Actually, Everything Is That Deep.

Issue 012: Toni wonders if her inquisitiveness is a blessing or a curse

Sex and the City S1 E1 (HBO)

I've been told on numerous occasions that I ask a lot of questions, and this is true. I do, in fact, like to examine and dissect information when it's given to me. I see this as an essential quality to navigate day-to-day life, and I'm noticing more and more as the world continues to burn right before our eyes that this quirk of mine is pushing me towards isolation from others. To be clear, I don't feel isolated from everyone; in some ways, my curiosity has brought me closer to others who ruminate similarly, an iota of people in my personal life, and buzzing communities online that I believe I align with but haven't fully immersed myself in due to not feeling sharp enough, but that's a work in progress. I think everyone should be asking questions, always. In a savagely capitalistic society, everything is connected. Stringing together information is a great help in understanding the roots of overwhelming negative happenings in our lives. It's a proven irritant to the unconcerned when I open my mouth, but questions need to come forth, and I pose another one: why would I give up such a necessary tool for survival?

I know the proverbial phrase "ignorance is bliss" can, in practice, be a survival tool, but I see it as a convenient cop-out and a front-row seat to the stripping away of our human rights. No working-class individual is immune to the effects of capitalism simply because they refuse to engage and analyze. I, too, used to be a "it's not that deep" person in response to things that made me think. In truth, I just wasn't ready to accept how much work it is to dismantle ways of thinking that actively oppress me further: identifying harmful propaganda, hyperconsumption habits, and the rise of hyper-individualism as a technique to repel the benefits of community, to name a few. While living under capitalism, there are patterns we all fall victim to since it's designed to have complete control over our lives, but there's power in the choices we can make. It felt as if my voice was small, too minuscule to make real change, but starting with myself was the only way to see the silver lining through a defeatist mentality. Once I began probing long-instilled ideations and explored the why aspect of our collective indoctrination, that's when the how came into play, and thus, a thirst for unlearning seized me.

I bring a "how can we liberate ourselves?" vibe to the function that people haven't been exactly happy with since it requires introspection and action. Uncomfortable conversations don't work well with everyone, nor do notions of change. My partner and I have created a space where we can openly discuss our thoughts on matters that have meaning to us and ones that don't, and treat them equally in unpacking; we challenge each other in this sense, and it keeps me attentive and, again, the forbidden word: curious. Personally, I don't understand what more people need to see to be radicalized; however, it's not a race, and I hope we all meet in the middle someday because the more, the merrier. Unlearning is the task of a lifetime, as it remains a constant effort. In terms of my growth, I like to see all scales the same, and while it seems like baby steps, I've been able to shift some of my past perspectives, and it definitely feels like a step in the right direction. Now, I'm going to share some things I've been doing differently that continue to receive the "it's not that deep" attitude, but frankly, it is:

SOBER(ISH?)

Alcohol has always been a booming industry. It's the star of the nightlife experience, a liquid gold that magically extracts anxiety and provides rosy retrospection. It's consistently advertised to us, from aggressively on-the-nose commercials to scenes with bigshot actors in blockbusters, trashy reality television, and content creators vlogging their escapades. Oh, and of course, I couldn't forget the sheer exhilaration of aging to 21. The psychoactive toxin can be thrilling when used responsibly (and irresponsibly) and makes for an enticing trip that creates a disconnect from reality. Its push is perpetually predatory, especially while most are attempting to grapple with unjust social inequalities, financial crises, and the cycle of working to live but really living to work.

Presently, when I go out socially, I don't always drink, which previously was my prerequisite for having a good time. It also became a prerequisite for letting myself exist through bad times, a common unhealthy coping method. It comforted me by allowing an escape from my mental anguish momentarily, and to me, that was better than not being able to have an escape at all. It was about escaping the action of feeling, but that's the only thing that would help me rectify myself from within in the long run. In an academic journal researching connections between addiction and capitalism¹, author Samantha McIntyre affirms how "capitalism forces people to leave themselves, encouraging people to suppress and diminish aspects of their humanness in order to survive within this system." Times are tough, and from experience, I know how much smoother alcohol goes down the throat when tribulation only seems to latch onto your life, so I never judge. After pretty harsh ramifications from heavier use, I reached a limit and also became aware of my limit. Mastering moderation saved me.

Tempted at events, I feel inclined to do more since people in the room are on a different type of timing, but I remind myself there's nothing wrong with my own. I'm still met with peer-pressuring strategies when I share how I'm unwilling to drink sometimes, and if I'm in the mood, the cap is one. I get teased and accused of being less fun than past versions of myself because I've set boundaries, but I let all the noise roll off my back. I'm getting better at putting my foot down, and just the faint memory of migraines, rising stomach acid, and utterly paralyzing next-day anxiety are more than enough to keep me firm. My choice isn't hurting anybody, and I can enjoy myself with a clear head, so major pushback only makes me feel for the opposing side because joy can be acquired while sober, and when I thought otherwise, it was the signifier of a developing problem. I also understand the varying roots of said problem and emphathize. I had to question why I wanted to leave myself further when society was already working overtime on it and why I insistently needed a numbing agent, although it made everything significantly worse for me. The answers to my questions were bigger than me, but I knew what I could do to show up for myself. Letting myself feel has led to the end of this once destructive habit, and although my emotions are deeply intensified, they're helping me process my place in the structural madness we live in, and that's keeping me alive.

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THE HIGH-MAINTENANCE(ISH?) FRIEND

I think about friendships a lot—friendships I have, friendships I had, and friendships that I want. We live a lifetime of experiencing people and taking them along for the ride. Some stay longer than others, and they, too, may get off at one point. Some may stay indefinitely, and even more get picked up. I've dealt with a fair share of dropoffs and still have a good bunch from earlier rides, and yet I continue to mull over the concept of friendship daily and what that means to me for a considerable amount of time. I have friends, but I do know that we all have differing definitions and thoughts for the roles we play in each other's lives. The "low-maintenance" friend is a popular style in which frequent communication isn't necessary to know that there's still love for each other. Over the years, as we've all grown into teenagers and now into adults, this style has taken over my friendships in the blink of an eye.

Being "low-maintenance" friends to each other happened mutually, and when we're all swamped with our personal lives, this understanding allows us to get back to where we were when we can. However, I'm noticing more and more flaws in this logic. Although I have friends, I don't feel in community with most of them. If it was a life or death situation, neither of us could summarize what has happened in each other's lives for the last six months. I question why a lack of updates is so customary and, in attempts to do more, why I'm back to where I started, and it's because going beyond the default may feel like too much of an effort. We don't know each other like we once did. Within half a year, I feel like I've lived so many different lives, and many things have changed in me. It's hard to backtrack and find the version of them and myself, where we truly knew each other, and we can always learn about who we are now in the current, but what if we no longer align?

Maybe I'm more of a "high-maintenance" friend. Is it high-maintenance to want to speak frequently or see each other more than twice a year? I completely understand being busy (as we all are), and concurrently, people make time for who they want to make time for. I may not be that person, and I've made peace with it. Whether with people I already know, am actively friends with, or have to meet, I crave community. In conversation with my partner, she told me, "Look at the status of our world. We need community like never before." Community is crucial. Capitalism thrives off of individualism, making a human into a shell of their former self with profit as the only focus. It creates competition. It creates anti-social and hostile environments. It frames friendship, an act of affection, support, and trust, as a relationship that can only relate to spending and climbing up a social ladder when being in someone's presence and caring for them has no cost.

Communities are about checking in, sharing resources, fostering hope, working as a unit despite our individuality, highlighting our strengths, and making up for each other's weaknesses. Friendship isn't a requirement to be in community with people; I've felt this connection with folks I've never met before as we all worked together on various platforms to inform each other, raise awareness, and share vital details regarding those in need or our own reworkings of dated mentalities. All impassioned and working towards a goal, it feels like we are one. Friendship can be an extension of community, and those relationships flourish because nurturing is the baseline of the rapport. Nurturing is a foundation of friendships as well, but once the community aspect is lost, or if there never was any, this is why falling flat looms; once an individual that isn't concerned about mutual growth reaps all of the benefits of the care they've received, what else is there for them? It's quite simple: Community enables a sense of belonging, revolves around solid commonalities, and, most importantly, purposeful aim. If we don't speak enough, how could we accumulate this kind of bond and tie it to who we exist as now? If wanting this in my life makes me high-maintenance, so be it. It won't feel like such a sacrifice with the right people.

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STILL, DE-CENTERING CELEBRITIES

I've touched on this topic lightly in an issue from February, where I shared my thoughts on shedding stan culture after years of being engulfed by my obsessions. I still have no regrets; if anything, I'm more convinced to stay disciplined and no longer operate on an unnatural instant update basis for news that didn't actually affect my life and kept me amongst a herd of sheep. Reactions to my release of this culture have been cartoonishly comical, to say the least. A fitting example would be how when I share that I no longer keep up with Beyoncé, the shock and looks of disdain I receive would have you thinking I committed the most wicked crime. Maybe it's just me, but I don't think I have to explain why I'm not feeling the woman with a post decked out in patriotic attire with an American flag hung high and what appears to be the wing of a private jet in the background.

Americans are closer to experiencing homelessness (which is now criminalized) in their lives² than they will ever be to becoming billionaires. Over 300 million people live in the U.S., with only 813 billionaires. Everyday people that I know in my life, including myself, are two missed paychecks from having their shelter taken away. Everyday people are also the first in the line of fire to experience brutal political and environmental changes that shake their sense of normalcy for the worst. While not all celebrities are billionaires, they still have a heavy chunk of change and access to resources that most do not (such as healthcare, shelter, investments, generational wealth, etc). Celebrities are well aware of the challenges that people beneath them face. Yet, the focus remains on pushing business ventures, promoting their artistry, and locking in parasocial relationships with vulnerable consumers. Plainly, it's a toxic relationship, considering tangible benefits only flow to the well-endowed.

For the celebrities who are artists, we're not really seeing their work reflect our times these days, and that's because their goal is to retain as much capital as possible. If you critique the systems that uphold capitalism, you will face the consequences, thus putting you in the position of the everyday person. The biggest nightmare is to be one of us. Even for the rags-to-riches types, many will do anything not to go back to the struggle they've experienced, which is understandable because being impoverished can be traumatic; however, greed produces evil and kills solidarity. I know it's all a distraction, idolization and a fixation on celebrities, but this distraction has held us back and will keep doing so unless those under its grip wake up. The vicious cycle of giving people a platform and having them use it only to drain us and contribute to the systems that are oppressing us must end. We won't get anywhere as long as our attention goes towards those without intentions of accepting their humanness and privilege to assist in everyone's collective struggle. Here's your reminder:

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COMBATING MY DESENSITIZATION

It's not lost on me that in 2020, when Black Americans were mourning and calling for justice for the rising number of deaths caused by brute police violence, the influx of support simply dissipated once people no longer cared about Black lives. I think about it often. Performative actions for Black approval turned into silence due to the insulting concept of "allyship fatigue" when relentless suffering was imposed on the Black community. It's a horrible feeling to finally feel heard and, for a second, believe that change could come and then gradually return to invisibility. In action, in conversation, the suffering of others should never be fleeting. Sufferings that traumatize people beyond belief, sufferings that are ending bloodlines, and sufferings that appear to have no end in the foreseeable future shouldn't and can't lose momentum amongst those who have the means to keep mentions of it alive.

A privilege of the Western world is the ability to unplug from other global atrocities and even ones around us, all caused by countries failing their people with a simple scroll and a simple click of a power button. Caught up in the daily grind and their personal lives, people usually don't want to hear about the plight of others and turn either tense and awkward or cold at the sight of it. Whether or not you tune it out, the cries of those suffering still exist, and tragically, it's so commonplace to ignore their suffering for our comfort. Where is the comfort in knowing that you could contribute and still deciding to settle for nothing? Weaponized incompetence and oblivion aside, I think people believe some grandiose form of activism is expected of them, and that makes them give up before even trying. The mentality that our help isn't enough results in no effort, and even if it feels like the most minor contribution, when done in great numbers, there will be an impact.

Just how a swipe and a click can achieve avoidance, the same can be done to get involved. I don't want to become numb to the horrors that people are experiencing. Scrolling past mutilated bodies, famished families, and people begging for just a minute of our time can't be things that I shrug towards and dismiss as normal occurrences because no human should have to go through such torment. It's not ordinary in any form. Trust, I understand that viewing so many inhumane circumstances and distressing images causes disengagement in our brains and even fight-or-flight responses, but we must work diligently to hold space for these people. It's a commitment, but it shouldn't be such a tall order to see their humanity; that is the one part of them that will remain no matter the situation and what we all share for as long as we are here.

Learning more about crises, local and global, sharing them online, and having conversations with the people in my life helps me fight my desensitization and stay in the loop. The U.S. had a nightmarish past week, and in other countries, resistance brought on wins, but it's only the beginning; read about it here in

New Means

, a newsletter I highly recommend. Nine months into Israel's vile and persistent onslaught on Palestinians in Gaza, I'm unwilling to let this issue fade out how it has in the past, being that the violence did not start on October 7th and Israel's settler colonial violence has been killing innocent people for decades now. Zionism is a poison, and best believe I'm going to bring it up every chance that I get. The conflicts in Sudan, Tigray, Kenya, the DRC, and more locations in the Global South deserve mass attention, awareness, discussion, and action. The more we educate ourselves on each other's battles, the more we realize that our oppressors share the same tactics and we are all fighting the same fight, which is why it's so important not to isolate ourselves and fall into the illusion that what we're experiencing is so far removed from the next person. We can keep hope alive by fiercely sticking together, which can and will bring change, too. Nobody's free until everybody's free.

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I <3 LAZINESS

I love being lazy—in fact, it's more like radical rest. These two concepts go hand in hand. I love doing nothing, and I find it to be the best form of self-care. Doing nothing is my way of letting myself exist without any strings attached, and I owe myself that. To exist, to be loved, to be valued, without the need for anything in return. The idea of productivity and always filling your time with getting something done is odd to me, and the act of doing nothing is still doing something; it's rest and a way to nourish yourself.

My laziness is also my ability to nullify overexerting myself. I've never adopted the quenchless "hustle mentality" that my country so desperately wants me to have, and I don't think I ever will. I don't go above and beyond at work, never will. I will leave a job when I'm overworked. This isn't to say that I'll never be enthusiastic about labor. Who knows? I may find myself doing work with the right mission, environment, and benefits that birth natural dedication, but it won’t consume me. As for now, I've seen coworkers do the bare minimum and coworkers do the absolute most, and at the end of the day, they get paid the exact same, barely enough to make ends meet. Working, working, working with nothing to show for it, and that's why I'm the former coworker type shamelessly. I refuse to turn into a machine because I'm a human, and constantly exhausting myself isn't my purpose on this earth, nor will I accept that as my fate. Laziness is an undesired quality in society, the usual blame for lack of success, but success holds different meanings for everyone. I can vouch for myself and say I've experienced such in my own eyes.

I have many things that I love to do, and I'm still figuring out how to make a living because I fear turning my passions into work will make me grow tired of them. I like having set things for my enjoyment that don't involve making a profit and are simply for my delight. Am I struggling right now? Yes, but I don't think it's because of my laziness. It's because of the systems that make everyday living without struggle nearly unattainable. Not everyone is built to play the game of advancing status through strategic relationships, tirelessly applying themselves, and sacrificing almost every aspect of their personal lives to make it to the next day. Just because some can adapt doesn't mean everyone can, and no one should be doing so anyway.

For many, resting isn't a given; they have to either hunt it down or force themselves to do it because labor is the meaning of our existence, so we are told. Even if I wanted to surrender to the grind, my brain is wired in a way that won't allow me to. Dealing with my mental health comes with taxing obstacles, the most thought-about one regarding how I have such a hard time operating how everyone else seems to do naturally. This obstacle is also positive because it allows me to critique the systems that make existing so hard for me and understand how people are just barely functioning as well. It's not just me. It's everybody. Embrace laziness! These companies do not care about your well-being, and burnout isn't the standard fare for being alive. Embrace laziness and reject others' thoughts of you because laziness is valiant. Embrace laziness, a form of resistance, and your body will thank you.

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The workings of this ongoing journey I'm on are scrambled in my mind from my perspective, but I believe that everything intertwines and that my self-discoveries, "big" or "small," are truly meaningful. These concepts aren't anything new or incredibly profound. However, considering that they encompass the survival of myself and others in some way or form, everything is that deep. As I'm getting older, there are changes that I want to make for myself, and I definitely feel equipped to manage the discipline needed. I'll keep questioning anything and everything as long as it grants me the space to learn. If you've made it this far, I hope there is some fruitful takeaway or that you've taken an interest in me documenting these efforts. My hyperawareness may feel like a curse some days, but it shies me away from my ignorance, making me a more grounded friend, partner, family member, and human. I want to show up in this world and back my thoughts, choices, and feelings wholeheartedly. So, I have my answer: My inquisitiveness is indeed a blessing because it keeps me trying more and more every day.

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Resources (aid donation links, information/education, additional action items & nonprofits to support):

• https://linktr.ee/opolivebranch

• https://ffelicia.carrd.co/

• https://linktr.ee/p4hglobal

• https://sapa-usa.org/hope-for-sudan/

• https://www.savethechildren.org/

1. McIntyre, Samantha. “The (capitalist) making of an addict: A Marxian and Durkheimian perspective on modern manifestations of addiction.” International Journal of Sociology and Anthropology, vol. 13, no. 4, 19 Nov. 2021, pp. 135–141, https://doi.org/10.5897/ijsa2021.0929.

2. A map of homelessness statistics from 2023 by state: https://endhomelessness.org/homelessness-in-america/homelessness-statistics/state-of-homelessness/