what you've got boy, is hard to find

it's odd to have that feeling wash over you, time and time again. that feeling that everything is going to be fine, that we're all connected, that even one's death is a spot in a shared mosaic. I try to scold myself when it does- this is obviously not true, this is not a practical thought, this is exactly what other losers and crazy people dream about, so get yourself right. It was explained to me why we have that voice once- I read it somewhere, in one of the brain books I picked up a couple years ago when I tried to fake a bout of ambition. my only real ambition came from a disappointing performance in all fields during high school, and a need to SHOW that I CAN do what I think I can. I wonder if that will ever crop up again. regardless, I bought the explanation. it seemed about right. but boy does that voice seem like the dumb one sometimes. why do deers stare into headlights? why do black people perform worse on a task when they're told it is a test of intelligence and white people perform worse on a task when they hear that it is a test of athleticism. I dont get how one moment that nagging voice can tell us to snap back to reality but in another more crucial moment it can disappear completely. Is this something that is being weeded out of the population as we speak? Is anything being weeded out of the population? certainly not out of the American population...poor black people actually seem to be disappearing, as their neighborhoods get chewed up by gentrification like a scene from The Langoliers. In fact, more than a societal shift there are very real selection pressures in the ghetto that may be affecting the overall manner in which american slave descendants comport themselves. There seems to be a selection pressure for calm. For ration. Because even in a bad neighborhood, black or white or any of the totally unimportant races, survival is pretty easy. not relative to some, maybe, but relative to others in other countries, definitely. so the only genes that might be weeded out in America are aggressive ones, as those contribute to death in some areas. That's not to say aggressive people per se, but the aggression onset that comes with the lack of a father figure, perhaps, could be right in the middle of being dulled in certain populations of American soil, poor ones. huh.