There is a person from another art life many years ago I have been thinking about the past few months since I realized by looking something else up and stumbling upon their name that they have been deeply red pilled. I'm still in complete disbelief how this kind, empathetic, intellectual, creative and well educated person fell into it. I know they would have despised someone like Trump and all the personalities related to him back then. I know that much. Though maybe you only can know so much about a person because they have not fully formed into their final form. I would be horrified if they stay there but they appear happily entrenched, you wouldn't consume those kinds of people if you had any doubts in what you believed in. What felt and feels good what has brought you peace of mind. The fascist merchants who sell anger, fear, and conspiracy are some of these people's saviors. This is the answer they have been waiting forever for. What keeps me up at night helps them sleep. My suspect is the wellness to fascism pipeline had something to do with entangling this person in. Then life with much unknowns, disappointments, and calamities did its thing. 

The other people I've known who have gone down that route I wasn't fully surprised except a handful but this particular person's descent I will always find haunting. If it could happen to them, then who is safe? I was recently reading the Alice Walker essay for an assignment "Beauty: When the Other Dancer is the Self" and in awe of it's power and realizing this person who wrote this dragged themselves into these black holes of conspiracy to never pry their way out of. No one is safe. For many years as a kid I never understood the advice to be careful of the company you keep because of the influence it can have. I thought 'the worst would never happen to me!' How foolish youth is. My friend was not young though and neither was Walker when what occurred to them took form. Many in the population now are treading a lot of conspiracy pooled waters more the last 5 years and certainly more than the last 10 years. The desperation and appetite keeps growing. I observe a lot of spaces where climate denialists,  anti modern science, and anti Covid assholes lurk. LOL themselves to black pill under laughing emojis, and where do these people go in the years ahead, now some are bots but enough aren't. Are they being primed and dormant for now and the next crisis they can scream, threaten and attack those masked or god forbid a pandemic outbreak. The Republicans in our state put in a constitutional amendment to strip the Governor's powers if there was a state of emergency. Of course so few people know except the conservatives and they won.

One of the most important characteristics we can posses is to have some humbleness. To realize if you truly believe in critical thinking, intellect, love, empathy and commitment to these things that are paramount, you must let go of being so confident in 'No that's not me, that could never be me. I'm better than that. That's them over there.' smugness. I get it. I do but as bell hooks said we all have susceptibility to be co-opted. I think a lot about the terrors and grief I survived and wonder often how am I not the biggest conspiracy theorist. A therapist years ago said she would understand if I was the angriest person alive. For many years I was on fire. I was fortunate to walk out of it with my sense of wellness and sanity. I don't think you necessarily need to filled to the brim with trauma and rage to get sucked into what is basically darkness, a black hole but they have done a lot of studies that can make people much more susceptible. Something changed in their own universe that doesn't make sense anymore, the order of things are realigned and they have no control over it. I don't know what happened to this person. I didn't know them that deep or close enough. Ours was a short but meaningful timespan. I wish I had known. I don't believe they will return. I think this is a familiar story. The last ten years it's been a slow boil from numerous people who feel those they have known have drifted off and come back in a different skeleton. The last five it's been a larger amount, more vitriol, more out of control, more lost souls who were so hungry that fear and anger swallowed their world and all they have known. This is likely a shift that will be around for a generation. We like to believe art can save, artists know, but they are like anyone else. We must live with that humility.

- March 8, 2025. & March 26, * June 12-15, 2025