What Am I Supposed to Do?

On feeling small in turbulent times

¡Hola Papi! is the preeminent deranged advice column from writer and author John Paul Brammer. Support this column by sharing it and subscribing below, or by upgrading to a paid subscription for access to more columns. Send Papi a letter at holapapiletters@gmail.com

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¡Hola Papi!

This isn’t going to be a unique question. I imagine it’s one millions of people wake up with every morning these days. It’s also going to be pretty broad, and impossible to answer in a straightforward way, which is why I’ve come to you instead of a Magic 8 Ball. I hope that flatters you.

As I’m sure you’re aware, things in the United States aren’t great! I know this isn’t new. The same thing could have been said at almost any point in the last decade or so, really. It could be that I’m, cómo se dice, privileged, and simply wasn’t as acutely aware of the horrors of the world until recently, but it sure seems like the country I grew up in is sliding into an authoritarian death spiral at terminal velocity. As a millennial, I’ve seen more than a few societal rough patches, but it feels different this time. Am I crazy for thinking so? This time it feels much, much worse.

I’ll not preach to the choir. I’d wager you agree with my synopsis. I also highly doubt, with all due respect to the Papi Institute, that you have the singular solution for getting us out of this trend toward fascism. What I humbly request instead is your help with a more intimate, more personal aspect of the situation: I feel helpless. I feel angry. What am I supposed to do?

I guess what I mean to say, Papi, is that I feel small, and I hate feeling small. I hate feeling like there’s nothing I can do to change the direction the world around me is headed. I hate feeling like I don’t get a say, feeling like, in the grand scheme of things, I’ve been relegated to simply watching while rich, powerful men determine my fate and the fates of people I love and care about. I don’t know how else to think about it, or how else I could possibly feel about it. I know there’s a better, more productive way to be going about my days, but I can’t figure out what it could be.

By any chance, would you happen to know?

Signed,

Very, Very Small

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Hey there, VVS!

Oh no, did someone inherit challenging times? Maybe you should have tried being born several decades before the 90s and peacefully passing away either slightly north or south of the release of “Dynamite” by Taio Cruz in 2010, which formally heralded the peak of our decadent civilization and after which began the long and steady decline into our wretchedly unchic present. That’s my first suggestion, take it or leave it.

To your point, we’ve always been far from a perfect country, to say the least, but I agree that we currently find ourselves under uniquely perilous circumstances. There’s no need to sugarcoat it. Our nation was purchased by the richest man alive, because he wanted it, and because he could. It makes a lot of sense for him. He’s a salesman. Owning the United States is beneficial toward his goal of foisting his ugly, malfunctioning cars on us, and then making it all but illegal to make fun of those cars, which I assume is in the legislative works as we speak.

If that wasn’t bad enough, the movement he attached his toothy, parasitic sucker to in order to achieve this happens to be a vindictive, paranoid death cult that delights in the suffering of its perceived enemies and is founded on sheer contempt for the most vulnerable members of our society. What else is there to say? The government is kidnapping individuals for speech it doesn't agree with, shipping immigrants to foreign prisons and threatening to do the same with its citizens, all while the mega-rich publicly celebrate no longer having to disguise their greed behind a thin facade of humanitarianism. You are being robbed, and the thieves are giddy about it, and all the opposition party can seem to do about it is to humbly ask you for $5. Things have been better.

It’s understandable to be upset in the wake of such events, and, yes, to feel small. I would go so far as to say that you feel small because you are small. I, too, am small. The rich and powerful men you mention are small as well, even if they’re desperately trying to convince themselves otherwise. To be human is to be small. Fundamental to the religion of the oligarchs is the notion that this fact can be transcended through manmade hierarchies that place a select few above the many. Their obsession with AI, with colonizing Mars, and with forcing the masses to adore them is all downstream of this denial of their own humanity, part and parcel of their desire to be something different, something better, something bigger than the rest of us.

This cult of extreme individualism has wrought much suffering in our world, but I’m also of the belief that it’s fatally flawed. It’s built on a cheap, hastily-constructed foundation that might look flashy but is destined to malfunction. Despite their vast wealth, these people are never satisfied. I would say that “not being satisfied” is their defining feature. It’s how they ended up with billions of dollars in the first place. These people are black holes. Building isn’t their forte. Taking is more their style.

In our present cultural landscape, where greed and solipsism are celebrated as positive traits to be publicly touted on LinkedIn, such individuals are well-positioned for success. It’s the case that we live in the era of the absolute individual. But what I would recommend is to be the opposite of them. Be proud of your humanity. Don’t reject your smallness. Recognize it. Become familiar with it. Use it. The truth is, there’s no great individual who will save us. It’s small people working together toward a shared vision that will change the trajectory we’re on.

Despite what it might feel like, the future remains malleable. Indeed, every potential future is a frail and unlikely thing. Some are more likely than others, but the one we end up in is the one we breathe life into. What we must do, what I believe we were put here to do, is to breathe life into the world we want to see, to commit ourselves to it, to resolve to walk in it, to live in it, to build it. There are things worth living for, and these things are bigger than ourselves, bigger than any one person. My advice is to find people who agree, and join your breath to theirs.

Personally, the world I want doesn’t feel all that unreasonable. I want an end to oligarchy. I want a society in which, if someone gets sick, their first concern is getting better, not financial ruin. I want people to have homes. I want the app that I used to use to meet mentally unstable gay people in New York City to stop being a state actor and go back to being Twitter. I want my tax dollars to stop funding slaughter around the world, some of which, I suppose, is arranged via group chat. I want JD Vance imprisoned in a dunking booth in the National Mall.

I’m ultimately a very reasonable man.

Finally, I would say that it helps, during turbulent times, to have a spine. Without one, you’ll find yourself being thrown every which way in the riptides before crashing up against the rocks anyway. As the consultants and pundits recalibrate their beliefs to suit the moment and pressure you to do the same, to throw certain people under the bus in the name of political expediency, to make concessions to cruelty, hold fast to your principles. They will see you through.

I’m not a gambling man, but if I had to put money on it, I’d wager that this won’t be the last time you or I find ourselves in trying times. That’s how it goes. I won’t say it will all end up okay, because I don’t know that. What I do know is that our turbulent, human reality is in constant flux, and change is always possible. So is a better world.

Live toward that world.

Con mucho amor,

Papi