Going Back To Sleep
As 2021 drew to a close, I remember thinking that it had been the eye of a storm. I don't yet know what happened last year on a macro level, but I know it was profoundly disruptive and that the ruptures in the ground beneath us cannot be sealed back up any time soon without some stratospheric conversations. Some people reacted in fear to this increased split in tribal thought camps; others leapt into the unknown head first and didn't look back. For me, I knew firmly where I stood but only because of the way in which my reality had become narrower in focus over this time. My circle had become tighter but wider in possibility. My world was smaller but when I was in it infinitely richer.
Three years ago I was in the wilderness of woke, and an amalgamation of group coercion, pluralist shaming and cultish moralist bonding almost kept me there in a community I’d convinced myself I needed when I was vulnerable and isolated. When I turned 30, I had this intention to rewire my life somewhat, methodically choosing the people I would become close to in light of what I sought to bring to my experience; something different from the heart-led decisions of before that often led me down paths that burned bright, fast and futile. I started going to therapy for the first time. I developed a yoga codependency and was doing a lot of meditation, breath work and body inversions. Standing on my head every night really shook things up.
My deepened embedding within a radically queer music-orientated social circle spent more time doing the work and processing every inhale and exhale of life than we did letting go and seeking pure pleasure without consequence. And I was convinced by this heightened consciousness. CBD became my lifeblood. My thoughts felt lucid and my psyche clearer. The new movement meant my body was new and discoverable to me. Sometimes I felt like I could trace the blood pumping into all my various muscles and organs, sourcing the strength I'd built to be this super supple, mega agile, feline acrobat. I felt like a baby learning how to morph in ways I didn't know I was capable of. It was humbling learning how to perfect it. My skin was golden. I was sober – even on dates. The justification was that it would lead to better judgment and definitely no regret after 45 minutes of awkward small talk.
Beyond the physical, was the spiritual. My friends were people I conceived of as totems, or role models. I liked that I was hanging out with the types of people who would stop on a busy road and roll down their window to give a $10 bill to a homeless person with a sign. I felt satisfied that crying and sharing while doing coke in a bathroom at a houseparty in a circle of “friendship trust” was way more valuable than – say – actually having a good time. I was convinced that MDMA was for finding “God” at a Bon Iver concert; not for – say – tapping into a euphoric joy at literally any other type of gig. Prior, I had been the polar opposite of a Bon Iver person. Proudly. I would have secured my mast to my rejection of his jigsaw hieroglyphics suicidal cabin music.
Now I got off on the collective purpose I felt when suddenly going to marches and protests became part of my scheduling. Chanting as a monolith in wide open spaces somehow didn't make me feel like less of an individual, because I'd rewired the idea of individualism and mistaken it for this mainstream resistance. We felt like first generation punks but we weren't. Nobody was sticking safety pins in their skin, or wearing offensive clothing. Actually, it became about how inoffensive you could present yourself.
In the throes of this, however, I was becoming more uncomfortable with a little bird in my ear that knew this was a performance, and it halted me. I couldn’t conform all the way. I simply wasn’t good at conforming. I was still a messy human. I continued to make mistakes. And I didn’t apologize for them because I was too stubborn, and too acknowledging of the valuable iterations of me that came before this latest update. My behavior couldn’t be controlled. I wasn’t able to swallow my gut feelings. I began to realize that it is not natural to pander to a hierarchical group structure that only thrives upon your servitude. That is not unconditional love, even though the words “unconditional love” were being thrown around every day. No, that is the opposite of unconditional love. And frankly who needs it.
The only way I escaped woke was by performing an accidental transgression, which was actually at the time difficult to define. I was never sure of what exactly I did wrong, because nobody told me. But there was a shift. Offense had been caused by me - the perpetual offender; a fate I’ve never been able to escape. Sorry! I was no longer a “safe” person, whatever that meant. I hadn’t caused anybody a harm that could be verbalized or explained. It started with me getting a bit too drunk one night. Nothing happened. And I spent the best part of a year subsequently feeling awful about it. Due to this transgression, I became a figure of distrust, kept at arm’s length, suspected. Thinking about it now, it was mad, and I was constantly in a state of mental flux, wondering what on earth I had done to lose my reputation among these people I'd shown nothing but acceptance, tolerance and willingness to.
The rhythm of life is such that as this woke family were abandoning me, leaving me cold and insecure, one or two other people came into my world and they would become the anchors that would carry me through the pandemic that was around the corner. The pandemic exposed the ever-growing Messianic complexes that existed among my main circle, as they shamed and crossed one another, trying to outdo their respective humanitarian deeds. Honestly I was exhausted by it. And as I became physically removed from them, I found myself lying awake at night, disturbed by a primal fear that I sensed around me.
The pandemic had overwhelmed people and industries. The fatigue from it came on quickly too. As lockdowns turned into lockdowns it was hard to keep searching for new depths of strength to face that unknown. And while all this has happened, the isolation had produced a dependency on Big Tech – from online shopping to social media, FaceTime to Zoom – that fundamentally diminished our emotional intelligence, attention spans and critical thinking. The worldview became less shared and democratic, and more fractured and totalitarian, even though the impression was that we were more connected than ever. In that environment, the anxious attachment to these didactic social groupings could thrive. But I didn’t miss it.
Intolerance ran riot, and access to minds had never been easier to manipulate, particularly while so many of those minds were primed, bored and sequestered. Love – the main survival source – was also compromised by the digitization of our life experiences. Pre-pandemic we had become more accustomed to leaving impressions of the moments, rather than being inside them, facing them, feeling them out, cherishing them. We relied on our phones to meet each other, to keep connected, and that had nothing on wrapping your arms around someone. I wanted to resist that online world where the rules of time and logic defied those of our physical world and where complex beings become AI clones. But I felt a need to be online to speak the truth. Maybe I was wrong about that. I still could be.
I came to understand that collectivism is evil. Evil has infected our lives in real time. Smart, passionate, searching people – like so many I knew – are convinced that their sense of individual identity is rewarded by this progressive collectivism. But they're not individual. They've adopted labels to conform. They don't speak freely. It’s not a celebration of diversity. It's a diminishing of individuality. It’s shoehorned into commercial and corporate spaces via DEI programs and re-popularized radical theories. It's fed into education systems. It's sanctioned at government level. Freedoms are at stake. The silent majority are afraid to voice their opinions. It’s bananas. Look at the Joe Rogan debacle. How can it be that mainstream media paint this guy as the enemy when he averages 11 million listeners per episode, challenging their own capture of the masses? It became more important than ever to me to not cower to the forceful, fascist, populist, mind-washing, conspiracy fantasists who were growing louder. My work fighting antisemitism fit into it. Jews are the people who survive evil, after all.
When I looked to move to America eight years ago, there was something about it that the romantic in me sought a soul mate in. I recognized America's restless passion despite the deck often being stacked against her. I loved how she attacked absolutely everything with adventure and guts, embodying everything I was chasing; the ruthless optimist, the unabashed hustler, the free thinker. But I began to fear that the adventurers of this country were being silenced and obstructed by people with victim complexes. I wasn't a victim. I celebrated life. I celebrated my survival. I celebrated my freedoms and rights and successes. I do not feel guilty about who I am.
I spent over a decade in pop culture journalism, and I saw people who wanted to be popular ingratiate themselves to the flavor of the week. I saw a lot of corruption, a lot of abuses of power, a lot of fear of rocking boats or losing fairweather friendships. To me it’s no coincidence that the world of arts and entertainment has welcomed the woke conversion full throttle; a way of being that provides ethical justification for this circle of aspirational strongarming. With its influence, that industry is now feeding these ideas to consumers as marketable social betterment. I saw it happening at a grassroots level. And I resisted it. I had my name and my voice and I used it with integrity. I’ve refused repeatedly to be a walking advert for the powers that be. I wasn’t afraid of being disliked, of being disruptive. Whistleblowers blow whistles. They don’t whisper sweet nothings.
Someone said something aloud at a Shabbat dinner recently. “If you wear the mask long enough, eventually it becomes your face.” I've been thinking about it ever since.
Thank you for this raw vulnerable piece and for putting yourself out there the way you have.
This is beautiful writing.