It’s almost like a constant state of venting or frustration or anger or confusion or just plain [being] dumbfounded. And you’re in the same boat as me, we’re [both] millennials, and I think about just a constant chaos in our lives. To be honest, I was trying to think, “What was the first moment in [our] generation that really kicked off this chaos?

Was it [the] Bill Clinton [and] Monica Lewinsky [scandal in 1998]? Yeah, probably, but more likely, at least in my view, I think the real moment was [the] Columbine [school shooting in 1999]. We were in middle school when that was going on, and I remember watching it live on television. It was Easter break, and my family and I were down in Cape Cod [on vacation].

[I was 14 and] I remember we were checking into the hotel, and I’m sitting in the lobby watching the news, waiting for my parents to get done [at the front desk]. And there’s kids running for their lives across the [Columbine] school parking lot and falling out of broken glass windows. And then, two years later, we had 9/11, then Afghanistan and Iraq [wars], economic collapse of [2008], [not to mention the Bush] and Trump administrations, and the pandemic.

It’s just nonstop. I don’t know what peace is anymore, you know? I don’t know if we’ve ever had peace, probably [just] post-World War II, in essence, but it still wasn’t a peaceful country for a lot of people [back then]: minorities, Black people, gay community, women. I’m sorry, this is a tangent. I just realized that it’s really gone down the rabbit hole [in this message]. My mind’s just so full to the brim of thoughts and restlessness, which is why I’m going to dump it all on you. [Laughs].

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I went to school for journalism and history. I’ve always been a history freak since I was a little kid. That’s all I read was history books. So, I have a pretty good grasp of this country, just diving deep. Because I always felt you can’t understand history and you can’t be a good journalist and you can’t be a good citizen if you don’t have a frame of reference, in terms of historical context of why things happen or continue to happen or seem to always happen or seem like once in a million years happening, but it actually happened only 20 years ago. People forget very easily, especially in the social media age.

“Make America Great Again.” I always think about that statement. What is the word “great,” and who is the one that understands the definition? Clearly white men think that we used to be great. The rest of the country? It’s been a hard, arduous battle, rolling the boulder up the hill.

But then, even as a country, we’ve had [other] chaotic [United States] presidents. I mean, Andrew Jackson alone [with] the way he ruled, with the Trail of Tears and killing [thousands] of indigenous people, [and from] right here in Western North Carolina [with the Cherokee], killing them or making them walk to Oklahoma.

And I’ve done those stories about the historical context of the Trail of Tears. Jackson booted them out of the South: “This is a white man’s land, get the f**k out.” It’s just so crazy. And you think about [Jackson’s] populism and how he was, in my opinion, bat shit crazy. And everybody loved it. It was anti-indigenous people, pro-America, pro-business, and slavery was still going on.

That was [in] the 1830s, and here we are, almost exactly 200 years later. And that’s the way the government [today] looks at it [when it comes to] black people, women, anyone that’s not a white man. I always think about that as a journalist and as just a person, a very existentially thinking person, that [old adage], “Nothing’s the same, everything thing’s the same.”

You think about the Boston Massacre, where that was in the Revolutionary War [era], and they argued who shot first. Was it the British trying to invade Boston or was it some colonial rebel that shot first? And it kind of sparked the American Revolution in a lot of ways. That was at the beginning of the country, which celebrates 250 years this year, which is just nuts to think about [in] all this chaos.

This year is the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. And we are [now] in one of these powder keg, blitzkrieg, upside down, world broken, bull in a China shop moments.  And here we are, a quarter of a millennia into our existence [as a country]. And it’s like we’re just as much of pieces of shit now as then. I’m not talking about the people fighting a good fight. I’m talking about the people at the top that just run everything and don’t give a shit about anybody, let alone the Constitution.

And when I think about this woman yesterday [in Minneapolis], it’s so crazy that her last name is “Good.” Wow, what a symbolic thing there. I didn’t realize until I read more reports [about the shooting] that her partner and her dog were when she got shot. And you’ve probably seen the photos, all the stuffed animals for her kid that were in the glovebox right next to where her body lay. Like, what the actual f**k? 

All this chaos is going on and all of us still have to go to work, still have to adhere to obligations. The country is burning right now, and [I’m] like, “Oh yeah, I have an assignment due.” I have an article due this afternoon and I have just no motivation to do it, and just out of sheer mental exhaustion. It’s just daily life in this country. That’s the absurdity we live in. I digress. Peace.