Casey Gilfillan

I hold my breath and close my eyes and think of positive things and that God is most likely real and that everything works out and the Universe loves me and stitches things together in a form that is intentional, beautiful, yet ineffable. I hope and wait for salvation and am left waiting. I run my fingers up, down, left, right, and repeat this again and a few more times until it feels like I hit all of the points right. I squeeze my eyes and hold my hands together and hope and wonder and then start falling, falling quickly as the gravity of my skepticism pulls me down. It does not let up. The mantras and manifestations and submissions of the self to blind and hopeful institutions of optimism do not tempt my interest. The universe has a plan for you, even if you cannot see it yet; the lord works in mysterious ways; the universe has a way of working itself out; I am a magnet for miracles. I cannot lie to eyes that have seen and a brain that has read, and who are eager to do more of both. Let alone the ears, they have heard and greedily yearn for much more! How can I deny them these sensory experiences, the collection of knowledge and guided assumption based on empirical findings? How can I betray them through ignorant capitulation to hope that is worthless and backed only by the empty and ideal.

The universe does not have a plan for you; it has one, shared and final destination. As Iowan Senator Jodi Ernst said in a profound moment of malicious apathy, “We all are going to die.” She said that out of a desire to justify her incompetency and lack of concern, not to prove any philosophical point, though she wasn’t mistaken in her phrasing. What she did not mention was how cruel and random and unexpected and unfulfilling it will be for the vast majority. Cut down at a time when you probably won’t expect it until it’s happening, only for it to be too late for you to do anything except realize. You are not a magnet for miracles, but you can work to goodness in your life. It will likely not gravitate towards you by mere manifestation; you’re much more likely to organically attract a tragedy than a miracle.

I guess my point in talking about all of this negativity and inevitable death and the nature of human existence as suffering, is just this: don’t be gaslit into complacency and submission. Do not hope and pray and think of a better future, or else they will manufacture some horrific fate for you. Do not hope for change, work to attain it through the actuality of the individual. Be the freakiest and weirdest version of yourself. Be the gayest you have ever been. The sluttiest. The most outspoken. The most well-read. Even as the capitalistic empire crumbles beneath us, queer and trans erasure remains a high and trophied item on their list of priorities. Loose the beast of yourself upon them, overwhelm them; they cannot erase all the freaks.