theblackdostoyevsky

I quit writing in 2017. After I puttered out of a PhD program in Aesthetic Studies, ABD, I gathered up all of my flash drives and journals and the novel I wrote in 2011 and forty pages of character sketches that I’d painstakingly drawn and developed for a second novel and all of the poetry and all of the raps and shorts and flash fiction and dumped it all into the garbage bin three days before trash day and dragged it to the curb.

I wasn’t being dramatic. I didn’t have second thoughts and go ass up in the bin to retrieve the darlings I couldn’t quite consent to kill. I wasn’t discouraged. I know I’ve got some talent. I wasn’t intimidated, though probably a little impatient for that talent to pay off. I wasn’t without support. Everything that I needed to make a successful writing career—mentors, successful, talented, and award-winning friends, connections with renowned, published authors, an addiction to alcohol, coffee, chain smoking and late nights—I had. What I didn’t have is the only thing any writer truly needs: I didn’t have anything to say.

So I quit.

I still quit. Only reason I started this blog is because people I love and trust, and one who is not a person (though His son is), encouraged me to.

So, here I am.

And still, I don’t have anything to say. I’ve got nothing to say about a keto diet. I’ve got nothing to say about high protein. I’ve got nothing to say about cardio versus resistance training. I’ve got nothing to say about microplastics, or trash islands, or acid rain in the Amazon. I’ve got nothing to say about futures markets, bulls or bears. I’ve got nothing to say about Nvidia versus AMD. I’ve got nothing to say about data centers in Collin County, Tx. I’ve got nothing to say about aggressive HOAs or insurance scams or student loan debt or the death of DEI.

I don’t have anything to say about fast fashion or distended bellies on black children wearing t-shirts featuring the loser of last year’s Super Bowl. I don’t have anything to say about the Super Bowl. I don’t even remember who won in February, and it’s July. I don’t have anything to say about the World Cup, either.

I don’t have anything to say about who won the Booker Prize this year. I don’t have anything to say about the poet laureate of the United States, not since Maya Angelou died. And I didn’t really have anything to say about her, either. I don’t have anything to say about the destruction of the music industry, or how rappers ain’t got nothing to talk about once they get rich. I ain’t got nothing to say about the novels I haven’t read, or the movies you swear I just have to watch, or how awesome Stranger Things was/is, or Game of Thrones, or Widows Bay, or Friends.

I don’t have anything to say about the United States war with Iran. I don’t have anything to say about the Strait of Hormuz or the Gulf of America. I don’t have anything to say about Donald Trump. Just like I don’t have anything to say about media bias, or Fox News or CNN or NPR or DeadSpin or the Huffington Post. I don’t have anything to say about old Republicans dying, or new Democrats lying. I don’t have anything to say about China or Russia, like I don’t have anything to say about Greenland. I’ve got nothing to say about Africa. I’ve got nothing to say about the United Nations, like I’ve got nothing to say about corruption, or greed, or lust, or pride, or wrath, or sloth, or envy, or the deadly sin I’ve forgotten, just as I have nothing to say about massacres in Kurdistan.

I don’t have anything to say about New York, or Paris or Tokyo or Lupe Fiasco, or Sidney, Australia. I don’t have anything to say about the girl Sidney who stole ketchup out of my refrigerator. I don’t have anything to say about the Bahamas or Cancun or St. Tropez. I don’t have anything to say about Dubai, the city or the chocolate. I don’t have anything to say about the cartels or MS13 or bloods or crips or crime more organized than emotional. I don’t have anything to say about cadavers missing heads and hands. I don’t have anything to say about Juarez.

I don’t have anything to say about gas prices, or shrinkflation, or the prison-industrial complex. I don’t have anything to say about George Floyd. Like I didn’t have anything to say about Oscar Grant or Trayvon Martin or Breonna Taylor or, Good Lord, whichever unarmed citizen the police have murdered this week. It’s been a while since I checked the headlines, clearly. I don’t have anything to say about racism, or AI, or climate change. I don’t have anything to say about cyclospora or the nth strain of COVID.

I don’t have anything to say about who you choose to have sex with or why you think it’s so important that I know about it. I don’t have anything to say about how onery and cruel everyone is becoming. I don’t have anything to say about TikTok. I don’t have anything to say about Discord. Or Threads. Or Instagram. Or LinkedIn. I don’t have anything to say about YouTube. I don’t have anything to say about bot comments. I don’t have anything to say on or about Reddit. I don’t have anything to say about how much better the Internet used to be in the 90s and early 2000s.

I don’t have anything to say about public education. I don’t have anything to say about the fact that nearly 70% of eighth graders can’t read proficiently at grade level. I’ve got nothing to say about a generation of children addicted to THC vapes, the same way I’ve got nothing to say about zombies. I’ve got nothing to say about this year’s Call of Duty or Madden or NBA2k. I’ve got nothing to say about brain rot, Italian or Hungarian or Cambodian. I don’t got nothing to say about ICE or the liberal agenda of foundations that’ve been pumped through academia for the past 150 years. I don’t have anything to say about the cost of college tuition or the worthless degrees they’re conferring. High school, either.

I don’t have anything to say about the fact that the unemployment rate only counts those who are actively looking for a job. I don’t have anything to say about small businesses boarded after the world shutdown and the rich got richer. I don’t have anything to say about families forced to merge households because of the price of eggs. I don’t have anything to say about hoarding toilet paper, or rooftop gardens like we’re living in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.

I’ve got nothing to say about credit cards or credit scores or the fact that the dollar has lost 96% of its value since the federal reserve was created. Like I’ve got nothing to say about the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan and white nationalism, nor the black nationalism that has risen in reaction to it. I’ve got nothing to say about black Hebrews or white Khazars. I’ve got nothing to say about a second Civil War or a Jihad. I’ve got nothing to say about haplogroups or Rh-negative Rhesus monkeys, rabbits, or frogs.

I’ve got nothing to say about UFOs or the Hoover Dam or millions of top-secret, redacted CIA files. I’ve got nothing to say about cloud seeding or Bromide or chem trails or false flags or presidents trying to alter their blood. I don’t have anything to say about the falsification of history or the Mandela effect. Or the butterfly effect, for that matter. Never saw it. I don’t care how much of a douche they say Kutcher is. I don’t have anything to say about what they found under the ice in Antarctica, or the hidden cities under your feet in America. I don’t have anything to say about CERN or dark matter or he who restrains it being taken out of the way. I don’t have anything to say about cloning or Crispr or stem cells or pig’s hearts keeping men alive. I in’t got nothing to say about men who wanna get pregnant having wombs stitched into their bodies. I ain’t got nothing to say about chimeras, or them being mistranslated as mules.

I don’t have anything to say about the rich, or the wealthy, or the ultra-wealthy. I don’t have anything to say about the Bilderberg group or the secret purposes of the Council on Foreign Relations. I don’t have anything to say about the cabal oligarchy of those who call themselves Jews and are not, who rule the world. He who sits in the heavens, though, shall laugh. His words, not mine. I don’t have anything to say about the Illuminati or Aleister Crowley or Anton Levey or Michael Jackson. I don’t have anything to say about Alfred Kinsey or Jeffrey Epstein. I don’t have anything to say about orgies on remote islands where sex trafficked children are sacrificed to Satan to satisfy his bloodlust. I’ve got nothing to say about freemasons or a silent war against “sheeple.” I ain’t got nothing to say about the man of sin or his number. I ain’t got nothing to say about a mark or a beast.

I don’t have anything to say about the pope. I don’t have anything to say about Islam or Sharia law in the United States. I don’t have anything to say about the state of the church.

All in all, folks, I don’t have anything to say about marriage. I don’t have anything to say about divorce. I don’t have anything to say about murder. I don’t have anything to say about suicide. I don’t have anything to say about women. I don’t have anything to say about men. I for sure don’t have anything to say about children. I don’t have anything to say about silence. I don’t have anything to say about speech. I don’t have anything to say about love. I don’t have anything to say about hatred. I don’t have anything to say about lying. I don’t have anything to say about the truth. I don’t have anything to say about you. I damn sure don’t have anything to say about me.

But. . . if you held a gun to my head and counted down from three, and you told me that I’d better speak before you get to one or you’re going to pull the trigger and splatter my brains all over the pillow I’m resting my head on right now. If you made me say something, anything, to save my life, I’ll give you one statement, for my life. A proclamation, rather. And after I say it, you can pull the trigger or not, I won’t care. Far as I’m concerned, caving to the fear of death makes me dead already anyways, just like caving to your demand does. But fine, I’ll say it, my one announcement in life unto death. . .

But you already know what I’m going to say, don’t you?

Of course you do.

And that’s why I quit writing.