The title of this article makes me feel worried that it’s about to sound like Eminem’s lyrics “I am whatever you say I am / if I wasn’t, then when would you say I am” and I also just revealed that I wrote the title before composing the essay or article or — here we go.
I can’t help but write about the way I write, or, maybe even, the way I’ve been writing as of late.
Literally, I can’t help but write about it in this essay since that is the challenge I’m facing with this article’s title, and also, literally the challenge you have just read in this very sentence.
I hope that pointing this out so literally will help.
What word do I use between “essay” or “article” and how important is it to be accurate?
Or is it “correct”?
I cannot articulate to you the pressure to choose ones words when they are put in writing once one makes the choice to pursue being President. (do I capitalize that or not?)
I felt a tendency to write “cualquier-cosa nigga” after that, yet hesitated. Why wouldn’t I express what I’m thinking if I’m attempting by whatever means I can possibly muster, to be transparent to you.
Yet, this leads to oversharing, does it not?
How conceited must I be to be writing this article or essay at all? And, yep, for fuck’s sake, why not just call it a “blog” article? Does the next President of these United States have a fucking blog?
It started out that way, I suppose.
But is everything that’s written and posted on the internet by an individual on their own website plagued with the label “blog post” – that’s fucking my shit up enough right now to acknowledge it.
Yet, that isn’t the total purpose of this article, fuck it, let’s say “blog post” for the rest of this thing, I can always use find and replace and change it after if I think it’s worth it.
Now the arrogance. What a prick saying “If I think it’s worth it” to the public during their Presidential campaign.
What is the cost of all of this?
On myself.
It’s heavy.
Why carry this weight?
I can’t say that the weight I’ve been carrying for probably a decade now is anywhere near comparable to the combined weight of both the Presidency and the weight I’ve already been carrying, since I’ve never been able to put down the first weight and compare.
What the fuck are you talking about, Jim Flannery?
The fucking weight I’ve been carrying all these years that I cannot seem to put down.
(Side note: when is it appropriate to share in a written piece of “content” what the voices in my head may say? Is it ever? They’re a part of me, and they’re very real, wouldn’t you at least want to know they’re neither terrifying to me nor stupid? Or even that they have a human sense of humor even? They’re quite human, enough said)
This weight is related to what my experience with the mental health system has done to the relationships with my family.
I can add in the additional weight of what it means to always wonder whether there is actually something wrong with your brain (of course, this started well before I became a voice hearer in 2020, which complicates things). I know now that there is inherently something different about my brain, related specifically to hearing voices, which has nothing at all to do with the inherent functioning of my emotions.
That being said, the experience of suddenly becoming a voice hearer is bound to bring an emotional response – particularly – when one has prior experience with our country’s mental health system.
There, I said that: “our country’s mental health system.” (emphasis added by me for clarity)
I don’t know that this weight can ever be put down, and I do not dare even attempt to articulate right now the intensity of the trauma that this system causes on a daily basis, to more than just the author of this “blog post.”
That weight, and probably my attempts to communicate what that weight is through artistic expression, or maybe any form of communication, it’s there so often I can’t distinguish – what’s the “it”?
The fucking weight on my soul that this has carried.
Forgive my use of the word “soul” from the guy who wrote Punitive Damage.
But who am I?
I can’t possibly be whoever you think I am.
That could be a great way to end this piece of writing. Just on a cliffhanger that seems provocative. Perhaps this would be more powerful if I did so, more provocative, more “something.”
Yet I continue – why?
Because of you, whoever is reading this, and, oddly enough, whoever isn’t reading it as well.
I don’t know who is reading this and have no control over it, so I have no choice but to attempt to write for literally everyone.
How does one do that, when one acknowledges the human trait of not always feeling like they are exactly the same person when they are with every person in their life.
I’m not sure if that sounds like something a so-called “crazy” person would say, I can imagine one might consider that to be some kind of psychological disorder, we could even give it whatever name we want since all we did was come up with a curious symptom.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it any more than there is anything wrong with hearing voices, as far as I can tell, it’s a perfectly human trait.
That human trait seems like it needs to dissolve in an individual who wishes to become President of these United States, a position that, I feel, requires more transparency that even an artist that performed stand-up comedy as “flim jannery” could offer. (still performing, Jim? Seems like always, I’d bet)
So, who is Jim Flannery?
The guy who is running for President? And the guy who performed as “flim”? And the guy who put out a hip-hop album? And jacked MindFreedom’s email system? Or the fucking clown that was seen yet never heard from (except maybe at the White House) who traveled across this whole country, except for St. Patrick’s Day, of course? And also the nigga that doesn’t know when to leave the word “nigga” out of a piece of prolific writing? (My bad, Jim from Florida, I don’t know what to tell you anymore than I’d know what to tell the man from San Diego who met Lucky Nigger – and, ya, Jim, for fuck’s sake, how about “my bad to everyone” right here and also all to all of your nonwhite friends who may or may not have ever been called “nigger” to their face at some point in their life? What the fuck, man? Say something?) And apparently the same fucking person who simply doesn’t know what to do when they often feel there’s something wrong with writing and saying what they do, yet, the sacrifice of editing their own words hurts more, apparently, than the mysterious question of what to do when it feels ingenuine and/or insincere to censor oneself if they are running for President of the United States? What version of my thoughts do you want? What version do I owe you? (“owe”?) How much am I supposed to hide now? Or share now? Who I am I even anymore?
.
Might be Jim doesn’t have many friends after all, though, it would seem like he has some people out there supporting him somewhere, one can fucking hope he actually has someone out there since he got left in the fucking mental hospital in California for two weeks without hardly anyone supporting him. (Why does it feel like the word “nigga” or “nigger” or even “cualquier-cosa” ruins every piece of decent fucking writing we – or is it not “we” right now, nigga? – where’d you go too?)
Maybe this is where he turns heel and tells everyone to go fuck themselves? That’s pretty strong writing, Flannery, using 3rd person “he” right there. Thanks.
How can he say that when, in reality, he only called maybe twenty people from the mental hospital asking for support? That pales in comparison to the 300+ million people in this country who he aims to write for.
Now, let’s try not to continue this article using third person perspective for the tough parts.
Is twenty not enough? Shouldn’t it take just one fucking phone call?
My apologies, it was a prompt of the title “What happened in California” that inspired me to write this evening, but this concept took precedent.
So, what is the difference after all between who I am and who you think I am? Well, who the fuck are you? You could be anyone, all I know about you, at this point, at least all that I can assume about you, is that you’ve read this one piece of writing. How could I ever expect you to have consumed all the work I’ve ever produced, and, yes, let’s acknowledge that the work I produce is a representation of “something” and could never possibly be who I am – even this piece of writing itself.
Yet, I may or may not be your next President of these United States.