When I was a kid I thought you were born ugly so you can be pretty when you’re an adult, and then be ugly again as you die old and crippled.
There were ritualistic processes of thinking that controlled how I viewed the world and myself inside of it.
Some rituals included my own ways of believing that if I didn’t want something, it would come to me. If I didn’t yearn for something, my disinterest will attract me to it. Some negative energy bullshit.
No, psychiatry calls it delusional thinking on the obsessive side. Just a stressed child having difficulty processing the environment of an immigrant household. Who knows how hard it is to navigate multiple lives? It’s enough to make a child have neurosis, just a touch shy of OCD. It explains the vocal tics that came and went during my early childhood.
If I had a gentle parent, I would have probably grown into a much less exceptional person. Less original, much more stable with consistent friends and relationships. Instead, I had the absence of emotional regulation, masked by corrected behaviors.
Today, I am much more emotionally regulated, with stabilized patterns of moods that flow comfortably between different life events. They transition with reason. Is this why nobody sees me as an outlier anymore? Because I’m no longer different in their eyes? I am predictable. I am not erratic.
I can only thank the fact that there is art and performance allowing my energy to flow out without hurting anyone. I do not need anything other than dance and music to make me happy. Sex is great, but have you bobbed to the Wailers or felt the climax of an orchestra’s finale? Have you felt the moment that music becomes one with the surrounding it fills? There’s a moment when music fills the rooms until it’s about to burst out, explode through the walls. It’s the moment when everyone can feel the beat, sway and jump to how the tempo changes. Rhythmic movements collide in ecstasy with the melody, and all differences of life, money, religion, all disappear.
Category: Uncategorized
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“Chemtrails over the Country Club “
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Doxxing made Legal
A recent block by the SCOTUS last December against Texas’ extreme legislation allowing civilians to sue any and all individuals who are suspected of assisting in receiving abortion care for $10,000 has opened a new horizon of legal doxxing.
Imagine a notable social media influencer, say, Elon Musk, takes to their Twitter and writes about a personal experience with a very well-known company or individual. Say that becomes an issue for all Tesla owners because, well, maybe that personal experience stops production of all Tesla parts and drives up maintenance prices, etc. I’m not sure what repercussions this leads to further along, but, all I can think of is the personal vendetta any Tesla owner will have against either Musk or the problematic opposing entity. Now let’s say we have a law that enables you to sue them because they really offended you, and you’re pissed.
Offense becoming a legally actionable task is a whole new low.
It’s not new, but it’s a little expensive for us low-income peeps to just lawyer up for something that offended us. Can we do it? Sure. But will a pro-bono lawyer pick up a case that will require months, if not YEARS, of pestering an opponent with 10 more lawyers who work 24-hrs around the clock? Remember, my lawyer’s not getting paid. They’re fighting for me to get paid. So no, I doubt they’ll blink an eye if I asked them to represent me against CVS for overpricing my prescriptions I can’t afford.
But now the power has come to us lowly hands… if you’re fighting against abortion. You can make $10k to out someone driving a friend to get an abortion. You can make another $10k if you’re also outing the provider performing the procedure or overseeing the care. I can’t blame someone for choosing an easy way to make ten grand to dig their way out of poverty.
I will, however, blame those who made this possible as a whole new way to put historically impoverished communities and individuals against each other.
The discussion in Missouri being drafted into a bill looks to further expand the opportunities for those in need of money to find anyone that can be sued for attempting to get an abortion out of state.
Legislators are providing easy access to monetary incentives for performing acts on their behalf. They are taking advantage of the mass that will now be a part of doxxing any and all abortion-seeking individuals and their supporters.
It’s more bottom-feeding than productive. It doesn’t make me feel any better to know those enforcing this are in essence doing it for their faith.
Faith that I also have, for an entity that I truly pray does not support this form of dictatorship over female bodies.
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Detachment for Survival
This February has been hard for many reasons, but most of all because I am alive with a soul that feels.
I felt anger.
I felt frustrated.
I felt dismissed.
I felt vitriol.
These feelings are really getting to me, so much so that it is stirring a whirlpool of self-destructive emotions.
I will engage in detachment, in an attempt to curb the destructive wave of backward advancement. To protect my work, I will engage in detachment.
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Black History is American History.
Growing up first-gen Japanese American, I was privy to stereotypes that culturally stained our lifestyles.
One was the stereotype of Black people.
Another was the stereotype of Chinese people.
Little do people know of the bigotry that is deeply engrained in my ethnicity. Hell, we made Christians swear they’ll worship the emperor. No different than the English King’s own religion was created in response to the Roman church.
Japanese culture is often fetishized, viewed to be idealistic, and often free of its past horrors.
Google Japanese occupation in South-Eastern Asia and your biases will cloud a little.
This is how I see American History. We erase what makes us look bad. We want to remove the smeared pictures that reveal our bad side. But we wouldn’t be the country we are without the Black narrative. Without it, we wouldn’t have such a generation full of altruists that are SICK of repeating history.
We learned. We know it was wrong. It can’t happen again.
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Celebrating an Anniversary of LIFE
My 29th birthday, or the beginning of my 30th rotation around the sun, has officially beat the many “firsts” I had as a child.
- My first 2-digit birthday
- My first sip of liquer on my 15th birthday
- My first birthday without my parents
My 29th birthday was a surprise visit by my mother, my creator. Thanks to my dearest life partner, I welcomed this day with the one person who has given up everything in her power to put me first.
This visit has unlocked a new emotion in my heart: self-directed genuine celebration.
No longer will the codependence ensure every other superficial need is fulfilled before doing what I must do to live and survive. Instead, any act resembling this will be intentional, with a purpose.
I will plan, act, and fulfill acts with a higher intention.
Sakura R. Ando, 29 years old.
