Well I did it. My work for the semester is pretty much done. I have to study for a test but that's in a month and I think I'll be fine.

What did I do? I'm not exactly sure, but a few things stook out. First, I got coffee pretty much every day. I used to not like coffee, but I started with mochas — the most un-coffee-like coffee — and I actually enjoyed it. What's more, it made me feel good. It got me focused. I guess that's what it's supposed to do, right? I'm not sure what to make of the fact that I — and it seems like many other people — need to be addicted to caffeine in order to function in our current world.

I was gonna say modern but I actually think we need to stop calling the present day “modern”. We're in a postmodern world. Yeah, I know that modern also just means contemporary, but I think when we use it in that way we develop a false continuity between the Modern Era and our current era. I wouldn't “correct” anyone — I'm not that pedantic — but I personally am going to change my language.

Anyway, one of my friends pointed out that by drinking coffee I'm self-medicating for ADHD. This is probably true. Honestly, the way things are going with RFK Jr and his shit, it's probably a safer bet to learn how to work without ADHD medication. That doesn't mean I'm not going to pursue it when I get back to the US though.

What else did I do? I also didn't work on my project 24/7. I also put my energies towards other productive ends that I personally found more important. I have trouble solely acting for myself. I could try to get good grades, but so what? When I die, the grades will mean nothing and have no value. I find the learning of it all valuable. For one, I find learning intrinsically valuable, whereas grades only have value through a socioeconomic structure (one that I find problematic for that matter). Independent of the social constructs of our society, it is the learning I do, not the good grades, that will help society. Of course, grades are still important for my end goals because we live in a society, but I still find it difficult to obey a system I find stupid.

When I look back to my first grade self who couldn't get his homework done, it wasn't just executive dysfunction that was preventing me. (Maybe you could call the following executive dysfunction, I don't know). It was the fact that I knew the homework had no purpose. I already knew the stuff I would supposedly learn from it. And even when I didn't, no one explained to me how the tasks they were forcing me to do would actually help me learn. Like I remember that every week, I had to trace over vocabulary words five times with different color crayons. What the fuck is that teaching me? So all that was left as for substantive rationale is “do it because I say so” which is not very convincing.

Yes, I would have wasted less time if I just gave in. But to give in would be to abandon any sense of autonomy I had, and that was extremely distressing. Eventually, I think I developed an instinct to just resist it all. Nine times out of ten, I would determine I was right in resisting, so my brain obviously recognized a pattern and a way to save some energy.

Has my situation changed since then? I mean I do recognize that the project I was supposed to do did have some level of benefit. But there was still a lot of extraneous stuff — stuff that had no benefit whatsoever; busy work — and that is what ultimately repulsed me. When I had to work on stuff that was valuable to my learning process, I still had a rough time getting started, but once I did, I had an easier time continuing to work on it.

This isn't to deny that I still have this problem with executive dysfunction. But I have to wonder if it arose from a rational assessment of my relationship to the world. If our society was structured in such a way that I could pursue what I thought was meaningful, would I have executive dysfunction? Would my traits be recognized as “dysfunction” or “disordered”?

All this sort of aligns with a social model of disability. I don't think it's wise to completely embrace the social model as opposed to the medical model — I think there are some traits we could consider undesirable regardless of the society they are placed in. For example, my executive dysfunction genuinely is a problem for me because I sometimes can't do stuff that I actually want to do. But most people clearly subscribe to the medical model too much, so I think worrying about the specifics sort of loses the big picture problem.

Another thing I did was delete all of my social media off of my phone. I used to think that a gambling addiction was kind of stupid — just stop, amirite? But the endless slot machine of the TikTok algorithm has proved me wrong in the most dramatically ironic of ways. I understand how your brain can get hijacked by a dopamine cycle.

To be fair to my past self, I still don't like gambling in that I don't like risking money. When I play poker, I don't like playing with actual money — it's too much pressure. The bragging rights are enough of a reward for me.

More and more, people are getting addicted to social media. I was talking with some other people in my study abroad program (rare occurrence) and we were bonding over how we all feel like we wasted our time here through endless scrolling. It's easy to scroll; it's hard to live. Talking to others is uncomfortable. It's hard to work for a future that is increasingly uncertain. Scrolling is a way to escape life without hurting other people.

But during these past couple weeks, it was working on certain projects that made me realize that the endless scroll is no longer worth it. I won't deny the benefits social media brings, but at least for me, it comes at the cost of the rest of my life. If you feel like the rest of your life isn't valuable, like I did, this was fine. But I found that there were things I actually wanted to do.

I've only been off of social media for about two days, so it didn't impact my productivity. Rather, the insights of the good that I could experience made me realize that social media was a net negative.

Addiction is in part social in that people with good lives usually don't gravitate towards addictive behaviors. The fact that everyone is addicted to social media makes me wonder if we are all suffering. Perhaps on a subconscious (unconscious? what's the difference?) level, but suffering nonetheless.

I think we need to reclaim our humanity and agency in the face of a system that seeks to take it from us. We need to pursue things that we want to pursue, even if such things are at odds with capitalist incentives.

As an upper-middle-class white male, this is an easier thing for me to say. I have a safety net that other people just don't. I can afford to buck the system a little bit. Although I do think that people of dominant identities are presented with a dilemma that those of oppressed identities aren't. To buck the system is to denigrate yourself within it, and that's shameful. For example, it is arguably more shameful for a man to be feminine than for a woman to be masculine—the man is denigrating himself whereas the woman is elevating himself within the system. That doesn't mean that the masculine woman faces no challenges —far from it. Rather, the woman, although breaking the rules of the system, still acts in accordance with the rewards of the system in some ways. The feminine man is acting against the system in two ways: against its rules and its rewards.

I investigated this in my paper on blackface, where I theorized that part of the appeal of upper-middle-class white women performing in racial masquerade was to reconnect with aspects of their lost humanity, through a mechanism that was rewarded through the system of racial domination.

Despite the challenges, I worry that if we don't act in ways that aren't explicitly rewarded by capitalism, we will not survive. For example, I think everyone — and I mean everyone — should make art of some kind. Whether that's visual, musical, literary, whatever. Yes, we can create images or songs or poems through AI, and it's cheaper, but I think that misses the point. Art is not just a product, it's a method of connection, expression, communication. The artist can be the vanguard of new ideas, the avant-garde. Art is a method of investigating the soul. These things will always be valuable.

I've been feeling more and more contempt for the finance bros of the world, the business majors, etc. What do they contribute? They merely chase the rewards of the system, reifying it. If there were no one who wanted to be a CEO, would capitalism even exist? No; these systems are constructed by individual wills. We can change things if we want to. But these fuckers are in our way.

Is it realistic to expect all of these people to change their lives to act in the interests of the common good? No. But I still can judge them, alright? We give these fuckers a moral pass because it's understandable to “get that bag”. Who wouldn't want to be rich? Well, if it required me to be CEO of Evil Inc., me. I don't want it. And I don't think they should want it either. The fact that they do makes me think there is something seriously wrong with them.

I really don't think that people are innately evil (at least generally). Yes, I think there is good in almost everyone, even in the business majors. But let's not mistake the person one is for the person one can be.

Of course, we all need to survive, and we need to sometimes make unethical choices to survive. No one can be perfect in this world. But I think we should still try our best. If you need to work for Raytheon to survive, I completely understand. But if there's a viable, more ethical option, you better take it. There seems to be a sense of moral apathy that we need to combat. If we want a better world, we need to work for it.

Maybe I'm just weird. Perhaps I should recognize that this world is going to shit and just get that bag through working for Evil Inc. like most other people might do in my position. I have seriously thought about it; I'm not going to pretend like I'm a perfect person. But unfortunately for me, I don't think my “dysfunctional” brain would let me. Maybe my attempts to achieve a balance will become impossible in the incoming world, and I will lead myself to a life of poverty on the margins of society. Yay!!!!

I recognize that all of this sounds like I'm just saying “Isn't it so great that I'm more enlightened than you?” A sense of moral superiority is not what I'm trying to get at. I don't know how else to promote the value of morality in an amoral system. We are so afraid of feeling inadequate, of feeling bad or evil, that we ignore our values, and we become what we fear. The only alternative, I think, is to try to live according to our values. The only way to bring ourselves into alignment with our values is to recognize where we are out of alignment. This requires judgement — this can feel bad, but that doesn't mean it is bad.

And if we are sincerely trying to be on the right track, I think we should forgive ourselves. I think forgiveness is the missing ingredient from leftist movements.

I've thought a bit about Pope Francis a lot since his death. Was he a good person? I certainly don't agree with a lot that he did. So in practice, maybe not. But — perhaps I'm wrong — I think he tried to be. His embrace of love and his distain for the opulence of the Vatican is admirable, and I think it reflects a sincere effort to make the world better, even at the expense of his personal pleasures. Isn't that effort all we can ask of people?