

What I learned during my time as a White "Subscriber of Christ":

• ignorance over knowledge
• self above others
• feelings over facts
• god over country

I grew up in the tiny mountain town of Basalt, Colorado (technically, our house was in the 81623 zip code of Carbondale, Colorado, but I attended K-12 schools in Basalt), and so, I am familiar with the particular brand of Whites that live there. For instance, while I was living there (I merely spent my childhood there, but upon turning eighteen, graduating from high school, and attending college in Texas, I never returned except to make money over the summers during college, and since graduating from college, have yet to return for any meaningful amount of time, although I have plans to, but for reasons this is not currently about) there was a group of families that essentially came in and took over the entire “christian leadership” of the Basalt community. When I was tiny, my adopted family attended a church called Basalt Bible, and it basically shared a parking lot with a church called Christ Community. There were other churches of other denominations, but in short, everyone I knew attended church on Sundays. Not to say that all of my friends (and their parents) were “christ-like,” ha! As if. 

Of my high school group of twelve friends (the twelve female students who rounded out the top-twelve of our graduating class, and honestly, I’m not entirely sure who makes up the twelve beyond the first five or so since I was competing for the top spot) had exactly one member who did not attend church, and that was really fucking weird. Her family must be full of something … bad, I ignorantly thought to myself on more than one occasion, while also ignorantly not knowing what that “bad something” actually even meant. 

Needless to say, this was/is a very White, religious (read "tight-knit") community, and I attended a religious school from sixth through tenth grade. A story for another time.

My point is that a handful of wealthy White families arrived sometime in the early 90s, and the vehicle they used to pull off a few financial scams was the church, religion, the religiously-aligned nature of the community in Basalt. The face of the operation was the Collins family, and the matriarch, Barbara Collins (née Trotter?) who married (fat loser) William Collins, had six (now-fat) daughters (who were touted, somehow, as “beautiful,” *sigh* ah … White people): Leslie Paige, Hattie Something, Chandler, Adelaide, Rebekah (or Rebecca, I’ll never know) and Sydney (or Sidney? Ugh, Australia, much?). Barbara had a sister named Paige Holloway (née Trotter) who was married to Don Holloway, and the Holloway family, for some reason, posed as Jewish, with Paige Holloway routinely teaching Jewish Orthodoxy, covering her head during a Seder dinner lesson, etc., etc. There were five children in that family, and I don’t remember them, really. And then there was the Williamsons or Williams, I can’t remember—I left, never to return, eighteen years ago—who were clearly the head of the operation as they arrived last and got the hell outta there first. They were seemingly the wealthiest of them all, with a large estate ranch up over Missouri Heights, etc., and I’m not sure how many children they had, because they were older, and their children never attended the schools in the valley, while I was in school. And then there were some bit players in the Moore and Still families, along with maybe another two or three families I do not know about.  

Over the course of about ten years, they built a church (the name of which continues to legitimately escape me, probably due to the traumatic nature of all of this) poached all of the surrounding congregations, named themselves the "Elders" (although, I'm remembering now that the Williams[sons?] did not attend church, first red flag), built a “school,” built an oil-lube service shop, and scooped up an unknown amount of cash for their Texas oil “investment opportunities” from their congregation and the parents of their “students” ($10K of which my adopted father was scammed out of but who had the temerity to get back, and whose experience taught us [both my older adopted brother and me] about both the nature of the church and the nature of rich people). In short, they preyed upon the religious community that IS the community of Basalt. It’s easy. The entirety of the community is White. They are not hostile, per se, but they are racist (read "self-serving"). 

My so-called bestie in high school, (“Han” for Meghan with an “H,” cause there was another Megan in the group, without one) who was obviously white, was obviously raised in a white family, but it wasn’t until I left that I learned that her family is also White. An obsessive (obsessive!) lover of all things Black, it was strange to me when she ditched her Black boyfriend when things seemed to be getting serious, for a burly (fat, but I shouldn’t mock a veteran, thank you for your service) white ex-military-turned COP. It was strange and frankly, quite unsettling. I could, obviously, go over her upbringing—her parents’ pride in her ability to make a $400/month car payment while living under her parents’ roof, not paying rent (because your mom stashing away your “rent” for your first mortgage down payment hardly counts as “supporting one’s self”), as a college graduate, with a job, etc., but it would take too long to fully explain, and I don’t really want to spend that kind of time on her—cause she is the embodiment of White Privilege, but I’ll refrain (for now). All of my old high school “friends” are products of White Privilege, and they all (with the exception of one who married a globaux citizen and made exceptionally beautiful globaux babies) love it. So there’s that. 

Anyhow, my point is that religious communities are sitting vats of tinder that can easily be persuaded into thinking (i.e. believing in) just about anything, because they are religious. The giving over of the self to some other entity in the name of whatever comes after life is religion. To care more about what happens to you after you die than you do about how you live here on Earth is religion.

And so, seeing small pockets around Colorado embracing the nut-jobs who wish to have the Church control the State are revealing their ignorance time and time again. To claim that this “separation of church and state” is somehow unconstitutional is to proclaim the capital-T Truth. This country is already suffering from the unconstitutional state of the Church ruling the State. To say otherwise is to be dumb as fuck.

We literally just watched the dismantling of the State by the Church, literally, just a few days ago. 

The state of the United States IS the state of the Church controlling the State. 

And this is how I know that Boe-tard Fuck-bert is a fucking dumb-as-fuck idiot (and ugly as shit, cause this is all very petty). And so is anyone who listens to her or supports her apolitical ambitions. But fear not. She’s overwhelmingly useless due to her White Incompetence. She, like all others like her, suffers greatly from Blanquism. Sometimes, I actually get a little chuckle from the thought. But this is serious stuff, so no! I will not joke around! Ugh. 

Seriously, though, these are the communities that make up the majority of These United States. Large urban centers are just that, large, urban, and central. But that does not mean that all together, the urban centers outnumber the amount of people who live apart from each other in small, local communities. These are the people who are sitting ducks, waiting to be scooped up by the next White-Forward ideology, and they will support whoever preaches the loudest. Duh. This also means that any Democrat, willing to lie to their faces, could succeed just as easily. 

In the end, the Still family left in disgrace as the husband was “caught” (more like scapegoated) as the perpetrator of tax fraud in the oil-lube business. They were followed shortly by the Moores (whose excuse was the warmer climate of Florida), and then the Holloways (whose excuse was that one of the daughters was a volleyball talent who needed the competitive edge of Denver), and finally, the Collinses (who left without excuse). Like I said, nobody knows for sure when the Williams[sons?] came or left, but they were long gone before the shit went down. And also, like I said, I was a child when all of this was happening, so I only know a few details, and I was unable to make sense of any of it until I was much older. All-in-all, they were all gone, vanished (although, it is somewhat known that Barbara and William Collins landed in Kerrville, Texas, the Holloways in Tennessee, and the Moores in Florida) by 2003. 

And so, this is a real story about a really small town in Nowhere, America (except that if you know exactly where Basalt, Colorado is, then you know that it is not actually nowhere, it’s in the very middle of Somewhere). I do not know all of the facts, nor do I know more details than I’ve presented here. The point is that I would like to know more about what happened there in the 90s. I’m older and wiser now, and what I know for a fact is that the families (Williams[sons?], Collins, Holloway, Moore, Still) got away with something criminal, because the punishment they faced was tax-fraud, which means that they got away with much much more, since they escaped that valley as soon as they could when one (seemingly small) piece fell out of place. 

Thus, if anyone has any information, I’m willing to pay for it. I’m also willing to receive information pro bono, free, voluntarily. I do not wish to put anyone away or look into this like a criminal investigation. I simply want to know what they were up to, whether or not they were largely successful, and where did all the money go, exactly? 

Upon their Big Shameful Exit, the majority of the congregation flocked (amazingly enough, but drugs are hard to wean one’s self off of) to Christ Community, and by the time I left high school, the pastor of that church was ousted because he fucked the Spanish tutor, while married to the mother of his three (four?) children. 

And I’m the “crazy one” who considers herself a “recovering christian”? 

p.s. William and Barbara Collins took over a little one-room schoolhouse called Alpine Christian Academy (the private christian “school” I attended from grades six through ten), and William served as the school’s principal. The family, obviously, had plans to cheat their daughters academic performance/grades, etc., but I have a theory that when I and a childhood friend of mine (who I will not name, since I have a deep respect for her and would like to be friends again someday) proved ourselves as serious competitors to the Valedictorian Throne, the family had to switch it up, and so, the second oldest (Hattie Something cause everyone knew that Paige was no Hattie) was transferred to a Texas high school her senior year. I have absolutely no doubt that her parents fudged her high school transcript. Not a doubt in the world. *sigh. 

  

My White, catholic-raised, evangelical jesus-subscribing mother-in-law, spits in my face, 'I hope you get raped.'

“You’re living in sin!” the voice of Anne Marie Moseley haunts me. I have three mothers, and she is one of them.

She continues, “How dare you not use your body as the vessel GOD intended! It is your purpose to use your womb, nothing more. Motherhood is the ultimate sacrifice. If a mother dies to bring a child into this world, so be it. Life is life, and my fight, even if it brings forth the death of a woman to bring forth new life, will ensure my place in the Kingdom of Heaven, with the WAY toward salvation controlled and doled out by the gatekeepers of the Church.” And finally, with a deep sigh, and a heavy heart, Anne Marie Moseley makes her final wish for me, “Since you’ve chosen a life of sin, you’re not white, and you refuse to use your body as the vessel God intends, I hope you get raped.”

The actions of Anne Marie Moseley—the trajectory of her life—has fostered the kind of karmic retribution which arouses a sort of hate for her own daughters-in-law, which by the end of it, she should have three. And, as stated, her wish for all women like me—unconstrained by the Patriarchy—is to be raped. It is her dying “Fuck you” to all of the women she only wishes she could have been.  

The irony of the terrible terrible voice of Anne Marie Moseley is that she is my mother-in-law. It’s ironic because—since she is unaware of the fact that my bodybuddy/lifemate (her son) and I were legally married nearly a decade ago—she believes we are living in sin. Yes, Anne Marie Moseley is a real person. She lives in Castle Rock, Colorado, with her White husband, Thomas Moseley. She is a White woman, who upon meeting me for the first time, in her home, told her son about all of the successes and triumphs of his White ex-(high-school)girlfriend. 

In short, she’s made no effort to give two shits about me, but honestly, I don’t really care about her so much as I’m concerned that the type (or particular Republican Brand) that she represents is so fucked up. As an individual, Anne Marie Moseley is irrelevant. She’s powerless, uneducated (she is educated but refuses to use her brain, haha, because knowledge is “secular.” Facts, be damned! bahahahaha!), an economic slave, the wife of a husband who stretched themselves so financially thin that they (the two of them) had to makeshift a reason to move to Texas from Highlands Ranch, Colorado, in order to save face from their foreclosure. Then they sulked back into a lesser, neighboring town months later. Karma is a bitch.    

Anne Marie Moseley is a White woman who hates women. Praise the Lord she never had daughters! 

And therein lies the problem with women, in general.

The average woman doesn’t have to take anyone’s shit because she’s a woman. It’s easy. 

Push out a few kids, BAM!, you’re a queen, and you can run your household however you damn well please. “Oh, but women have no rights!” Don’t we? 

When a woman encounters another woman, it’s easy to dismiss her. Men dismiss women, and so, society as a whole dismisses women, which means that women have to work even harder to not only care about each other, but also, to simply win-over another female because most females subscribe to the Patriarchy. They like it. White women especially love the Patriarchy because they perceive of themselves as the first-in-line recipients of the meagerness that White men dole out to women, overall. Nevertheless, they get the most, and they are closest to the seats of power. Or, they used to be, but since, overall, "they ugly," some men have chosen to empower other types of non-white women to fill seats of power, and if I were a betting man (which I’m not cause I’m a betting woman), I’d say that all of this visceral outrage against women by other women has something to do with not only the way that powerful White men are choosing their women but also, with whom these powerful White men are choosing to be. 

If I were an ugly White woman, I’d be fucking pissed, too, and I’d want nothing more than these dirty, women of color infiltrating their God-given, right-hand position next to White Man to suffer.

And therein lies the inherent flaw of White women, or whom I’ve recently decided to call, Kunts. I’m lumping Latinas in here, too, because in many areas of the country (despite the news), Latinas are considered white, and in these places, they are White. They believe (or subscribe) to the notion that men are the prize. Bahahahaha! It’s so apparent, it’s sad. The inherent flaw with jesus-subscribing White women is that they overwhelmingly subscribe to the Church, which is ultimately founded upon the catholic Church. Everything trickles down from them, because they are the largest and most powerful. The problem with the catholic Church is that it’s a proven institution for the development of sexual perverts, or the Papal Order of Pervert Enhancement, or P.O.P.E. 

These men are the perverts of our society, because they are sexually repressed. Sexual repression creates perversion, which is why these men live a life of secrecy, in sexually homogeneous environments. And now we know that in these environments these sexually repressed men sexually abuse little boys. It’s so ironic it’s almost hilarious, but it’s not hilarious because the abuse of innocent lives is never something that should arouse a laugh, and yet it does, because irony is hilarious. 

And so, since the Church is run by the sexually repressed, manufactured perverts of the world, it’s no wonder they have to off load the bringing forth of new subscribers by forcing women to womb and birth children. That is THE role for women in a sexually repressed, perverted world where men fuck men in secrecy, while living off the “tithing” of those who think they can buy their way into some afterlife, while demanding no sex for heterosexual couples unless you are going to bring forth a child. How else can there be new subscribers unless they are born into the religion? No one in their right mind, these days, converts. And so, gay is good, but abortion is bad. Homosexuality creates no babies, no problem. Abortion is the "death" of a subscriber! Big problem.  

Awfully convenient, if you ask me. 

There are women who subscribe to this fucking bull shit. Women who take orders—about how they cannot enjoy the pleasures of sexual intercourse unless they also willingly allow for the conception of a child—from a group of old closeted homosexual men who fuck each other and little boys for the sexual pleasure of having sex without even the slightest possibility of being burdened by children. All of this, obviously, works out just fine for heterosexual White men or men in general, and so, the Church’s position is no threat to them.

And so, the White woman. 

Since White women subscribe, so readily, to the status quo, they reveal their overwhelming ignorance. They are willing participants in the gilding of their cage. Women of color have shrugged off the entire notion that White men are the prize because what women of color know, for fact, is that women are the prize. And so, we live our lives a little differently. Can we help but attract the likes of strong, powerful, white men? Obviously not. We’re too much. They love us. Our refusal to equate their whiteness with greatness is what they love about us. White women are easy. Evangelical jesus-subscribing women are easy. They're mindless subscribers. Literally, so easy to entrap and fuck if you just put a ring on it. The man doesn’t have to treat you well or even care much about you, but if he proves how much you’re worth by burdening you with a pet rock, then sure, I can totally see how the average White guy is totes appealing. 

My point is that Anne Marie Moseley is the absolute worst type of woman. In a world where women have to fight against the systematic oppression of women by men, why would another woman stand in any woman’s way? That is, by definition, a Kunt. A White-Supremacist female. And sure, Anne Marie Moseley enrages me with fury because she voted for the sexual predator, 45. A woman who had her cherry popped on her honeymoon, simultaneously impregnated, giving birth to a child nine months after her wedding voted for a sexual predator to become the most powerful person in the United States. What kind of woman does this? What concerns me, however, is how miserable her life must be. I don't feel as much anger as I feel sadness.

I'm living the dream. My life is the fantasy. And it's real as fucking shit. I am well aware of the jealousy my existence arouses. There's a thing that happens on the faces of White women, when they are unable to hide their envy. A shadow, a literal shadow, falls across their face, and it is within this moment that you can see the deep, dark, terrifying, lonely sadness that has turned their heart to ash. My own White adopted-mother reveals herself in this very same way. It's why—if you are a globaux citizen—when you look upon the face of a Kunt, they are terrifyingly ugly.

Obviously my concern is less about myself as I am Korean, thus, I can easily travel to Korea, live in Korea, and continue my life safely in Korea. I don’t need these United Fucking States. And so, when I’m tired of this Third World Country, I’ll simply leave. And if it gets too tribal before we’re ready to leave, we, at the very least, have somewhere to escape to. 

On the other hand, Anne Marie Moseley is stuck here in These United States, and she’s made plainly clear what kind of America she wants to live in, but I’m one-hundred-percent certain that she does not logically understand the world she wishes to build, because she’s a jesus-subscriber, which means she does not think for herself, which, in the end, means she’s the absolutely enemy of this Democratic Experiment. 

And, generally speaking, I have less concern for the way things will be than I thought I would, because what the jesus-subscribers routinely forget is that there are fewer subscribers every day, and Big Tech is on the horizon. Big Tech has it in their very interested interest for humanity to have bodily autonomy, because they want to own your biomedical data, etc. And so, this is only the beginning of a greater shift toward bodily autonomy, and since men rule Big Tech, and what they want is for the State to definitely be out of their own biomedical data, they will work hard to bring about laws for bodily autonomy, which ought to cover any and all medical procedures, and then the real fight will begin.

And like always, it will be a fight about language.

Need a writer? Visit sun김선sailor's Writer's Rate Sheet to hire or inquire.

          

Sorry to Break it to you, but your Soul is already Broke :'(

At 0821, I had a revelation—yesterday morning—while we (the bodybuddy/lifemate and I) were riding our bikes home from errand running after our night shift at our part-time job (yes, I, too, am currently employed [part-time and for reasons that this is not about], but I am not ONLY employed; I am also a mother-fucking BOSS). As we were hauling our asses up the first of two hills (the larger of the two, thank Ladybug), I saw a ... chubby couple* jogging slowly on the sidewalk coming toward us.

But first, a word from our sponsors, “(Kunt) by KK” and “Whites Only by Bieber’s Bieber”:

[begin voice-over]

The whiny voice of Bieber’s Bieber, “But I suffer!” echoes in the background.

“Have you ever seen someone else’s idea and thought to yourself, ‘That should be my idea’? If so, participate in needless consumerism by shoveling millions of dollars into the brands ‘(Kunt) by KK’ and ‘Whites Only by Bieber’s Bieber’! They have it all. They lack ideas for real entrepreneurship. They lack substance when determining a new brand name. And they outright steal in the name of entitlement. Make your skkkn glow like no other by representing all things White and Entitled! It’s easy.”

The whiny voice of (K)KK shrieks in the background, “But I can’t be racist, my children are Black!”

“For three low payments of three slaps to the faces of real hard-working women, jump on board with the Entitled Whites, and suck it to the Black Creators, the Abundant** Doers, the Original Originals. It’s easy!” 

“And just for good measure—another Misguided White— Fuck you, Jennifer Aniston. Get. A. Life. Who knew she needed one? *sigh* Oh the things you learn when others open their mouths.

“'(Kunt) by KK' and 'Whites Only by Bieber’s Bieber' available now to steal the cash right out of the hands of those who worked for it, because ‘We’re worth it. And you're not.’”

[return to programming]

My revelation was thus: 

These focking phools, who have switched from working in the office to working remotely (or at home) have confused their “at home” situation with a “from home” situation. 

Ah, the power of language. 

I would argue that there’s a distinct difference between working AT home and working FROM home. If you work AT home, this means that you work for some entity or person, you are a worker from Fill-In-The-Blank Company who is working AT home for THEM. Those of us who work FROM home, work for OURSELVES. 

How do you, yes, you dear reader, how do you determine whether or not you work AT or FROM home? Well, the answer is very very, very simple. Do you receive a paycheck, biweekly, monthly, salaried from an employer? Do you need that paycheck to pay your bills each month? If so, you are a wage-earner; you are no different from your hourly-wage-earning counterparts. You are simply doled out more cash because you (supposedly) have more “skills,” but really, you were just born into a different class, but you are still of the working class, nevertheless. But so are 90% of all Americans, so you’re in good company ;) Oh, and you work AT home.

In short, anyone who earns their income by trading their time is an economic slave in modern capitalistic societies, namely, the United States.

On the other hand, if you work FROM home, this means that you make your own money. There is no employer to fire you; there’s only going out of business. There is no doling out of paychecks. There are only expenses. You are a free agent. Your time is your money. You create money out of thin air. 

Thus, what became such a revelationary thought—yesterday—was that the Pandemic brought forth this forced Remote Work, but what it has done, inadvertently, is further solidify the reality of economic slavery within the modern capitalistic system within which we are all trapped. The problem, for me, is that now there is a class of workers who are tricked—misguided—into thinking that they are “free,” when in fact, they are economically enslaved more than ever. 

Between the home-ownership myth (or what I like to call the Mortgage Myth, but usually, people mistake this nomenclature as referring to mortgages being a lie as opposed to reading the verbiage as the criminal practice of selling the idea of home ownership as necessary or even wise) and the delusion of the JOB being anything more than one’s own economic slavery, I feel hopeless for those who have become entrapped in the lies of the Procrustean Bed.^ You know that the Bed is too small. The reality is that if you complain, someone will come by and cut you to size. 

This is America. 

Welcome to America. The Land where you can do anything you can afford (even rip off other people’s hard work), and if you can’t afford it, you can still have it in exchange for your life and pay off your credit card bill, car payment, and mortgage one month at a time, until you die, which means that not only can you NOT QUIT your job because you have to pay off your debtors, you MUST HAVE a job in order to fund your continued survival, i.e. paying your bills.

And so, when considering the economic reality in which we are all trapped—the one in which everyone who is not born into the 1% is an economic slave to this capitalist experiment—anyone (be it the world’s greatest superstar or the world’s stupidest man), anyone who implies or suggests to you that you ought to QUIT YOUR JOB or that your JOB should, somehow, make you happy, IS NO FRIEND OF YOURS. 

I 100% guarantee you this. 

This world that you and I all enjoy here in the Land of the Free is built for one purpose and one purpose only: Capitalism. If you do not understand what Capitalism is or how it works, you should educate yourself, quickly. Time is not on your side, and the day is fast approaching when being able to rise through the classes will become impossible (until the next inevitable spread within each class, etc., etc., 1,000 years from now, etc.). 

My point is that if you are working AT home, do not fool yourself into thinking that you are somehow … FREE. You are employed. Your employer has all the power. The only way to have power over an employer is to be the employER, not the employEE. Duh. And no your manager is not your employer. 

So, sure, live it up, enjoy the delusion and feel as “free” as you wish because you work AT home, which means that you can go on that jog at 0800 because all you have to do is log in by 0900, but then you’re sorta free to do with your day as you wish. Sure, this is all great. This is a great way to imagine your economic enslavement. Realize, however, that you are not free. You are still obligated to show up to some place (be it virtual or physical) at some time for some amount of time in exchange for a meager doling out of funds with which you can then pay for your continued survival. 

The quickest and easiest way that I test whether or not a friend or new acquaintance (who poses as if they are “free” because they work AT home, AT their leisure) is truly “free” is by simply requesting a coffee date at 0900 on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday. 

It’s easy. 

*the couple does not represent about what i am writing in this piece, they simply inspired the train of thought, etc.

**thank you, Kiese Laymon     

^thank you, N.N.Taleb

 

In Good Company w/ Orphans, Orphanhood, the Orphan Trope, Lazy Writing, and (Why do we really care—so much—about) 'The Batman'?

Why is the orphan utilized as a protagonist/villain by writers who are not orphans? Charles Dickens was not an orphan. Orson Scott Card is no orphan. The creators of Loki were not orphans. Batman’s creators were not orphans. And why do famous orphans not write about orphanhood? The problem, for me, is that writers who are not orphans but who utilize the trope of the orphan—abandoned, alone, afraid, angry, the lowest low from which to rise to the highest heights—are largely mistaken. Nevertheless, I do believe that being an orphan or becoming orphaned is the most traumatic thing that can happen to a child. 

The issue is that all of our traumas are different, and mostly, I never think of myself as an orphan. And the most irritating thing to me is this idea that being an orphan makes you angry and vengeful. If anything, as a real orphan, I feel sad, worthless, hopeless, purposeless, and largely irrelevant. If I’m going to harm anyone, it’s going to be myself. And this is where I know that these writers who write about orphans—since, as I’ve established, they themselves are not orphans—assume too many things, and one of these things they assume is that we are all so sad and angry that we’re going to take our anger out on the world around us. This is the fallacy. 

My orphan experience made me feel as if I do not belong in this world, and the way to resolve this feeling is to remove myself from the equation, not insert myself where I feel I do not belong, duh. Instead, all of these non-orphan writers truly believe that being an orphan is so terrible that the only logical conclusion to their existence is to force themselves and their significance upon the world. When has this ever happened in the real world? Yes, there are a handful of super-famous orphans—Ray Charles, Ella Fitzgerald, Marilyn Monroe, Babe Ruth, Edgar Allen Poe, Joel Kim Booster, Tiffany Haddish, to name a few of the very few—but where are the criminal orphans? Of course, I did not do some rando Bing search on “criminal orphans,” because my point is more esoteric. My point is that the famous orphans above are all artists, well, I guess Babe Ruth is an athlete. 

Orphanhood, I would argue, does not steer one toward violence, as often depicted by parentful writers. Instead, I would suggest that orphanhood creates artists of an ilk like no other. Orphans are forced to observe the world from the outside, which makes us outliers. Once a person acquires outlier status, they are instantly different. They see the world differently, experience the world differently, and thereby are able to understand the world differently. It’s the perspective of the orphan that makes us uniquely attuned to the reality of the world, since we—as outcasts—are not part of the world as you or anyone who is not an outlier understands the world to be. And obviously, there are many paths to outlier status, but I am speaking specifically about being an orphan, at this time. I could obviously speak to my outlier status as a Korean in this white-White world, but this is not about that. 

And then the reality of the mindset of these non-orphan writers about orphans becomes painfully obvious. These types of writers who rely on depicting the orphan as the lowest low so obviously reveal their own egos by essentially saying, “If I were an orphan, I’d be so alone, afraid and scared that I would, obviously, want to destroy the world that caused me so much pain and suffering by making me an outsider.” These non-orphan writers view outlier status as something truly terrible, as if being “outside” is the worst possible thing, but what these types of writers reveal is how those on the “inside” feel about orphans on the “outside.” Their stories say nothing about what it really means or is to be an orphan. Their stories depict what they fear the most about the fact that orphans exist. They fear being outsiders because they are all-too familiar with the way that “insiders” view “outsiders,” and they do NOT want to be on the outside. 

Thus, the flaw, I would argue, is that orphans are not so overwhelmed by their outsider status as they are hurt by the constant pain that “insiders” make them feel about being outside, as if there is no place for you in the world if you do not have your own parents. But what does this say about adults who are not your parents? It says a lot more about them than it does the orphan. And so, I argue that orphans are not prone to lash out at the world. The actions of the suffering orphan—if accurately depicted on the page and screen—ends in the self-harm of the orphan, upon her/his/their own self, one-hundred percent of the time. Duh. 

And so, to produce any story about the orphan that is not written by an orphan is simply lazy writing. 

Nevertheless, I did watch The Batman (because I live with a fellow, educated artist who watches everything, no matter how “good” or “bad” it is), and I was pleasantly surprised by the idea that the writers attempted, which was to challenge the orphan trope by creating a villain who is a “real orphan,” who “suffered,” unlike the billionaire orphan, Bruce Wayne. Despite the surprising attempt at some other type of orphan trope, it largely failed because the orphan in question, the Riddler, inflicted his pain upon the world, the type of action I argue is largely implausible. But again, I have not done a serious study of criminals and their orphan/non-orphan status. I simply know a lot of orphans through my own status as an orphan. 

My overwhelming point is that orphans are not writing about orphans because we largely do not think of ourselves as orphans. We’re just people. And yea, we survived extraordinary circumstances, and yea, all of our journeys have been different, all of our stories are different, but we are all outsiders, outliers. And as an outlier, we are unique. We are special. We are literally the stuff of superhero origin stories. 

Thus, if you are an orphan and you are reading this, know that I am out here, with you. You are not alone simply because you’re an outlier. You are in good company. Orphan does not equal unwanted. There are far worse fates than being parentless. Yes, it is the ultimate struggle, but the actions of others rarely have anything to do with us. Yes, you must struggle. Yes, you must survive, if survival is what you want, but the struggle is one that forges you into something greater, something more than any parentful, non-orphan will ever have the opportunity to become.

So, sure, the world may see the orphan as the lowest low from which to rise to the highest heights, but it’s not a low. Orphans are not above or below the non-orphan. We are simply removed, set apart, shoved to the outside, outliers in the banal world of the inside. In short, it seems that those on the inside know the truth, they know that orphanhood, orphan status, the orphan is necessary. Non-orphan writers who depict orphan characters know that any reader will identify with the sad, sad plight of the orphan, because everyone, every reader is familiar with the feeling of being an outsider, and they want to avoid that feeling at all costs. The orphan represents that feeling as opposed to representing a person, reinforcing the orphan’s self-realization that they are not worthy of the love of people, since we are not people, we are orphans. And so, yes, I understand how a non-orphan would default assume that we would want to take out our rage on the world, but I am here to say that this is the fallacy. The orphan will, undoubtedly, take out her pain on herself. The orphan will, undoubtedly, take out his pain on himself. The orphan will, undoubtedly, take out their pain on themselves. I know too many orphans, in real life, to think otherwise. 

And so, I have a problem with the way that non-orphans depict the nature of the orphan.       

a Sailor's Log No. 22.05M01 + some thoughts on some stuff, aka, 2022 May Twitterless Tweets, &c.

Are you ready for Orbital Living?

re Ozark (the Netflix serial)

I can't help but feel as if the show specifically depicts a marriage when it has, ultimately, failed. 

re the "American Melting Pot"

... more like, the American Gauntlet

re Arrival

the point at which I realize that I'm over myself

re "family is forever" and/or "everything"

but then what is to be made of the "orphan"?

re Headlines re the Future

"The World's Third Trillionaire Makes First Purchase of One of Earth's Countries"

re Slavery, Economic or Otherwise:

the Journey of having been made

 re Eating

I wish to eat with such joie de vivre that I have to wash my face after eating, which is why I cook everything I eat.

re Gemma Chan

She's a fellow Sag (sounds like vag, as in vagina), which makes me feel very optimistic about our future friendship potential. Fingers crossed! 

re Pop Culture (co-written w/ the bodybuddy/lifemate, aka, MyIndividuation) 

Idiots celebrating Idiots

re Identity

If you don't know who you are, how can you ever hope to be yourself?

re the Illiterati

The death of literacy was always going to be the death of civilization.

re Work

... been looking for some "ambient office noise"

&finally 

re the perpetuation of a "stagnant form of society" is ...

to quote Thomas Sowell (in his Marxism p 75) as he quotes Karl Marx quoting Pecqueur, 

"to decree universal mediocrity" 

2022 MAY READS | Books 28-33/80

 2022 MAY Month Goal: 6/8

Year Goal: 33/80

1. The Seed Keeper by Diane Wilson

 Fiction Wilson, D. | 2021 | 372 pages

2. This Is Your Mind On Plants by Michael Pollan

Nonfiction 581.6 POL | 2021 | 288 pages

3. Raccoon by Daniel Heath Justice

Nonfiction 599.7632 JUS | 2021 | 288 pages

4. PUSSYPEDIA: A Comprehensive Guide by Zoe Mendelson

Nonfiction 612.628 MEN | 2021 | 432 pages

5. Lessons from Plants by Beronda L. Montgomery 

Nonfiction 581.63 MON | 2021 | 240 pages 

6. Astrobiology: A Brief Introduction by Kevin W. Plaxco, Michael Gross

Nonfiction 576.839 | 2006 | 259 pages 

&In Images ...

... visit my "as a reader" playlist to view all of the books read this year ...

... or visit The Complete List to see the complete list of this year's read books ...

Happy Reading!