start with the song

press play to listen while you read

SONG :: believe in me

ARTIST :: flamingosis

MOOD :: diamonds on the run

SHOUTS :: our star the sun

next, mix together weed and endorphins

Sour Diesel

recreational effects

data compiled by Leafly

Sour Diesel (Sour D) took me on a super dreamy run. I imagined myself way back in time and what life may have been like then. It was cool but scary.

let everything simmer until epiphanies develop

When I was home in Texas for Christmas this year, my cousin was telling me about how her husband got her set up with ancestry.com as her gift and all the surprising things she was discovering about our family history. Like the fact that our ancestors were "big time slave owners." My first inclination upon hearing this was to wish I didn't know. But accuracy has to trump fantasy if we're going to eradicate ignorance. So I was forced to think about this issue from a personal perspective.

My concern isn't biologically based, however. I don't think that just because you share a bloodline with people who committed evil acts, that you are predisposed to commit them yourself. But now I know that people in my family went to a very dark place in their humanity. And if it could happen to them, it could happen to me.

We humans are always in danger of getting caught up in complacency. We let so much horrible shit slide in the service of our comfort, safety, and security. We have to watch that. When we prioritize our own comfort to the point of sacrificing free will in other humans in order to maintain it, then we are no better than my ancestors. Knowing that people in my family got this lost at one time will serve as a constant reminder that I have a debt to pay and I only go deeper in the hole when I don’t address the current systems of oppression and exploitation that I contribute to today.

If I really don’t want to be like them, it is in my power to break the cycle.