Gird Your Loins.

Here we go. Today is the day we have all been dreading. Nay, today is the day we have all been absolutely terrified off. Today is day one of what will surely be a painful four years. Three words: Gird your loins.

When I say quick search, I mean QUICK search, so apologies but you will not be getting an in-depth etymology lesson on “Gird your loins” right now. But I can tell you that the phrase has biblical origins and it was originally meant literally. It was specifically said to men, who at the time wore long robes, before the time of battle or anything that would require them to be able to move freely. Essentially, girding your loins is equivalent to hiking your skirt. In other words… 

Gird your loins. Translation: Fucking get ready, dude.

As mentioned last week, I am in a class about the WWII warlords. Being in this class has done one thing: Make me think about WWII. Shocker. I’m not at all educated in WWII history to make any bold claims, but I have been thinking about a couple things in particular about WWII and how they seem to be relevant in today’s society.

One: Propaganda. The class is focused on the warlords, which is to say the people leading the main countries involved in the war. What we have learned about Hitler so far is that he was a huge ass loser who came into all that power because he made people believe he wasn’t. He found ways to make himself look like a hero, rescuing Germans from all the struggles they had been dealing with before his reign. He changed his life story to make himself seem more interesting. He forced people to worship him.

Donald Trump just “saved” TikTok. After, of course, he had spent his presidency pushing for the ban of it.

Two: Poverty. In the years before WWII, the US underwent the Great Depression. It wasn’t that people didn’t want to work, there were just no jobs. Germany dealt with its own depression, and the Soviet Union was realizing that Stalin-Leninism was different from Marxism, so to speak.

I heard that there’s people paying for private firefighters in LA right now. Sometimes when I think about how much I’m paying for college, I get so dizzy I start seeing stars. When Americans started flocking to RedNote (the actual Chinese short-form video social media app), the Chinese netizens were shocked to learn that the rumors about medical bills, school bills, taxes, etc. were real and not propaganda made up by their government.

Three: Genocide, concentration camps, and violence towards particular groups of people. Hitler wanted to eradicate whole groups of people—Jews, Poles, queers, Romani people, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and prisoners of war.

There are multiple genocides happening, the most deadly being the genocide of Palenstinians, one being backed by the US government. ICE is set to start raiding in Chicago on Tuesday. Roe v. Wade is still overturned. I fear which may be next.

Again, I’m not a WWII historian nor am I a political-scientist. I cannot and will not make any bold claims, nor do I really have any. And this is not code for anything! I promise you, I am not being sarcastic in this disclaimer. All I want to say is this: Everything fucking sucks right now. If I am able to find similarities between the present day and what is widely considered the lowest point in modern history, then surely that cannot be a good thing.

But wait! There’s more! The whole world is fucking literally turning to ash while all this fucking shit is happening! Woo hoo!

What thinking about WWII has truly made me realize is that we are living through a historical event. I can almost feel the paper edges of the high school history textbook we’re printed onto. Two questions remain: How does the chapter end? How can I get through it?

Life is shit. It could be better, but it could also be worse. It might get worse. But we won’t know until we get there, and we could do what we can to try not to get there, and we could do what we can to prepare in case we do get there. Gird your motherfucking loins, people.

Not many people read my blog, but I still can’t help but feel like I’m writing to the masses, and I’ve come to better understand why. I mentioned this in “Life Is Still Worth Living” (which it is, by the way), but I feel as though I’m writing to future generations. We’re reading primary sources in my WWII class, which my professor said include “diaries, letters, and everything intended to be private” (paraphrasing), and I can’t help but wonder if blog posts will be added to that list in the future. Although, this blog isn’t really intended to be private. Regardless, I feel like a radio host from the 40s commentating on some important event. I am wearing a suit and fedora, holding a ribbon mic close to my mouth and quickly yelling out barely legible comments in a Transatlantic accent. For future generations, if you must know, I am actually writing this on a MacBook Pro in GoogleDocs while wearing sweats and under a blankie. I am also on the verge of a headache from all this staring at a computer screen and thinking about politics.

I have this sentence I’ve just started toying with. It goes, “If I never get to meet you, look for me in the past.” It needs something else. I know it does. The tongue wants to continue talking once you get to the end. I know I want to say, “I’ll be waiting for you there,” but I’m not sure if that’s what comes next. I bring up this unfinished, barely even started poem because, well, I want to talk about you.

In my possibly clouded judgement, a horrific drop is more likely to occur than a splendid one. I’d rather it not happen, and maybe it won’t happen, but even if it doesn’t, I wonder if I will ever not wait for it. I’ve always found it difficult to find peace. Now that my worrying is rational, peace seems impossible.

I remain hopeful that a splendid drop will happen, but I am sick of waiting. What if the drop only happens after you get off the ride? What if I’m not even on the ride yet, but in the queue? Do I continue to wait until it’s my turn, or do I take the actions necessary to get on? Has this analogy gone too far? Let me put it this way: If I do not dance unless someone asks me to, will I dance at all?