The state of my mind (Patreon)
Content
I've been quiet the last weeks. At least here, not so much on twitter. So what's going on? The simple and short answer is: I ran out of stuff. The images I had queued up until then were all published and I haven't lined up more yet.
That's it, thanks for your attention.
But if you want to hear what's going on with me personally then please read on a little longer. I would greatly appreciate it.
So, first of all, I hit another massive creative-block ever since I released the last episode of season 7. Haven't really been doing much in this direction and it feels like an overwhelming mountain to climb.
We also started working on the house again and it's been... difficult. I had to take another job to pay for all the stuff that needed repairing since the savings are pretty much gone. And the time I spend on that job I can't spend rendering. I don't want to beg or whine here, just let you know what I've been doing with my time. That being said I now want to talk about the reenacting of John's Revelation we're apparently living in. If I sound chipper describing it, that's my methode of coping, so bear with me. As you might know, the current Pandemic has hit Germany not that bad and where I live we pretty much got it in the bag. Everyone wears their masks and keeps their distance. I may or may not got trapped in a closed mall at some point but besides that the town where I live in has successfully weathered the first wave. So that's that. The worst thing that happened to me during this plague was watching american news, but that's on me.
And with that we finally come to the events of the last two weeks and the murder of George Perry Floyd. I can't even begin to describe what I felt when I watched that man get murdered in broad daylight, out in the open, in front of witnesses and cameras, crying for his mother. I can't describe what I'm feeling right now. I have never seen something like that, nor did I think I ever would. Derek Chauvin was so calm and collected. You could see it in his eyes how much he enjoyed pressing the live out of that man. And Tou Thao... standing guard so his buddy could enjoy himself... I have never seen something like this... but I knew that it happens all the time. I actually learned about the murder of Floyd two days after I watched Amy Cooper sicing an execution squad on Christian Cooper and her sickening display of plain white supremacy. And that came after I learned about Breonna Taylor, and that came after the hunting and assassinating of Ahmaud Arbery. And all that with the memory of Botham Jean getting lynched in his own living room by ANOTHER COP Amber Guyger lingering in the back of my mind.
I am not a white man. Nor am I a black man. My mother is white, my father an indigenous campesino from Bolivia. And while I have received my little share of bullying based on the color of my skin when I was in elementary school, I would never dare to compare that to the pain the black community feels not only in the States, but wherever they have to feel this pain. But I feel pain nonetheless, more pain than I have ever felt since my Grandfather died. It rips my heart into pieces and I feel shit, bitter and angry all the times. I lash out at people and am on edge all the time. And that was BEFORE I saw the footage of the protests and how they were steamrolled by what I can only call the modern Waffen-SS. Just yesterday I watched Martin Gugino get knocked over by a horde of Stormtroopers and left bleeding on the ground - and then just when you think, maybe not all cops are bastards, the entire bunch of them resigns in support for the 'officers' who pushed that man. And it goes on with the hundreds of clips of police brutality - the very thing those protests are about. But the worst thing are the people rushing to justify this. They use the looters and the rioters as an excuse to crush the protests. And they might think that's right, but so thought the Nazis in Warsaw 1944, so thought the Soviets in Berlin 1953 and so thinks China in Hong Kong since (at least) 2019. Every authoritarian Regime in the world has justified the oppression of the people with "law and order".
And of course I do not condone looting. I'm devastated myself when I find my work on some piracy website - and that's just a digital copy. So I can only imagine what it must feel for a small shop owner who gets his existence taken first by the pandemic and now by looters. But I can't say that I do not understand some of them. For me it comes back to Trevor Noah and what he said on the Contract of Society.
But seriously: stop looting. For George's sake: listen to Killer Mike.
And all of this brings me to another point I wanted to address for a long time now. The one thing that could make 2020 an even more fucked up year (apart from a killer asteroid or mount st. helens finally blowing it): The re-election of Donald Trump. I am now 75% certain, that Donald Trump will get a 2nd term, even if he doesn't manage to fully capitalise on the support for "law and order" from 'the silent majority' like Nixxon did. There's just no way in two tits of a rats ass that Hillary Clinton 2.0 can win this election. I've seen it many times even in the Size- and LGBTQ+ community - people would rather see another 4 years of Trump than voting for Joe Biden. And I don't know what this will say about the United States of America. It's basically saying: yes, we are happy with how things are at the moment.
What I know for certain however, is that a Trump and a Republican Party emboldened by re-election will be absolutely unbearable. And they'll continue to do away with freedom and democracy and stuff. They'll make a desolation and they call it peace.
And even if, EVEN IF he's finally forced out of office, be it this year or in 4 years: those supporters, they stand at the ready, armed to the teeth. Just one tweet and you have a 2nd civil war on your hands. The military has already shown that only a certain percentage is loyal to the constitution rather than to Trump. And I very much fear for my friends in the States.
So. Bottom line: I sit here, screaming at the glowing rectangle in front of me and I don't want to stop just screaming. Thank you for reading what's on my mind. It has been cathardic to write it down.
Stay safe everybody.