Foreign.

Hello, I'm your host, Inman Arwen, and this is the Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness podcast, a monthly podcast of anarchic literature where we take our monthly zine, turn it into an audio feature, and then interview the author. We're looking for content that doesn't know where it fits in for people that don't know where they fit in. You can get a copy of the monthly zine by signing up for our [email protected] strangersinatangled wilderness or you can read them for free at tangledwilderness.org for our April feature, which we're presenting to you in June, we have Near Death by Hex. Near Death is a collection of personal essays by Hex about getting shot by a Trump supporter. The piece is read by Rilly, and if you want to read along for free, check out tangledwilderness.org and after the piece we have an interview with the author. But before we get to all that, we're a proud member of the Channel Zero network of anarchist podcasts. And here's a jingle from another show on the network.

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Near Death by Hex Narrated by Beeflowers Near Death is a collection of short personal essays from Hex's blog. Write as hexmhell. About the Author Hex is an anarchist, hacker and parent who happens to have the unusual distinction of being the first protester shot in the US under the Trump administration. Now living in the Netherlands with his partner and two young children, he has returned to writing as a form of therapy and as a tool to build a better future. The Sound of rushing water December 25, 2020 As I write this, in three weeks it will have been four years since an intoxicated Trump supporter shot me. After my third surgery, my surgeon told me how close the bullet had been to the artery that runs into my heart. Most people shot there just bleed out on the spot. The blood just dumps out like rushing water. There's nothing anyone can do. His ability to repair a tattoo was top notch. His human skills were perhaps not quite as adept at times. This seems to be how surgeons are in my experience, but I still enjoyed chatting with him. This injury was not unfamiliar to me. In general, my dad didn't really tell stories about Vietnam, so on the rare occasions he did, I listened. He only told this story once, but I paid close attention. No one expected the Tet Offensive. Since Tet is Vietnamese New Year, an offensive in asymmetric warfare isn't always what one would think of as a military action. Though most of the offensive involved soldiers fighting each other, other things happened as well. American soldiers were having dinner in the mess hall when the bomb went off. Apparently putting a landmine under a stack of plates in a mess hall wasn't an uncommon way to carry out such an attack. Aside from the shrapnel from the mine, the plates shattered and plate fragments became projectiles. There was a tiny hole in the man's chest. My dad never talked about the blood, just that the hole was tiny and that there was no time. This man died in my dad's arms in minutes. There was no time to operate, no time to act. My dad, who was a medic, was completely powerless in the situation. There was just a tiny hole, the sound of rushing water, and then a dead man in his arms. I saw my dad cry once at my grandfather's funeral. The war took away pieces of him one by one. He tore a ligament in his knee, chasing a fellow soldier who'd just snapped and run off into the jungle. There were no other medics in his unit, so he stayed until he could be relieved. By that time, there was nothing anyone could do for his knee. After decades of pain, he's now in a wheelchair. Growing up, I remember how often he had knee or back pain. His body was permanently scarred by the war. I knew that story. When he told the story about the mess hall, I started to understand the other scars. Now I have my own. Added April 10, 2025 I couldn't convey the emotion. I still can't. There are simply cold facts. I stare off after reading this to some distant place with a gaze that lacks focus. I can feel it. It's the same stare, same cold recounting of facts I recognize in the memory of my dad telling me about the Tet Offensive. He couldn't have seen this coming. I expected to leave his trauma in the past, not to see it revisited on us for another generation. I look at my daughter, who's six now, playing happily in the water. There's a strange continuity to history, one that doesn't come through the stories of war as told from the perspectives of nobles and presidents. She asked me once, papa, when will I get my scars like you? Reflections on Park Guell April 25, 2025 as my daughter takes pictures of the mosaics in Park Guell, studying them and saying how beautiful they are, I wonder if this place will be something that influences her. At 6, she loves to draw and do basic paper crafts. Her mother went to art school. I went a different route, but I loved art as a kid. She has so much potential if we can keep up with it. If I think of the career aptitude test I took in high school when they told me I should be a sniper, I think of the military recruiters constantly in the halls handing out pamphlets, of the impossibility of imagining going to college. Then I think of the joy I find in math, a joy that I didn't discover until years after I left school. I wonder at the years that I've worked in my duct tape job in the security industry, an industry that is a monument to the wastefulness of capitalism, an industry that rightfully shouldn't exist. What would the world be like if Kalashnikov lived in a time when he could have worked on farm equipment? Could he have revolutionized agriculture instead of combat? There is such a world in which Nazis never existed and farmers swear by the indestructible Kalashnikov tractor. It's impossible to calculate the loss of technology and culture that war and authoritarianism continues to impose on us all. The Stephen Jay Gould quote is I am somehow less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops. End quote. Looking out over Barcelona at Sagrada Familia from Parc Guell, There are so many beautiful things humans have created, with only the smallest portion of the population free to create them. Meanwhile, the majority of our abilities are wasted to make sure that pool of people stays small, and even those few privileged people spend most of their time and effort figuring out how to stay on top of it's as though the myth that humans only use 1% of our brains were true. But at the global, not individual, level, how much more could we have if we stopped wasting so much on maintaining involuntary hierarchy? How many generations of children will we betray to keep it? I love the joy she finds in her art, her pictures. I hope she learns to find the joy of math that I only found so much later. I hope her love of nature lets her make beautiful things for humans. I hope she inherits a world that's free because it's cruel to leave it to her to fight for it. I hope that my generation doesn't allow the same cruelty to be inflicted on our children that our parents allowed to be inflicted on us. Anxiety, Guilt, Sadness and Independence May 23, 2025 Notice the sensations in your body. Do any of them have an emotional charge? I went to a meditation group this evening that focused on emotion. It was a group for men, put together by a men's group focused on dismantling patriarchy. Suppressing and disconnecting from emotions is deeply connected to oppression. The emotional burden of oppressing others is easier to bear when you feel nothing, as is the shame and anger of being oppressed. Feeling people don't make decisions to ruin people's lives, poison the land, steal the future from their own children. Feeling people can't tolerate others doing the same. Numbness is the bedrock of authoritarianism. Put your hand where you feel the sensation. It's hard for me to notice emotions most of the time. My dad was happy or angry, sometimes disappointed or asleep. I saw him cry once when his dad died. I love my dad, but there's also a distance. I don't really see him or talk to him much. I didn't talk to him for like 5 years. I recently watched a video that resonated with me pretty intensely. My mom completely failed to prepare me for life, but my dad pushed me hard to be independent. I respect and appreciate him for it, even when I have some issues with Took a while to find it, but eventually I did. Anxiety I touch a scar on the left side of my belly. There was a tube there, draining some fluid or another. It was the second one they pulled out some days after the right one. In my lungs, there's not really a way to describe that feeling. The tube was up against my intestines. It slid against them and hit them as it came out. There was a bit of pain, like the lingering ache after being hit in the stomach, but perhaps a bit less. The real feeling was anxiety. Overwhelming anxiety. Somewhere, somehow, deep in our animal brain, the feeling of even the slightest intestinal trauma is intimately connected with death. Any human, or almost any animal who felt something like I had felt any longer than, say, 100 years ago would have died a slow and excruciatingly painful death. Somehow, even knowing consciously that I am safe, my body knows only terror and can't help but bring this to my consciousness in the book to the American Indian reminisces of a Yurok woman, there were a few passages about Yurok beliefs as she held them on death. The part that stuck with me is roughly when a person dies, they meet an old woman with dogs. If they're not good people, the dogs will eat them, and if they're good people, the dogs will let them pass. But sometimes the soul runs instead. If it escapes, the person can come back to life. But even though they escape for the rest of their life they will be pursued by dogs. Eventually the dogs will catch and kill them. It's a pretty spot on description of the experience of PTSD Trauma tunes people to spot threats to see danger. Under normal conditions they see danger where there isn't any, but under extreme conditions we see danger that other people are too complacent to see. Give the feeling space. Ask what it needs. I'm afraid. I'm afraid and sad. My youngest is six now. She's growing up so fast and I push her hard to grow up faster. I feel like I'm missing out on her being young, like I'm trying to race through it and I know it's vanishing quickly. I feel guilt for pushing her so hard. A staple in my intestines came out before I came out of the bathroom. I hit the emergency button. I walked a couple steps and then crumbled to the floor. I lay on the floor unable to move, trying to yell with all my might but barely making any sound. No one came as I struggled to whisper help. When they finally came, they picked me up off the floor and rushed me to emergency surgery. The blood they put in me was cold. My arm was freezing as I put bag after bag of blood into my body and I bled it out almost as fast. When I was first shot, I didn't think I would die. I thought it was possible. I prepared myself for it, but I knew there was a good chance I would make it. I knew that if I did die there, I I would be proud of it. It would be a good death. I could die peacefully if I needed to, but I was going to fight because people needed me. When I was bleeding out in the emergency room, I knew I was going to die and I was terrified. It was a completely different experience. As I was shitting gallons of blood, I thought of the Dawn Hertzfeld My spoon is too big animation. I thought of the part where the character says my anus is bleeding as the room fills with blood. It was slightly funny, but Mostly an unimaginably horrible way to die. And I was sure I was going to die. The anxiety never went away. I push my oldest hard to be independent because I can't know how long I can be there for her. They saved my life, but it's not that simple. The X rays, the surgeries, the things they put in my body, all of it shortens my life. I won't live as long as my dad, and I don't even have a guess how long he'll live. My dad was abandoned as a baby. He was left at a bakery where my paternal grandmother worked. A lot of his siblings were adopted too. My dad went through some pretty crazy things. I can count the number of times I've almost died. A couple before getting shot and a few in the hospital. He served in Vietnam, but even before that, his mother was schizophrenic and deeply religious. There were a few stories of her trying to kill him because she thought he was possessed by the devil. She also saved his life once, or so the story is told, when she killed a rattlesnake, cut off its head and threw it in a creek. Apparently the loggers in the camp wouldn't go near the creek anymore because they were afraid of the snake head or some such superst. I realized later that it's not just that. I don't know how long I'll have with her. I see how things are. I know there could come a time when she has to leave me behind. When she has to save herself, I will keep getting older. I don't want her to get stuck trying to save me and miss an opportunity to save herself. My dad couldn't leave the us. The empire broke him to prevent the threat of a good example. Now he survives off the crumbs they let fall to vets like him as they dismantle everything. How long will that last? The US will be a death sentence for a lot of people. Sadness, Grief. Loss. Sadness. Sadness. There will come a time when I am too old to move, to leave, to support myself. To save myself. As the polycrisis continues to evolve, I want my oldest, no matter how much she loves me, to be able to leave me behind. I want her to be able to leave me behind. Because I love her. I want her to be able to leave me behind. Like I left my dad. Near death. October 10, 2025. I have a shoebox full of cards from all over the world. If you wrote to me while I was in the hospital, I still have your letter. I read each of Them. They were all really wonderful. I'm sorry I didn't write back. I was a little distracted at the time. Perhaps I still am. Consider this the thank you I never sent when I came down from intensive care the first time. I remember the cards and letters being all set up in my room. There were some flowers. There was also a giant card signed by a bunch of local comrades. I still have that somewhere too. I've considered donating it to the Labor History department of UW as a thank you to Anna Marie with a few of the pictures we took for her in the hospital later. One of the cards has one corner cut off, but all the rest are as they were when I opened them. The days in the hospital all blurred together. At the beginning, it was easy to keep things clear. I was in the or. My partner came to see me as soon as I could be seen. I think I was in intensive care for about a week. My tattoo was pretty well stapled together. I was impressed. Everyone thought I was healing really well. I do tend to heal well. My tattoo artist, the one who did the chest piece that got the bullet hole and all cut up in surgery, had said at one point while working on it, you heal like wolverine. I do heal pretty quickly. So after that first week or so, when they told me I would probably go home soon, I was a little surprised, but not incredulous. I came into that room full of cards, flowers, my loving partner, friends. I was hopeful. That first time out of the ic, we all were. We'd read the cards together. Everything was pretty good. But I did have a pain in my lower abdomen. I asked for a heat pack or something and they brought me one. My partner and friends had left the room for a little bit. I don't remember the details. A nurse, I believe, came in and talked to me for a bit. I mentioned the pain and she smelled my wound, then told me they were going to take me to imaging. After she flagged folks down, she said something along the lines of, no, take him straight to the or. The pain got worse and everything became a blur. I remember leaving the room, but I don't remember what happened next. My partner filled me in later. In that box, there's also a note that I wrote. I think it was about the first night. They always keep you in the IC after that type of surgery, as I understand it, being so badly injured. Time really blurred. I was asleep, then awake. It was day, then night. They came in every few hours to check on me, take blood, change my fluids. Every day or two, they Pulled my IV and gave me a new one every few hours. I'd sleep for a bit and someone would come in, poke me a bunch of times, then go. Sometimes they'd move me around and change the sheets. I remember it being dark, but honestly, I have no idea. I wasn't fully awake at the beginning. I don't remember much very clearly at all, except the quiet. And then the screaming. Then the heavy sound of the zipper. It felt like she was crying for hours. The screams of agony, of despair, are not something you can describe. They started loud. Loud enough to keep me fully awake. Loud enough. She must have lost her voice the next day. It can't have been an expected death. Perhaps a parent dying early, Perhaps a partner or a child. Everything in her screamed at that first moment in response to the soft, mumbling voice down the hall. Over time, her screams became an exhausted whimper. I heard another voice. Yes. Yes. There was a juxtaposition between the business of death. This happened. That happened. Sign here. What arrangements need to be made for the body and the emotional experience of it. I imagined it to be a relative, perhaps a sister, taking care of this business and occasionally comforting her sibling. When the business was done, there was some walking around. But the crying, slowly becoming quieter, stayed in the same place. The light came on so I could hit the button for more painkillers. In the first few days after surgeries, the pain was always right there. I hit the button and fell slowly back asleep. I think this was my first night in the hospital, so it was almost a week until I would spend my brief time back in the general care area. When my partner came back to the room I'd just been rapidly evacuated from, they were already cleaning it. All the cards had been thrown into a biohazard bag. She was barely able to save them. There was an orange liquid coming out of one of the tubes in my body. We later talked about how my partner had to empty my guava juice pouch every day for some time after I got out of the hospital. One of the cards had been thrown on some gauze or something with some of this orange liquid and had soaked some up into the corner. She cut it off. The others were fine. There was a carelessness and a callousness to the business of the hospital. The room was empty, so it was cleaned for the next person. The humanity of the situation was irrelevant to maximizing the efficiency of bed usage. Capitalism does this to us all the time, but there are few times it feels so intensely visceral. We weren't married at the time. And I was under a protective order because of all the death threats I'd been getting, so they wouldn't tell my partner where I was. She just came in and I was gone. I don't remember what they told her, but I had to ask for her to be informed. She told me that she screamed and may have punched a hole in the wall. I didn't die that time. In the following few weeks, there were several times I didn't die. When I came back, my wound was open. There was another surgery where they gave me ketamine and little to no painkillers. So I woke up hallucinating that I was a crevice, that I had been sliced up and was having lemon poured all over the pieces of my body, all of which I could still feel. The tube was still down my throat, so I couldn't scream. I thought I was convinced I was being kidnapped. As I came back, I signed into my mother in law's hand as best as I could remember. Help me. I think that surgery was from the other time. I almost died when my vision went orange and I collapsed onto the hospital floor. I tried to scream for help, but could only whisper as I slowly bled out inside my body. I would have never heard the screaming from my partner, but I know what it would sound like. Through all the craziness and chaos, those moments still come to me. I can't quite place the room. It's almost as if I remember myself floating in a void, surrounded by those operating room curtains. I can remember, if I think on it, a moment, the plastic grinding of the infuser. I remember beeping, but I don't remember if it was the EKG or if I'm just remembering the default hospital sound from a show or movie. So much is blurry, far away, chaotic, confusing. The commotion is still amorphous, dreamlike. But the quiet, the screaming, the zipper, that all remains crystal clear. This was the first reminder of where I actually was. I imagined myself in a place where people recover, where people heal, but this was also a place where people die. Recovery is not linear. I'd be reminded of this many more times in the following few weeks and year. All of the interventions, the X rays, the plastic in my body, these were all dangerous. I'm still wary to take ibuprofen because of the strain on my kidneys and liver. Each intervention was weighed against my risk of immediate death. Each one could carve years off my life. These treatments, these interventions, they would never leave me the person I was before. Trauma like mine doesn't Work like that, trauma always takes some of your life. Sometimes it ends your life right there. Other times you can heal and have a long life before you fall into the hole left by those missing years. Part of me has never left that place, floating in that curtained void where I was both healing and near death.

Hello, and thanks so much for coming on the show today.

Could you introduce yourself with your name pronouns and just a little bit about who you are and what you do in the world, which could be related or completely unrelated to the piece that we just heard.

Excellent. I hope it's. It's. It's partially unrelated. It's. I'm Hex. He. Him. I am an anarchist. I was an organizer, and I hope that I occasionally will still be. I think the probably the most important thing is I'm a parent, and I think that comes through the piece a lot. Yeah. What I do in the world right now, actually. Yeah, it's probably worth talking about. I'm actually on medical leave right now for my ptsd, and so I'm kind of like, working on getting back into. Getting back into work, the capitalist marketplace and all of that stuff. Yeah, I think that mostly covers it.

Cool. Yeah. Could you. Even though we just listened to your piece, maybe to set some context for it, you were shot by a Trump supporter in 2017. You've since kind of, like, expatriated to elsewhere from the US and these pieces that we have in this bigger piece that is the feature that we just listened to are reflections and little personal essays that are pretty related to getting shot.

Yeah.

Could you just kind of tell us, I guess, in your. In your own words, what. What are, like, what are these pieces about? What is this collection about?

Yeah. So I'll do the standard thing in 2017, January 20, 2017, I got shot by a Trump supporter at a protest. This was, of course, January 20th was the inauguration. This was the inauguration night. There was a Milo Yiannopoulos rally. If anybody remembers him, I hope that

his name is forgotten.

Right. Oh, man. Yeah. He has not done well since all of that happened, which has been much to my joy. Yeah. So a bunch of people showed up. It was kind of like. I think they had thought it was going to be kind of a fuck you rally. Like, they didn't think it was going to be a victory rally when they initially planned it. And it didn't seem like that way. The. The kind of, like, context of all this. I was one of the folks. I don't. I don't think I really talked about this earlier because the. There was the trial, there was kind of all of this stuff. There were a lot of things that I, you know, my, My lawyers told me not to talk about. My lawyer told me not to talk about or.

Yeah. Is this a trial for charges you got or charges the person who shot you got or.

Yeah, the person. The person who shot me. Yeah. Let me, let's. I'll talk a little bit too, so I'll get back to that in a little bit. So I was one of the organizers that kind of was part of the organizing the rally against this thing. Other people who were much more skilled than I was were doing a lot of the heavy lifting, but I was in the room, so I get to say I was one of the people, which is nice. We saw this thing happening. You know, we knew what this person was, you know, capable of doing what they had done to. Done in other places. And so we are. We're kind of like, wanting to stand up against it, wanting to stop it at the, you know, we knew that this was going to bring a lot of people, a lot of the worst people to the middle of our. Our city and specifically to this, this campus. I think, if I'm remembering correctly, at the same time, there was like. I think it was like a like, body Positive fashion show or something along the lines of that. That, like, was supposed to be happening at, like, that day or like another day close by or something. I think it was that day, you know, we. We called out, like, the Risk, you know, had talked to the administrative campus administrators. We'd been kind of sending emails, rallying people, talking about it. Flyers were showing up with, like, like, Nazi flyers with, like, swastikas. The whole, like, thing of like, Adam Waffen, if you're like, do you remember?

Yeah, yeah, Adam often they're like the far right extremist group that literally tries to assassinate people.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. They follow like, Charles Manson, basically, like, so like great, great Charles Mason and. And who it derives his ideology from. From Charles Manson. So just like completely like off the wall, extremely bad stuff. They did manage to kill a bunch of people, though. Most of them, I think, were their own people, fortunately enough, while trying to build a dirty bomb, I think, anyway, that's the type of people that all of that stuff hadn't happened yet. But, you know, we're like, hey, these are. These are bad things. It turned out that that kind of like, they were organizing through the UW College Republicans or there was some, like, lineage that connected them back to the UW College of Republicans, who are the ones who are putting on that event, also a group that has since been disbanded. They've all done so well since this happened. Everyone involved on that side has just done great. So they put together this thing. It was obviously a threat to a bunch of people. Of course, the campus police came out to protect it, to make sure that it would happen and then it wouldn't get shut down. The fashion show that was happening at the same time, of course they were told to, you know, just go home because it was too much of a risk as opposed to, you know, of course, as opposed to the police surrounding it and protecting that and, like, letting people shut the other thing down. We all know what's happening. We all know what that's about. Yeah.

Yeah.

It was a surprise to some people. Yeah. So all this thing was. All these things were coming together. There were a lot of attempts to kind of shut it down. Phones, apps, and, like, you know, one of the organizers got doxxed and, like, just kind of everything to just be like, no, this needs to stop. And nothing stopped it. At one point, I actually did talk to one of the. One of the faculty that I was going there actually kind of regularly as a recruiter, basically. So I, like, I'm a. I'm a computer security engineer. I'm a hacker. And so we did a lot of talking to. You know, we worked a lot with the computer security program there. We were always trying to, like, get people to come out of that. Get people out of that program. And honestly, like, a lot of them didn't. And a lot of them that, like, stayed in the university did really well. And I'm really proud of. Really proud of them. A lot of really good people came out of that. And so, like, I was regularly going there. I was regularly talking to people. And one of the people I talked to, you know, like, I mentioned during, like, one of our. One of these, like, CTF things like, yeah, somebody's gonna get shot. Like, literally it was like, yeah, they're like, somebody's gonna break a gun. Somebody's gonna get shot. Like, this needs to be shut down. Yeah. So this is. This is like, in the months leading up to this and, like, you know, whatever. Let me. Let me back up a little bit and talk about the trauma thing.

Yeah.

So in a way, the whole thing of, like, getting shot was not the most traumatic thing. So I grew up, and this is one of the things I haven't talked as much about. I grew up kind of in rural America, so kind of like all over rural America, like west coast, all kinds of places that nobody wants to be very much fly over country. I saw just horrible things. This like level of like incompetence and corruption and like all. And like stagnation and kind of like all of these, these, these things, this racism, this like this ideology that was like horrible. And when I, I was afraid that I would never escape, like as a, as, like, as like a kid, I guess like as a teenager I was very self destructive. I read a lot of Hunter S. Thompson. I really liked his writing, but I also really liked his self destructiveness. I think really resonated with me, especially as an early teenager and whatever. So I did a lot of things to kind of. Because I didn't know if I would escape. I did a lot of things to destroy my life or try to. I didn't see any way out and. But I got out. You know, I left where I was at. I, you know, took a couple of years of community college, started a job and then like ended up kind of falling into security. I went to DEFCON once and you know, fell into security and was able to kind of like really radically change my life. I went from like, you know, over the course of like 5 or 10 years or something like that. I guess I went from like, you know, being in this place that I thought I would never escape and like through this like all of this poverty and stuff into like I met one of the. I used to listen to kmfdm if you're familiar with industrial. Old industrial.

Okay, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So like when I was like, you know, rural. Rural kid, I was like listening to this like industrial stuff.

Hell yeah.

Yeah, right. I met one of the guitarists from, from like that band at a party in it. Like. So it's like my world was like, you know, I like moved from this like rural area where like nothing happens and nobody matters. And you know, you, you, you can kind of. It feels as though you can never escape and nothing, you know, you do hasn't makes any difference. Like it feels like a lot of the time. Yeah. To this place where I'm like meeting these people that I, you know, meeting this person, meeting some of these people that I'm like, oh, that person's famous or that person's like this or whatever. That like, you know, is like a completely different reality for me. And like, I never like from that point on I like never had to worry about being poor again for like, you know, as long as I was doing the work that I was doing. I never had to think about that. And, like, the things that made me good at security are actually a lot of the things that are really bad for me mentally, for my mental health.

Oh, no.

Yeah. So I'm like, you know, like, I can really, really easily, like, silo information, so it's like, very easy for me to just, like, not talk about some part of my life. And so, like, you know, I'll know somebody for, like, years and be like, oh, yeah, I'll mention something offhand that I'll like. Like, wait, like, what? There are people, like, I haven't talked about about, like, getting shot, you know, and, like, which is like, you know, so it's like, it's very easy for me to kind of, like, silo a lot of. A lot of these things, which, like, is really great in the security world. It's really bad if you want to, like, you know, work through traumatic things.

Yeah. Because we kind of need to, like, I mean, whatever. I'm not a mental health expert, but, like, I feel like it is good to learn to be vulnerable.

Yeah.

About. And, like, more open about, like, the things that affect us, you know?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I don't know if that's what they tell people to do to recover from ptsd, but that's what I think about in my normal life.

No, I mean, like, it is, right. Like, there is. There is an element of. Of just, like, telling the story that, like, removes, like, that removes you a little bit from the story. Like, that. The story. Like, I mean, this is like the ptsd. Like, I went to, like, I went to a PTSD intensive program just, like, a few weeks earlier. This is after all of the. The writing that is done here. I went to a PTSD intensive program. And so it was like, five days. This is also slowly entering this into my blog as well. It was five days where you basically, like, you don't have a phone, you don't have a radio, you don't have access to any of the outside world, and you just focus on your traumatic stuff. And it kind of starts with every day you just wake up and you go learn about PTSD for a little bit. This was in Dutch, so I struggled. There's also a Dutch immersion program. Surprise Dutch immersion program, which is like, my Dutch is enough that I can sort of get what they're saying. Yeah. So you go to this thing, you learn a little bit, and then you go, you know, basically, like, talk about, like, talk. Spend an hour just, like, telling the story of, like, some. One specific traumatic, like, Image one specific traumatic event. And then you go back and you do, like, emdr, which is. Which is basically, again, you, like, tell the story. You try to, like, position yourself as being there as much as possible. Like, you. You try to make it as triggering as. As absolutely possible. And then you follow a little light. It goes back and forth. And because of that that's happening, it's disrupting your ability to concentrate on both things at the same time. So I guess you feel it starts to disconnect. Your connection to that experience so decreases the intensity of it. But, yeah, I mean, part of the thing that I found out there was a whole bunch of other traumatic stuff that I needed to deal with during that time. But part of the thing is that I had told a lot of these stories, like, so many times that I, like, didn't really feel as much of a, like, connection to, like, telling them. And then when there were other stories that I like, you know, I told another story for the first time that I, like, never actually told anyone about some traumatic stuff that had happened as a really. As a really small kid. Like, that was really intense and hard to even, like, talk about. And so, yeah, I mean, like, yeah, like, just. Just like the thing of, like, writing it down, talking about it, like. And like, there are definitely times when I'm like, you know, like, writing just, like, some word, and I'll, like, just like, cry, right? Because I'm just like, I'll, like, connect all of these things or I'll like, you know, see all of these pieces and I'll, like, just kind of like, break a little bit. And like, that is one of the things that, like, also tells me that I'm, like, doing the right thing. As I'm like. As I'm writing, like, if it's enough to break me, that's probably a. Something that's worth putting out into the world, right?

Yeah.

And I do this also in, like, you know, I'm like, I. I'm trying to do, like, work on my, like, fiction and stuff as well. And so, like, as I'm writing those things, it's like, if it's something that, like, you know, if I break down over it, then, like, that's. Then I'm like, I'm at least putting something into it that's worth. That's worth, like, being there and showing, if nothing else. Yeah.

Is that how you approached kind of writing some of. Or writing. I know that the entries that we have for our monthly feature kind of, like, scattered throughout your blog, but is that how you approach writing on your blog in general. What went into kind of, like, writing these pieces?

There's a couple of things, I think, occasionally small amounts of mushrooms. So it's actually, psilocybin is legal here. Um, so you can just. You just go down to the store and. And get, like, your. Your mushroom sprite. It's great.

Yeah. Take that, cops who are listening to this.

Yeah, it's. It's just. It's wonderful. Yeah. And it's. It's legal in so many other places. Or it's, like, at least decriminalized anyway. Um, I guess technically it's decriminalized, so. Yeah, there are just, like. There's a bunch of different things I try. I think, in. In some of these, like. Yeah, I'm like. The first one is like, one of the early ones where I'm just like. I'm just trying to, like, record what was happening, you know, because, like, I feel like there's a thing of, like, this is. This is all happening. And like, we, you know, at some point, like, multiple years down the road, I have to explain this to my kids, right? And they're. Who's gonna tell the story? Right? Who is gonna tell our story? Right? Is it because, like, who's gonna tell the way that it felt? Because, like, the story that we're probably gonna get told is, like, you know, this happened and this happened, and, like, depending on how it all comes out, this happened and this happened, and, like, you know, both sides were the same or, you know, whatever, like, kind of, like, thing, you know, I hope that it ends up being like, it was really obvious which side was the right side.

Yeah. It's like one side was trying to stop. I feel like this is the thing they do with the, like, the. The, like, free speech, whatever, shenanigans. It's like, they're like. They're like, well, these radical leftists really aren't into free speech. And it's like, the things that most people are calling out are like, I don't know, maybe we just don't want to. Literal Nazis associated with neo Nazi death squads talking.

Yeah.

Psychologist, like, crazy.

It's weird. It's weird.

And we're just like, can people just

speak to people respectfully?

Yeah. Yeah.

What if we used mildly inclusive language?

Yeah. One side is like, can we, like, try to rally people to, like, murder a whole bunch of people? And the other side is like, hey, could we, like, be more inclusive in the way that we talk?

Like that sounds like some DEI nonsense, right?

Yeah, but I You know, I mean, I think that, like, I think that, you know, going forward, like, we're, we're going to have some time when we're going to like, look back on like, some traumatic things. Like, I think about like now, like, you know, if I could like, yeah, I guess read more journal entries of people going through Nazi shit, which I guess I can, but like, you know, like, that's. I think that's the really the, probably the most important thing because, like, I grew up with so much of like, you know, my dad had the History Channel on all the time, so it was like the Nazi war channel back then. So it was just like, let's, let's talk about like, Hitler all the time. Which is like, I think is important because I was like, oh, yeah, I guess an asshole. Okay, I see what he does, you know, Like, I recognize that. I think, like, me writing about just like the experience of like, all of these things. And I'm trying to like, write. I've been like, I created an email address for, for my oldest and every once in a while, like, I would just like, I'd send my, like, my partner and I would like, send emails that like, at some point we'll come back and like, be like, here's your, you know, all the stuff that we sent you all along and you can kind of see like, what was happening. And I think, like, that would have been helpful. Yeah, Yeah, I think that would have been really helpful for me. You know, something like that would have been really helpful for me, like, growing up if, like, you know, my parents were like, hey, I'm going through some like, fucked up shit, you know, like, and I didn't know all the stuff that my parents were going through. Like, I, I mentioned like, in one thing about like, the, you know, like the Ted offensive thing or like, I didn't know about like, my dad being adopted until I was like, you know, 19 or something like that. Um. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's wild.

Oh, no, sorry. Maybe I think this is going to segue into what you're getting at. But it's like, like, are there things because you, you kind of have this like, parallel experience going on where like, you're kind of like in the middle of this, like, mirrored experience with like, you and your dad and now like, your kids and you both like, being people who were shot or like, watched people get shot.

Yeah. Yeah.

And I'm curious if there's like. Or just like dealing with these like, very deeply traumatic and violent things. And like, I'm curious if there's like, things that you. From your experiences with your dad, like, and now being in this kind of like, middle position. Like what, like, like what do you, what do you hope to do differently or what are you doing differently? That like, feels helpful? I don't know. Let's. That's kind of a wacky question. But like, what? Like what? Yeah, I don't know.

What. No, no, no.

How do you change you're doing break the cycle.

Yeah. This is like. I feel like there's like. This is like a, like, like a time loop game kind of like, like thing of like you've been here before. How do you like, break out of the, you know, the, the, the like some Star Trek episode of like we may have died 5,000 times, like, whatever. Right. And it's the same, I mean, like, you know, gener we have. Right? Yeah. So there's like, you know, there's like these like larger like cyclical things happening and like. And my, you know, that's like on my mom's side and I don't have as much of a like, understanding of all that was happening there. I have a much deeper connection to like my dad's side because he's like. He's talked about a few of these things. You know, he was like, yeah, he was in Vietnam. He for a while talked about being drafted and then at other times has talked about volunteering so that he could choose where he would go. He was a medic, so he was. I mean. Yeah, I don't think I talk about this. All I mentioned that he's a medic. He was a medic and a conscientious objector. He was the Seventh Day Adventist at the time.

So he like went and did medic stuff, but didn't. Wasn't carrying a weapon or he carried a knife.

So they made him a tunnel rat, which is. I don't know if you're like. Have any idea what that means, but like, that is the most singular, like the singular, most dangerous thing you can possibly do. And usually there's a, you know, they have a gun, he has a knife. Because he's like, you know, a knife and a flashlight. And so like, you know, they.

Hard mode.

Yeah. You know, so like he went through all of these things and then he like, didn't really talk about a lot of it. Eventually he just like, you know, the helicopters and everything was like too much, so he couldn't work anymore. And so like my kind of like experience of ptsd, my secondhand experience of PTSD before getting shot was just, you know, seeing him, you know, as a young kid, working like, you know, him working, not being able to deal with his anger, drinking, you know, all kinds of stuff.

He.

My parents divorced, he stopped drinking and he, like, went to a whole bunch of therapy. He went to a PTSD intensive as well. But he came back and, like, he just, like, was done and like, could. Could never work again. So he gone on disability, did all that stuff, which, like, you know, it's already hard then, you know. And so, like, my. The vast majority of my life, he just, like, didn't really work or he, like, was. I guess he. He worked not in the capitalist sense. He worked as a parent, which is something that should be more, you know, widely regarded as valuable. But anyway, that was his whole, like, his whole thing. So he was just there for me all the time. Um, so I had, like, these good experiences. I also had these bad experiences that I, like, hadn't realized that, like, you know, he wasn't always able to be there for me because of how much was. Of him was taken away by the medication, by the pain, by all of this stuff. And so, like, what I saw as my model, as this model of, like, PTSD when, you know, after I got shot was like, you, like, you just can't keep going. You just, like, you have to stop, you know? And so it's been hard for me to, like, be alone all the time because he was just like, he. He just. Yeah, he's like, alone. He, you know, is afraid of. Of cities and stuff. So he, like, moved way out in the country and, like, which was cool because I got to, like, grow up throwing knives and stuff, you know. Yeah. But, like, you know, I also, like, didn't get to have the like, the full, like, a lot of the, like, cultural experiences that I think would have, like, helped me. I didn't get to find my people, you know, like, it was much harder.

Yeah.

And so, like, that was my thing was like, seeing that and being like, okay, you know, this happens, and then, like, what do you do with that? Yeah, there's just, you know, and so that's the thing that still, like, is. Is still kind of like, with me and scary for me, and, like, it does make it hard. You know, I think the. My partner. It's a little bit different between myself and my. My partner and my mom and my dad and that, like, my, you know, my partner was sort of there with me for at least some of the, like, traumatic or, like, traumatic adjacent. Like, I was like, we were together when I got shot. Yeah, My. Like, there were times, you know, my partner would, like. You know, my partner was, like, in the hospital waiting room for, like, you know, all night, trying to, like, you know, like. Because I'm a hacker, we got. I got friends, you know, and, like, they figured out where I was, even though there was, like, a lockdown on everything. And so, like, they were. Yeah, nobody. Nobody said where I was, but they. They figured it out. So they were like, hey, go.

Because this person, like, the person who shot you, like, the. Like, other people were, like, trying to.

Oh, yeah. Oh, man. Like, so. So. Yeah. Oh, yeah. So check this out. Okay, so immediately, like, after I got shot, the first thing that got released was, like, the first. The first news story that came out was, like, on Breitbart, and they just immediately made stuff up as fast as they possibly could. And then it got repeated by some other stations. So what came out was that the person who shot me was an elderly Asian man. Not any of those things. And there was just like. There was like some. Yeah, I was like a bodybuilder or something. I don't know, some kind of, like, who, like, came at him with a knife, I think. Was the. Was the thing something like that. Yeah. Oh, man. I mean, like. Yeah, so, like, all of. There's so many. It gets so interesting the way that memory works. Yeah. So the first story that came out, the Breitbart story, was just like that, like some black block anarchist with, like, I don't know, a machete or something, throwing molotovs or like, whatever kind of, like off the wall stuff. And then later on, some. Somebody doxxed me, like, while I was in the hospital. They didn't get the, like, hospital room. They had, like, my. I think they had my, like, name. I don't remember. They had my address. I think by that time, we had a bunch of anarchists in my house, like, taking care of stuff. Nobody ever tried anything, but. Yeah, so they're like. There were immediately, like, a bunch of people online who are like, being like, let's finish the job. Right? Like, doing. Yeah, so that was like. That was immediate. That was like, right away. Because that's like. I mean, that was very much the atmosphere then, right? Was like, for everybody who remembers the wonderful times of 2017. Yeah. It was like. It was crazy. And they were like, you know, all of the different, like, factions of the far right hadn't really started, like, trying to fight with each other yet because, like, they didn't have Power. So they were trying to get it. So they were pretty united, Right? And so you, like, you had, like, 4chan calling people out and then, like, people attacking from there and, like, all kind, you know, like, all kinds of craziness was happening at this time. And so, like, yeah, I was, you know, there was, like, some real risk that, like, you know, somebody would come, you know, do something. Of course, the police were, like, eventually they came to talk to me about, you know, the shooting. I was like, I'm not giving a statement. Wait till my lawyer comes. And, like, kind of all that stuff. Like, they came back and they were like, oh, yeah. Like, they were. They were trying to investigate somebody who had, like, posted something that they thought might be in defense of me, that somebody might, like, try to get revenge. That's the thing that they were going to go investigate. Not the fuck squads, like, literally rwts, like, hashtag rwts full of, like, Nazis talking about, like, trying to kill people. No, no, no, that's not important right now. Let's.

Let's.

Let's talk about this guy who turns out was actually just, like, talking about a video game or something, who was, like, unrelated to me, which is like, oh, my God. Yeah, yeah. Like, completely. Completely wild stuff. And that's what they cared about anyway. Yeah, so that's like. So. So I was like, immediately, you know, I was under, like, prot. Um, so, like, my, you know, my partner didn't get to find out. Didn't get to find out anything about me until, like, I woke up and was like, where's my partner? Yeah, which is its own thing. And we weren't married at the time. That was actually kind of like one of the things that prompted us getting married. We got married in the hospital. I got, like, wonderful wedding pictures. Yeah, we both. We've all got ski masks on, so, like, all this stuff is happening. My partner, like, went through all this stuff with me. Like, we. I think I talked about other. In, like, other places. Like, just, you know, my partner, like, shows up to, like, an empty room with, like, they're. And they're throwing away the. The cards, which, like, we've talked about a lot. And that's, like, a really traumatic thing, like, because, like, I, you know, for all that. That my partner knew, like, I was dead. Right. And there were, like, a number of times that happened. My. My, like, my phone was dead when I got shot. I was actually trying. I was trying to record the, like, video of this. Like, so there was a. The actual, like, thing that happened. Like, there was a. This, this guy who'd been like, in a bunch of fights, although all through the night. So he was like, pepper spraying some people. He's pepper spraying some, some pacifists. These are people wearing like, white shirts to like, designate themselves as pacifists. Standing hands down, like a group of like four of them or something like that. And I think they were like, physically blocking the entrance. I think, I think that's what they ended up doing, like, linking arms and physically blocking the entrance to the, to the Yiannopoulos thing. And. And this like, guy, like, comes out and he's like laughing and smiling as he's like, pepper spraying them, like trying to pepper spray them in the eyes. But yeah, I was like. So I saw this and I'm like, you know, I think of my dad, you know, and I think of like, you know, my dad's a pacifist, and I think of all of this stuff, you know, and I like, see, you know, there's all of these people, you know, there's all of these people who are like, like joyfully cheering on this, like, horrible thing that's happening, you know, and. And like, there's this like, tiny group of like, the folks in the black masks, the folks in the white T shirts, and like, that's it. And like, you know, and these people who are like. And then on the other side, there's just like this bunch of people, like, doing horrible stuff. There were definitely some like, Nazi patches and things that we picked up in the crowd, you know, and then all of these cops standing there just like watching with their, of course, their backs to the, you know.

Yeah.

To the, to the threat, their batons towards the people trying to like, stop it, you know, and then far off in the distance, the liberals, like, with their little signs being like, no, stop doing this. You know, and like, yeah, it was a lot. And I was mad. I like, stepped in. I was like, I can stop. Give me the pepper spray, I'll let you go. The person like, give me the pepper spray, I'll let you go. And like, person tries to like, duck away. So I like, I'm like, I'm like watching the hands. I'm like, I'm expecting it pepper sprayed in the face. I'm like, I'm like, probably going to punch the person if he's like, if I get pepper sprayed, I'm going to just take the pepper spray. Like, not going to, but I'm like, I'm going to use the, like, my whole thing is like, I am not going to escalate. I'm going to use the minimal force necessary. I'm like, I'm not going to do anything.

Yeah. Like, want to stop this person from. Yeah, like, this is not a harm.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah. So I like. And even before that, I'm like, somebody like, videotaped this. Like, this is awful. Like, somebody should just like have a video of this person just like smiling, laughing, pepper spraying people. Like, because he knows that nobody's going to do anything, you know, and that's the. Like, that's always been their whole M.O. so, yeah, I step in, I'm just like, minimal force necessary. And like, there was a minute there, I'm thinking, I'm just like, do I just like, throw them at the cops? Like, no, they're not going to do. But I'm like, I'm thinking I'm holding

on to something, like, why a crime is being committed.

Right? But like, yeah, like, I'm like, at one level I'm like, I know that this isn't going to do anything, but in another, I'm like, you know, there's still like some thing where I'm like, yeah, there's still like, there was still some part of me where I'm like, you. You have armor on. Why am I here protecting, like, what is this, like, even knowing the dynamic? There's just like, why, like, there's this gut thing of just like, it's. It just, you know, and so I'm just like, I'm staring at one of the cops as I'm just like, holding this guy who's like, trying to get away. A bunch of like, some other people, like, were like, tried to like, tell me to stop or whatever. I'm like, he's pepper spraying people. I'm just, give me the pepper spray. I'll let him go. That's all. I'm just asking for the pepper spray. And so I'm holding him, I'm looking at this cop and then this is where, like, a lot of stuff gets blurry. And then like, I just get like, picked up from behind and yanked. And so I like, my hands, like, I lose this person. And then I felt like I got like. The next thing I remember is I'm like, on the ground. Like, I'm standing on the ground and I have this, like, I. I don't know if you ever been like, you've been punched by somebody who's like, been in prison. Like, it's a. It's a different thing, you know, like, but it was that it was just like, this. Just incredible. Just shock. So I thought I'd been, like, punched or something like that. Like, it just this big hit. And then as I'm coming to, I'm like, I. I think somebody ran up to me and was like, you've been shot. And then I, like. I look down and there's, like, this, you know, pool of blood where my sternum used to be. And it, like, ruined my favorite shirt and my tattoo.

Yeah.

All kinds of.

Yeah.

Johnny Cash shirt. It was a great. It was a great shirt. Yeah. I just. I. I had just gotten this tattoo done. Like, literally, like, I'd been working on this tattoo. Like, this is a full chess piece of Cthulhu that I've been, like, working on, like, in the chair every month for, like, I don't know, like, a year or something like that. Like, more. Year and a half, something. It was like, you know, almost every month. I like it. Skip a few. Whatever. So it's just, like, this long period of my life where I'm like, you know, it's getting inked in. It's getting. I'm just like, this is so beautiful. I'm really happy with it. Great artist. And then, like, it's done. It's like, wow, this is like, you know, this whole thing. Right? And I like, you know, this is also the time when I'm, like, you know. Yeah. I'm, like, dating my partner, and like, all of these things are kind of coming together in my life, and it's like, oh, this is, like, a completion of this, like, one thing. And so then we go. So we're like, you know, doing all this organizing against Trump, against this rally, against, like, all of this stuff. We left. Went to Hawaii for my grandmother's funeral, and then, like, you know, I'm there and kind of, like, actually relaxing a little bit, and then we come right back, and then the next day, it's basically like, I go in and I get shot. Yeah. So it's like, really a huge roller coaster.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Fuck.

That's all I have to say.

We. So we. We are unfortunately kind of running out of time in our interview, and I'm curious if there's, like, any, like, kind of, like, last little, like, topics or something that you want to. That you want to cover or.

Oh, yes, I do want to kind of, like, wrap up a couple, like, one. One thread. I think I started earlier of, like. Like, the thing that, like, was the most traumatic was not the, like, the being shot so much as it was, like, seeing Trump and like recognizing all of these things from like this rural experience from like this time that I was really, really self destructive, like coming back and like. Yeah, and that's the thing that's like really remains hard. Like it remains a really difficult piece because it like it is connected to that much deeper, like longer, you know, childhood trauma and kind of like much more drawn out. Yeah. The shooting part was like, meh, ruined my favorite shirt, my jacket that I bought for a 20 sack back in the day, all kinds of stuff. My boots. Yeah. I think like one of the things that is super important to, to like touch back on is like, you know, also like I mentioned, like, so I got shot and then immediately like there was somebody there. But then like immediately I was surrounded by a bunch of medics who were like right there and taking care of me. And like a little while before that, like I'd been in, in kind of like a little bit of a relationship with a street medic before who like talked a lot about their trauma. And like, you know, all of these years later, as I'm kind of like thinking about all of my things, you know, I'm thinking about this like going. Thinking about the whole context of like, you know, all of the trauma heaped on us since the, you know, Roman Empire and the cycle of all of this stuff. Right. I also think about like all of those medics were like taking on all of this like trauma, you know, from our actions and all of our, you know, all of these things and how, you know, important like the trauma support is to like our organizing like what the world that we're building. Right. I think that as, as an organizer, when I was like, when I was like organizing like idubbb, GDC stuff, when we were like building our organizations in Seattle, a lot of the stuff was just like that, that that was there that I was dealing with was not like even like logistical or anything like that. It was just like, okay, this, this trauma and this type of trauma is interfering with this type of trauma and we need to mediate that out and like work out and like figure out how to like, I was just. It was so much like identifying and thinking about the ways in which trauma is kind of like, can be mutually reinforcing and like, the more that we're able to talk about our trauma, recognize how big it is, like the more that we're able to change a lot of these things. And like, that's. I think that's the thing where I see, you know, revolutions in the past, you know, just Keep a lot of them keep being, you know, we're really mad. We're really traumatized by, like, however, whatever horrible thing, the horrible, you know, institution that we're now going to overthrow and then do horrible things to the next generation that, like this, like, continually reenacting this trauma. And I think for me, the thing that I'm. One of the things I'm trying to do to break that is this exact thing, right? Talking about it being vulnerable, trying to be as vulnerable as possible so that we can, like, you know, have at least a record of it, but also so that, you know, hopefully I can heal a little bit, but the next, like, my kids can look and say, like, okay, well, that explains a lot of things. And now I can process my trauma more easily. And then we can have, like, generation by generation, just a little bit less trauma and a little bit, you know, a little bit more movement towards a compassionate society. Right? Yeah, yeah. And that's. Yeah, is that's both on the micro, like, what am I trying to do differently? I'm trying to, like, learn from my dad. And then on the. The macro of, like, you know. Yeah, we all need to be thinking about how we create this world. Like, what we, you know, how we support, you know, children, how we, like, unwind this trauma, how we deconstruct these structures that, like, are traumatic for children. And, like, how do we, like, teach kids as early as possible, you know, how to organize, how to be independent, how to, like, be an anarchist, basically.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Super shout out to Allstreet medics doing just incredible, incredible stuff. And my last kind of question for you before we wrap up is like, Like, I'm curious, like, what. What you've told. What you've told your kids about, like, what has happened or, like, what story you want. Like, what. What stories do you hope that they kind of get from. From your experiences or from the larger experience of, like, being in this world?

I. So we're in the. We're in the Netherlands. I'm comfortable talking about that on that. We're in the Netherlands. There are little stepping stones all over the place. It's called stumbling stones. And these are little, like, metal plaques that have names on them of people who, you know, Jews who went to Auschwitz and, like, different death camps and, like, things like that, you know, where they. When they were taken, when they died, kind of all of that stuff. And these are everywhere. These are on our street. And so, like, you walk down the street and you look down and, like, there's a reminder of, like, what happened. We're, like, not too far away from where, like, the Allies came and, like, came in, like, down one of the streets and, like, liberated, you know. And so, like, it's right there. And like, you know, Anna Frank's house is in its gym. The school that she went to is like. Is like, it's right there. You know, all of this stuff is like, it's in your face. You can't miss it. And so we have to. We've. We've had to have a conversation about, like, Nazis and like, that they exist with. My oldest. My youngest is still too young to, like, understand, but my oldest is. Is seven. And so she's like, asked the questions about, like, you know, who were the Nazis? Are the Nazis going to come here? Are the, you know, like, like, you know, they were a long time ago. And so there's another thing we need to talk about, but we have talked about this a little bit. We, like, know, talked about how. So, like, I've talked a little bit about that. I've kind of, like, explained. Like, there are really horrible things that happen sometimes. And one of the questions that, you know, one of the things that I've. I talked about at one point, you know, was just. Was like, bravery and fear. To be brave is not to not be afraid. It's to be afraid and also be brave. You do something even though you're afraid. And so I've talked a little bit about that. And like, you know, that there were people who stood up against the. The Nazis. She was like, you know, did. Did some of them die? Like, yeah, a lot of them died, but they did it anyway because it's the right thing, you know, it's the right thing to do. And you. You do the right thing. Like, no matter what, it does not matter. And like, I think that's something that I also learned from my dad, you know, and like, I knew that there was a chance that I would get killed when I went to the, you know, went to that. Like, like all of the, like, I knew there was a chance.

Yeah.

And, you know, I did it anyway. And that is what we all should always be doing. You do the thing no matter what. And that's the thing, I think that, like, isn't really important to take away of. Like, you just, you know, you do the hard thing. The thing that I have been trying. I think she's not old enough to teach, but the thing that I try to share with as many other people as possible. And when she's old enough, I'LL share with her is I think it's something that's maybe obvious to, a little bit obvious to anarchists, but it's not as obvious to everybody else that, hey, if you look back in history, there were a bunch of horrible things that people have done and they all thought they were right when they were doing them. Like, you know, and like, so there's probably something that's happening now that's horrible that we're doing now. What is it? Figure out how to resist it. Like, yeah, that's it. Which is why I've been an abolitionist for a while and I've talked about that. And that's why, you know, that's where a lot of my, like, didn't come up in the, in the piece, but that I like, refused to testify. I refuse to like, participate in the criminal legal system at all. Like, for that reason. Like, it doesn't, doesn't help. It's not good, it's not useful for me, it's not useful for my healing, all of that stuff. And then also, you know, this is one of those things that's obviously wrong.

Yeah.

Yeah, I guess that's about it.

Yeah. Yeah. Or as, or as my favorite book character once said, there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo, and it's worth fighting for.

Yeah. There you go.

Well, thanks so much for coming on today and telling us all about, all about this stuff. Is there, are there places where people can find you where you would like to be found, I'm assuming, preferably on the Internet.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't come into my house.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I, I, these are all pulled from my blog, which is, I think you can link in the description, but it's hexamhell.rideaz.com and then I guess follow me on Mastodon or something. It's a standard thing. I, I say a lot of salty things. Hex, collectiva, Social. Yeah, that's, that's it. I'm not on any other social media. It's. Unless you like account LinkedIn, which is an entirely. Is it the social media site for AI. Don't ever go talk to me on LinkedIn, anybody, ever. That's it. I think that's it.

Yeah.

Hell yeah.

Well, take care and we'll talk to you another time.

Cool. Thanks a lot.

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