I’ve spent decades being told something’s wrong with me. Depression. Anxiety. Executive dysfunction. “Treatment-resistant” this or that. They say I don’t respond to medication. Maybe it’s because I’m not sick in the way they think I am. Maybe I just can’t lie to myself well enough to pass for healthy.

I’ve tried the pills. I’ve tried the rituals. I stopped using one of the only drugs that helps me for a job that dangled freedom like a carrot, then yanked it back with a cheerful phone call about budgets and hiring freezes. A call that came after many interviews, many rejections, and sacrificing what little balance I had left. The job would’ve paid just enough to survive, but they made it sound like a gift. As if $35 an hour is extravagant in a crumbling economy.

There is no cure for clarity. No pill that makes a dead system feel alive again. No treatment that makes a life of constant compromise feel good. You either learn to lie to yourself or you suffer. I can lie, but not to myself.

Society still pretends community exists. Local events, volunteer work, “get involved” bullshit. All of it made for the distractable. For people who convince themselves that shelving books at a library is noble, or that hammering nails into a charity house means something deeper than a photo op. None of them want to admit that their money is worth more than the time they sacrifice. They need to feel useful, not be useful.

These are the people who go to build a school in Africa or an orphanage in Mexico but never realize that their money was the valuable part, not their unskilled labor. Work that had to be redone overnight while they slept. Local laborers already had the skill to do what their hands couldn’t. What they didn’t have was the funding. Until the voluntourism group showed up, paid the tab, and roleplayed as day laborers.

Something I really fucking hate is white saviors. And I hate the people who cheer them on. They want applause, whether or not they recognize it. Redemption without real sacrifice. They fly in, pose with a hammer or a suitcase full of toothbrushes, and fly out. They don’t see people. They see props. And anyone who won’t clap along with their little stage play gets cast as the villain. The worst is when people are so delusional they can’t see what it is they’re doing. They truly believe they did something good.

That’s what clarity costs. You don’t get to forget. You don’t get to believe in the surface. You either go numb or you stay raw and irritable. And anyone who knows me knows how irritable I am.

So here I am. Still angry. Still refusing to be sedated by comfort or cheap distractions. There is no cure for clarity.