The Rise and Fall of Neoliberalism

"Why would I choose to be insane? Why would I choose my mental illness over therapy and medication? I'll answer your question with another question: How did America survive the Cold War? Insanity creates leverage from nothing, just as the Universe was conceived out of a formless void. Therefore, it can reasonably said, that the truly insane are the people who try desperately hard to be sane, while the truly sane become Gods of their own making, and appear to most as deeply troubled, even malevolent, just as God appears to the sane as deeply troubled, even malevolent."

My authorship and writing professor once said the following: 'Most of you don't want to be writers, you just like the idea of being a writer'. At the time I thought that applied to me, which is just natural, normal, paranoia from someone who grew up with parents who wanted them to, you know, do something important with their life.

I don't think writing is very important, and I think a lot of writers need to accept that. I think a lot of writers are narcissistic cowards (yo). They only want to write about themselves in an idealised way, they never want to approach their writing (or themselves) with a modicum of 'mature self-examination' (TISM et al).

Most songwriters, for example, wouldn't have dared to do a spoken word piece about Jim Morrison in the decade proceeding Reaganism. Many of the Hippies, those that weren't totally burnt out and locked away in an asylum, saw the failures of the Reagan administration as vindication of their equally flawed form of anarchism, which had Jim Morrison as one of its spiritual leaders. Not only that, but spoken word poetry was very much out of fashion in the nineties. It still is. Nobody, except homeboys, like poets these days, and that's mostly poetry about how great and awful drugs and pimping are (probably because nobody likes poets these days, so they get bullied for being creepy in high-school and turn to drugs and pimping).

Most writers, at the very least, are cowards, and, worse, they're cowards even when there's nothing to be scared of. Myself? I went crazy because of a fear of death, and a fear of not making enough money. See? Literally afraid of nothing. In a sense, being afraid of not making enough money is like being afraid of fear itself. Humans, generally speaking, are more loss averse than they are attracted to gains. I've found the less I need, the better I feel.

I'm not a great writer. But, really, I am. For example, I'm a good enough writer to know that starting a sentence with "But" is, traditionally, not a thing you're supposed to do, and I'm also a good enough writer to understand that creatives, artists in all fields, are supposed to transgress and push boundaries. Mozart, I've heard, wrote the rules to music, and, having done that, spent the rest of his life breaking them. Vonnegut wrote rules for good writing and finished the list by pointing out the following:

"The greatest American short story writer of my generation was Flannery O'Connor (1925-1964). She broke practically every one of my rules but the first. Great writers tend to do that."

Woody Allen? Roman Polanski? Well, uh, I'll trust the court of public opinion on those guys, while still secretly enjoying Whatever Works (see, cowards, all of us!)

I know how to spell, words flow out of me at lightning speed. I write like Mos Def raps. I write like a hacker programs. When I say I'm not a great writer what I mean is; I'm not an accomplished writer, and I lack the organisational skills to write anything other than short little diatribes on websites like this. Also, I can't be bothered with flowery descriptions, and 'show don't tell' only half makes sense to me. Also, also, I've made sacrifices for my writing, big ones, massive ones. I'm so committed to being a literary performance artist that I'm pretty sure I'm on a no-fly list for terroristic threats. Threats that I would never carry out in real life.

THE NSA DOES NOT HELP YOU. THEY ARE SECURITY THEATER. ALL THEY DO IS HURT SCHIZOTYPAL FOLKS LIKE ME.

Schizotypal folks like me, probably because we are schizotypal, still believe in things like 'Love' and 'Soulmates' and even, sometimes, 'God' (in my case I believe the Dude that can be named is not the eternal Dude).

"A Buddhist, a Confuscianist, and a Daoist are all meditating on a bridge one day when a sudden upswell causes them to be knocked into the river below.

The Buddhist asks: 'Why is this happening?'

The Confuscianist asks: 'How does this serve me?'

The Taoist swims."

I've been unemployed for five years, and the job that caused the burnout had a turnover rate of three months. I stayed in the first one, which was commission only, for eighteen months, and I stayed in the second one for eleven. Almost two and a half years, almost sixty hours a week.

I imagine my employers must have found me frustrating to deal with simply because I have the kind of schizotypal mind that will make itself go psychotic before it gives up. I guess it's only fair, I thought my employers were a bunch of superficial, swampdicked, thieves.

The Wolf of Wall Street. Released just six years ago, it was Scorcese's highest grossing film worldwide. So, I'm gonna go ahead and assume it's what would be considered 'a movie everyone loves'.

Thankfully, my finance guy is a value investor, not a speculator, he read Benjamin Graham's 'The Intelligent Investor' and studied finance. Barring a Black Swan Event like the end of capitalism (my finance guy is also a Marxist, so, fingers crossed it works this time), I'm pretty sure my small, initial, investment will keep compounding... Although, my finance guy does use a lot of drugs and he has a penchant for loose women, but, hey, I wouldn't trust any man who wasn't that honest about natural human desires. I probably should take charge of my own finances, though, I just don't really care about money (he writes, in an attempt to win ten thousand dollars). I was homeless for a bit after working in sales, you know? Worst case scenario, I'll just panhandle... Or steal shit. When you work in an industry like sales, and you chase money for so long, you really, really, learn that not only does money not buy happiness, but, often, it can be antithetical to happiness.

"Money does buy happiness, colloquially known as 'H'. It's about $50 a hit."

So you see, even happiness is overrated. Happiness? More like HA! PENIS!

If we were happy all the time, there'd be neither comedy nor tragedy.

IF YOU LIKED THE WOLF OF WALL STREET, YOU'LL LIKE THE EXACT SAME MOVIE FROM THE OPPOSITE PERSPECTIVE!

I think if young, especially white, men watch The Wolf of Wall Street without having seen Boiler Room, they'll probably grow up to be involved with some shady stock scam, which, you know, you do you, I guess, just don't be surprised when you either get raided by the Feds, or end up jumping off a tall building during an economic crash, or dying of a drug overdose, or catching every STD known to man, or losing everyone important to you for the sake of your job, or, hey, well, I can't predict the future, now, can I? Maybe you too can be like Jordan Belfort and survive all that shit he went through!

Boiler Room is great because it shows us the story of one of the primary victims of Belfort's misdeeds instead of idealising Belfort himself, but, hey, I still like Wolf of Wall Street, and I still live my life like an impoverished Belfort. Except, goddammit if you can't get Mandies anymore (the British/Australian term for Quaaludes). I'll try anything once except anal, probably because I'm already anal enough, thanks. Mandies don't really interest me, though, I imagine it would basically be like Ambien, except without tweeting the n word.

I'm not a stockbroker, though. I'm a virginal writer who is too afraid to even see a prostitute because I want to fall in love. Maybe I should try falling in love with a prostitute? Could work, I guess, but then I might just turn into a pimp and end up back 'on the nod' (using heroin). I think this is one difference between artists and normies. Normies destroy relationships because they don't want to give up porn, artists give up porn because they want to fall in love with someone's inner beauty... Although, you know, a nice pair of tits never hurt (unless you're Helen of Troy or Julia of Corsica, fucking tease).

I love Jordan Belfort, though. If you've seen these movies, but haven't read The Wolf of Wall Street, read the book, it's much better, and does a better job of humanising Belfort because it's written from his perspective. That life wasn't fulfilling for him. It was fun, but it wasn't fulfilling, and he says as much in the book. I've always maintained that the way we have society structured is an 'everyone loses' kind of game. The poor aren't happy because they're estranged from the products of their labour, the rich aren't happy because they're estranged from simplicity and the common man. Then again, as I've already stated, Happiness is overrated. Anyone who's ever experienced manic episodes, especially manic psychoses, can tell you this.

Speaking of artists, and drug-taking, and hollow moralising about vice, another great film, adapted from a Hunter S. Thompson book, is 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas'.

This is slowly a list of movies where a white male protagonist takes an excessive amount of drugs in an attempt to achieve some kind of self-actualization. Perhaps, for people like these, the attempt itself is what is misguided? Perhaps they just need to 'be' and not try to be anything else?

In order that I might introduce some diversity into the list how about we move on to Requiem for a Dream, which features... A very attractive black dude and a white girl who both always look healthy and clean, goddamn, does Hollywood realise most people who take drugs, especially Americans who take drugs, do so because they were bullied in high-school for being weird and creepy? Where's the autistic fat Mexican who smokes weed and does Heroin until he starts seeing worms crawling out of his stomach?

Finally we come to my favourite film. Finally, as in, I love sharing this film with anyone and everyone and, now that I'm doing so, I'm feeling a release of nervous energy, not finally as in 'this ordeal is almost over for you readers'. We still have the concluding film, and the closing credits after this film.

This is a film, a musical, which is, by far, my absolute favourite film. It is about fascism, personal liberation, the harmful effects of addiction, human psychology, and spirituality, all at once. It is the truest representation of the human experience I've ever seen represented in film, and it does so by being excessively abstract. God bless Syd Barrett. I'm glad I ended up going crazy like him.

And last on this list? American Psycho.

I don't really think people like Bateman exist. What I mean is: I experienced both Cluster B PDNOS and paranoid psychosis, the psychiatric comorbidity which is most likely to lead to physical violence (4% of those with such a comorbidity commit violence). I still couldn't kill, because it's alarmingly difficult to kill someone. I use the word alarmingly with intention, too, I grew up worrying about nuclear holocaust and now climate change, and, stupidly, I decided to be a poet in response to such threats. Trust me, when the food runs out we poets get eaten first, especially if we're men. Knowing how hard it is to kill someone, even if you're only killing them by proxy, like most knowledge, is a blessing and a curse. It makes you feel hopeful that the world won't end in nuclear Armageddon, but, it makes you paranoid that, if it does, you're fucked beyond all comprehension. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst. That's why I've engineered playing darts that have hypodermic needles filled with haloperidol. I wonder why the U.S. military doesn't use non-lethal methods against "terrorists" (people protecting their culture and resources)?

“But I know now that there is not a chance in hell of America’s becoming humane and reasonable. Because power corrupts us, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Human beings are chimpanzees who get crazy drunk on power. By saying that our leaders are power-drunk chimpanzees, am I in danger of wrecking the morale of our soldiers fighting and dying in the Middle East? Their morale, like so many bodies, is already shot to pieces. They are being treated, as I never was, like toys a rich kid got for Christmas.” - Kurt Vonnegut (2004)

"America is addicted to oil" - George W. Bush (2006)

Of course, American Psycho isn't based on a real individual. It is an allegory that conflates the actions of people like Jordan Belfort, and the foreign policy of the Reagan administration, and assumes that businessmen and public servants are on good terms in the US. The behaviour of lobbyists notwithstanding, I think it's more complicated than that. American Psycho is still a great movie though, because, fuck yuppies.

JUST

SAY

NO!

To being a hypocritical yuppie.

Stop driving your cars. It never made sense to me. The three biggest issues impacting Americans, and, in fact, much of the Western World: Debt, increasing waistlines, wars for resources.

So what do you do?

You become addicted to driving. You become addicted to shopping. You consume for its own sake, when you would feel a lot better if you recycled what already surrounds you.

And then you pass judgment on people whose attitude, more or less, is that life isn't that complicated. You study hard, you build with what's available, and every now and then you might find a cigarette dipped in PCP lying on the ground.

Maybe now you can understand why people like me end up resorting to violence. Maybe. It's worth mentioning, before the closing credits, that the name of Charlie Manson's cult was 'ATWA', or, 'Air, Trees, Water, Animals' or 'All The Way Alive'. I've never been particularly religious so, while I would not plunge a knife into a pregnant belly, I will continue to have love and empathy for Charlie Manson, and everyone like him. In other words: I will continue to have love and empathy for people, human and nonhuman alike.

"Just like a mad dog you're chasing your tail in a circle."