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SELF-AWARENESS
Rebellion through doubt
How can I know that I know what I think I know? I can’t.
My sense of rebellion is increasingly turned on myself and my own ideas:
What is so special about what I believe?
Why should I keep holding onto something just because I’ve held onto it this long so far?
How can I know that I know what I think I know?
I can’t.
The certainty with which so many people speak increasingly turns me off. Our settler-colonial culture is so alienated from the real and the solid and so devoted to the abstract and imagined that no one among us can plausibly claim to know “how the world works.”
It’s not just that we believe lies about ourselves as a nation — although that list is certainly long — it’s that our conception of what is possible is tragically constrained. We are constantly cheating ourselves.
We’re all delusional and I can see how living here, steeped in it, has poisoned my own brain.
Hence, the self-dissent. My disobedience must not spare the bullshit rules I’ve set for myself. They’re all peer pressure hand-me-downs anyway.
Fuck that.
So at the moment, here in the US, I strongly distrust professed confidence, in others and in myself.
My own way forward must be through doubt and ambiguity. Better to hold off on any decision until the last possible moment.
Either that or just flip a coin, cuz what the hell do I know anyway?