When someone refers to himself as ‘woke,’ I immediately feel doused in egomaniacal arrogance as though I were sitting in the splash zone at Sea World—back when it was okay to pay people to make fish dance for our entertainment.
A brief aside: Some of you are already annoyed that I used ‘himself’ because it’s not gender-neutral or is gender-biased. So far as I know, the English language is yet to agree on a singular gender-neutral pronoun. Them/they/their are plural, and I care more about subject/pronoun agreement than your precious feelings, so get fucked. Also, some are annoyed that I referred to the majestic orca whale (Yes, I know, orcas are dolphins, but guess what shitstick? Dolphins are whales) as a fish. What can I say? This rambling isn’t for you; it’s to make fun of you. Now if you’d please, I’d like to be back to it.
I understand that the origin of ‘woke’ traces to Erykah Badu’s “Master Teacher”, and I have no ill words to speak of one of the very few admirable people to come out of Texas. I also understand that the use of the term first rose to prominence in black American communities as a means of expressing awareness of institutionalized injustice, and I by no means intend to disparage awareness. The fact, though, that very few are aware of this historical precedence to the term should be enough to inform you that this is not the ‘woke’ that I’m speaking of here.
You know and have seen the ‘woke’ folk I speak of. The ‘woke’ that carries in its tone arrogant pride of superiority to others that aren’t woke. The ‘woke’ that decries everything from institutionalized racism to single-use straws. The ‘woke’ that needs a hashtag. These ‘woke’ folk that are like a comedian who, after a terrible show, says he had a great performance but had a bad audience. He’s not funny and they’re not woke. They’re all just assholes.
Consider this about ‘woke’: there are two general states of being with regard to consciousness—awake and asleep. Woke is not a state of being, it is something that happens to you. You are woken from your sleep, after which, you are awake. People who are awake eventually and without exception become tired, at which point they go to sleep. ‘Woke’ is that very unpleasant moment in time when we either force ourselves back to sleep or begrudgingly accept being awake and go do our awake shit in order to pay for the cozy comforts we look to for sleep. Essentially, woke people are the unpleasant ones staving off being awake because they know eventually they’ll get tired and want to go back to sleep.
I don’t know about you, but I’m perfectly content being awake. I am well-aware that I live in a world driven by capitalist greed, am forced to use fiat money in order to procure the necessities of life, have little to no chance of ever having actual autonomy or self-realization because I am subject to man-made rules that both determine and dictate the course of my life, and being true to myself in the endless barrage of trending waves is the greatest contributing factor to my being alone.
If I took issue with being alone, I might create a value scale on ways to approach life and subjectively inject my approach into the uppermost tier of that scale. Then I could go on to persuade people that my approach is the best approach by showing them my scale (but of course not mentioning that I made it up). This is a handy approach in persuasion because if anything is true of most all people, they all want something better, and what’s better than the best?
For the naysayers, I would shame them as ignorant, indoctrinated, or ill-informed for being unable to see how my way is the best way. After all, there is a scale. My way is at the top of the scale. The top is denoted to mean better than the bottom. All ways are beneath the top, and therefore not better than my way. Only thing I would need then is a fancy, implicitly superior label like “protestant” or “contra” or “enlightenment,” or, hey, “woke”!
It is neither new nor unique to recognize those in power utilizing that power to their own benefit and to the detriment of others. It is neither new nor unique to demand change of that power. And it is neither new nor unique—albeit rare—to overthrow that power. But then what? Pure social freedom? Dare say, anarchy? Not a fucking chance. Their little revolution takes control and starts doing exactly as was done before—dictating the lives of others and punishing those that fail to fall in line.
Justice is an illusion. So is power. If you’re yearning for control, take control of your own life and lend a helping hand to people that want the same. (Of their own lives, I mean. It would be weird to help someone take control of your life. Anyway.) The alternative is you’ll just keep buying tickets to the two-ring circus that is politics, and the more you pay the more it grows.
Some may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. With any luck at all, the ‘woke’ folk will stifle their crankiness, get out of bed, wake the fuck up and get on with their lives.