Within my slump of a 4-day weekend, I've been lost in thought and spiraling deeper and deeper into a malaise, trying to answer a million questions and one.

How do I respond to the world adequately? On what level am I responsible for my fate and the fate of others?

This is going to sound like the ramblings of a narcissist, because it is.

I spend more time listening to people talk about issues than I myself speak on those issues. I absorb as this information about how I should see the world and it becomes the cast in which I am poured into. But I don't do anything with it. I get a hardened outer shell that seems to insulate me from those in my vicinity.

After George Floyd's murder, I listened to people of color and leftists talk about their struggles with police and the criminal justice system, and I nodded and agreed. And I did nothing. I didn't go to a protest. I didn't risk anything except for the paint on my helmets and car. I figured that if my voice was too meek to help, then I could at least be visible. And visibility still felt like near-death. I remember writing "I can't breathe" on the back of my motorcycle helmet when I heard what happened. And as I was crouching down to browse wine, some old guy asked what I'd written. I let him look closer. He laughed at me and walked away. It is nothing, and yet it felt like everything.

I'm scared of SUVs and trucks because usually bigots drive them. I'm scared of the American flag because bigots flaunt them. I'm scared of a lot of things because I think the people who hate me subscribe to them. But I'm too afraid to actually ask if that's the case. I walk through the world feeling so small and isolated, and to make up for it, I watch people I agree with online say the words that tell me I'm right for being a bright speck in a sea of what I think is darkness. Am I?

Police violence has taken a backseat to transphobia all year. And yeah, I'm absorbing that too. I'm spending more time hearing about transphobia and people dismantling it than I am interacting with trans people or participating in the cause, outside of checking the right boxes on my mail-in ballot. A private show of support. And it feels like nothing. I feel guilty. But I also feel scared. I'm not trans, I think I'm non-binary, but I don't know. All I know is that I like to wear eyeliner and skirts and leggings sometimes, and that when I wear it, I'm too scared to actually enjoy it. I ruin my top with fearful pit sweat, no matter how thorough I am with the deodorant. I'm afraid because I may as well be trans to the people who would hurt me.

But this is so selfish and stupid, isn't it? I've risked nothing. I'm not the person throwing bricks at cop cars at Stonewall, I'm just the person who dressed queerly to school and the grocery store. All I did was be visible. And you know what? I know that matters. I've had people come up to me and compliment me, which no one does when I dress masculine. It can't be because I look all that impressive, it must be because I made someone feel hope. It has to be, because it feels so terrifying to do.

Even when I want to talk about environmentalism, I feel apprehensive. I feel suppressed, but why what? I never confront anyone, I never bark, only whimper. My world never really seems to change. Now, when looking at flights, they show the CO2 emissions of the flight. Lovely. And Amazon gets to keep doing what Amazon does, and transit's still limited, and the polluters keep polluting, but at least we all agree it's happening.

I question if my HVAC quest is misguided, too. It's a bandaid. It's a short-term solution to a megalithic disaster, and one that costs ten's of thousands per home. And it's about installing products. Products made by the system. Is this cause righteous? Have I just made an error?

Oh look, I can immigrate to Ireland if my net worth is over $2M and I invest $1M in the country. Easy. Yeah, that's money I will have. Eventually. Maybe. The flight will release 500kg of CO2 into the atmosphere. Ireland supports Palestine, unlike the U.S. I bet they're more like me than anyone here. Or is that a delusion? I haven't said anything about Palestine here. No, I stayed quiet like a good little boy not wanting to rock the boat. Trying to avoid it because I can't handle any more tragedy, boo hoo, while thousands perish on the other side of the planet, and it's all funded by people my neighbors voted for. FUCK.

I don't want to be ignorant, but the knowledge has been crushing me for so long, and I want to unplug and go far away. I'm glued in place. I say I don't care for politics, but I so am. I am addicted to the conflict and I want to see it all and I wanna feel like I'm on the right side of history while I'm stuck inside my room where I've always been when all of this has been happening.

I don't want to talk about politics and current events, but I haven't' spent as much time with anything else, so I have nothing to say. Nothing that isn't technical. Nothing that would draw people to me. I can't make friends talking about basking shark migration patterns, or crow behavior, or potential relays, or electrical diagnostics.

Textbooks make for dry reading, but I think I will find more peace reading from them than from hearing about conflict any longer. I'm tempted to leave social media behind. I am no longer sane enough to discern propaganda from reality. I have been harming myself for too long.