[005] The One Where Shane Makes A Blog
Part explanation. Part confession.
I’ve had just enough limonene today to wax poetic, so indulge me for a moment.
Like a lot of people have, and a lot of others still need to do, I’ve spent some time poking around in my own head.
Adjusted a few things. Broke a few things. Fixed them again. At some point, something clicked. Or at least stopped actively breaking. The right mix of sertraline and vitamin D and cannabis and sunlight and movement keeps the fuel injecting and the pistons lubricated. Couple of knocks in the engine every now and then, but that’s not uncommon with these refurbished models.
So some quirks remain. Neural pathways that run through your prefrontal cortex like the weirdest roads in your town. The ones that don’t make sense in the modern era, but they’re still working and have been there so long that maintenance is cheaper than construction.
Neurodivergence.
Like the paradoxical yet positive correlation between my anxiety and my ability to fully express my feelings. When the former is elevated the latter is too.
Which is how I can drop the Happy Warrior facade, just this once, and tell you that I am scared.
How can you not be?
Frankly, it’s a horrible time to have even a high schooler’s understanding of history and a moderate ability to think critically.
In some way we all feel the tangible pall that has descended over our lives. Its dark tendrils can touch us in such small ways as annoying headlines heard on our morning commute, or in cataclysmic fashion where you are forced to watch the power of the state weaponized against your neighbors.
Or you.
If I ever seem aloof or even dispassionate when I share information about current events, it’s because part of me has to be. Because we all have to be. At least a little bit.
How you gonna shop for groceries if you can’t stop trying to predict how this all plays out? (One earbud in and one ear on the world. Works for me, but your mileage may vary)
So yeah. I’m scared. But I use that as motivation. I use it to push myself forward to do what I can when I can.
Our power is in our collective. If our voices already didn’t matter then they wouldn’t still, to this day, be working so hard to take them away.
I made this Substack almost 3 months ago, but at the time I couldn’t fully articulate why I did it. I had to think on it for awhile. In that interim period I’ve struggled to update as much as I’ve wanted to. It’s harder to write when you don’t know what to say.
I still don’t. And that’s the rub, isn’t it? I never will.
Not until I need to say it.
So let’s start here.
My name is Shane Assadzandi.
Donald Trump is a fascist con man who has mashed potatoes for brains and liquified McDoubles in his veins.
Trans rights are human rights.
Abortion is not a “social issue”, it is an economic issue because rich people are always gonna be able to get them and poor folks are always gonna be at the mercy of the law.
Billionaires should not exist.
Did reading any of that piss you off? Too bad. First Amendment, snowflake. We The People means all of us.
I do not comply in advance.
I will never consent to authoritarianism.
But I exist in a world with it anyway.
The power of the state is being weaponized against the American people at an accelerating rate, but I still gotta buy groceries and put the dogs outside every couple of hours.
This Substack is an expression of my struggle with that cognitive dissonance. Reflections from an ordinary life in extraordinary times.
What I’m feeling about it. What I’m doing about it.
Dispatches from the dystopia.
If you read this and feel like we won’t get along, you are more than welcome to scroll away and go back to letting Daddy tread on you.
But if you found this essay relatable, put up your feet and stick around for awhile.
Welcome to Cognitive Dissidence.
-S
