Violent disassembly

Violent disassembly {.wp-block-heading}

This is a speculative post, inspired in part by people and events from my life. At the same time, I have no idea what I am going to write. All I have is a fuzzy idea of what I want to convey, so get ready for a stream of consciousness.

There are certain journeys in life that lead to moments of intense, excruciating, and profound reckoning. In those moments, your sense of self and the very essence of what you are shatter. It’s a war between your former self, who wants to cling to certainty, and your unknown infant self, who’s struggling to emerge. In this crucible of existential flux, you are forced to reconsider all the certainties and identities you once held. Amidst this maelstrom, you are forced to construct a new self while violently disassembling your former self and trying to decide what shards of your former self to hold onto and what to discard. A moment of both the reassembly of a newer self and the disintegration of the older self.

I’ve never faced such a vicious moment in life. When faced with less dramatic but moderately fucked-up…ish moments, I coasted through them because I have the amazing gift of being a bit of a dolt with stubborn obliviousness. But I know several people who are dear to me—people who’ve had a large fingerprint on my life—who are struggling at various points in their journey with similar intensities.

These thoughts flooded my mind as I listened to Margo Steines, the author of _Brutalities: A Love Story. _I haven’t read this book, like the other books I’ve talked about here, but this one is next on my list as soon as I am done with the ones I’m currently reading. Having said that, I’ve been devouring all of Margo’s interviews, and I can’t get enough of them. The reason is that she has lived a life that’s bookended by extreme brutality, love, and serenity.

At forty-one, Margo has lived more lives than most of us would in four lifetimes. She was a dominatrix, beating people up for money. Battled addiction to everything from drugs and exercise to pain. She worked a dangerous job as a welder on high-rise buildings, with several scars to show. She endured an abusive relationship that left deep scars. Then she became a loving mother to a daughter. As she admits herself, she isn’t the stereotypical “fucked up girl” that took to drugs and sex to muffle her trauma, but rather the life she’s had is the result of her choices, both bad and good.

To bare one’s soul and write about the deepest and darkest moments of pain and shame takes a special kind of courage. In her interviews, she’s candid about her past, sharing experiences that many would find humiliating. Listening to her talk about her long and harrowing journey of being in an abusive relationship, her addiction to drugs, exercise, work, pain, and violence, and her slow journey toward making peace with herself evoked a lot of memories. They reminded me of the dark moments that people in my life have gone through.

Margo Steines: And I was just like, if I could do it for two hours a day, why didn’t I do it for three hours a day and then four? And I was in graduate school at the time. So I had a lot of schedule flexibility. And anyway, this is more details than you probably wanted. No, it’s great. And the end of the situation is like I’m going, I’m exercising like seven plus hours a day. And my whole day is just like driving from gym to gym to gym. And I started getting these episodic illness episodes where I would be like disabled with illness. And I had previously been like extremely healthy. And I will never know whether I induced the condition I have from over exercise, but it certainly did not help. And I injured myself. And like I found when I was not able to exercise, I was like back in the place that I was in when I was doing heroin, where if I couldn’t get the heroin, I wanted to die. And this was startling because I had done a lot of self-work and grown. And I was like, I’m doing a healthy thing. That was the thing that was most stunning about it was like it really took me by surprise. Because up until that situation with the seven hours a day in the secret gym, like I really thought that I was just a little healthier than most people. And like most people eat McDonald’s, so they don’t understand. Like there was a lot of like othering of myself in a way that I now see was just trying to protect this habit.

_Excerpt from this episode._

She also reminded me of the sheer unpredictability of life. I could be wrong, but at the lowest points in her life, I don’t know if she thought her life would turn around so dramatically. I’m saying this because I’ve had my share of rotten luck. In my early 20s, there was a prolonged stretch where the days were long and unbearably shitty for both me and my dad, with whom I was staying. It often felt like things would remain shitty forever, and hoping for a better tomorrow felt like a luxury. Here’s an excerpt from one of her interviews that encapsulates the unpredictability of life:

**Margo Steines:**&nbsp;Leaving a relationship where someone was horrible to me on a daily basis for decades was like there wasn&#8217;t room for anything else. It wasn&#8217;t a loving thing to do to myself to stay in a space like that. Although it wasn&#8217;t my choice to leave that relationship, becoming free from it gave me some room to build a relationship with myself outside of the chaos.



Having my child, as cliché as it may sound, really made something shift within me. Additionally, having a partner who is warm, loving, and not harmful was significant. It didn&#8217;t build self-love for me, but it was definitely related, as it piqued my interest in self-care and self-improvement.&#8221;

[https://open.spotify.com/episode/4g8J8o2dqjgtvgvFzBNkbs?si=f012de06959c4998](How to Write About Pain | Margo Steines | How to Tickle Yourself)

Another excerpt that serves as a reminder that all it takes is one special event to alter the course of our lives in profound ways. In her case, it was pregnancy:

**Carl Erik Fisher:**&nbsp;Would pregnancy have been enough? Who knows? To some extent, what does that matter? But, well, I guess now that I&#8217;ve said it, let&#8217;s ask it. Do you think that you would still have it? Like, you would still be struggling with exercise if it weren&#8217;t for those two things?



**Margo Steines:**&nbsp;Sure. Because I still have all the mental stuff. And at this point, it&#8217;s like the deterrent. There&#8217;s an expression you use in your book where you&#8217;re talking about the program where addicts are paid to stay clean, and then there&#8217;s, like, the inverse of it. I can&#8217;t remember the phrase. Contingency management. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So it&#8217;s that. I know that I&#8217;m going to have a health crash and be unable to work, unable to care for my child, accrue tens of thousands of dollars in medical bills, be in excruciating pain, like, pretty quickly. It&#8217;s not, like, next year. It&#8217;s, like, next week. And then being a parent, and I still nurse my child, so, like, the health of my body is in a way that feels very direct, like, attached to her life and sustenance. So, like, it&#8217;s allowed me to treat this body like a resource and like a machine that I have to put away in between duty cycles. And that&#8217;s been useful. Like, I take better care of myself, but it hasn&#8217;t changed any of the mentality around it.

It reminded me of this image Tim Urban shared sometime ago:

Tim Urban

Here’s Duff McDonald, the host of the _How to Tickle Yourself _podcast on which Margo appeared, reading a brilliant excerpt from her book:

The honeymoon phase of any addictive behavior is characterized by a swirl of pleasurable brain chemicals and renewed vigor for life. For me, it is nearly impossible to turn away from. I’ve experienced it with so many things that I know it by heart – that new relationship energy of a fresh compulsion. So here we go, listeners: bourbon, heroin, razor blades, credit cards, dangerous sex, face punching, cash, whiskey, bondage, check fraud, vodka, shoplifting, ketamine, methadone, red wine, cigarettes, work, nicotine gum, croissant binges, wintergreen skull.

Then there was a period when I thought it was over, but it wasn&#8217;t. Turning tricks, stealing cash, smoking weed, throwing up, watching porn, eating, starving, trespassing, beating men up.



You were talking to the doctor about some hip pain, and the doctor asked you what you&#8217;d been doing to try to address the riddle of the pain. You said: &#8216;5 years of Orthopedic Specialists, Physical Therapy, lacrosse balls, stretching, not stretching, strength training, running hills, not running hills, hydrotherapy, massage, acupuncture, dry needling, Bikram yoga, regular yoga, Tiger Balm, lidocaine, aspirin, ibuprofen, acetaminophen.

I loved this beautiful answer from one of her interviews:

Alright, one final question—a classic, but what do you hope readers take away from Brutalities?

As shitty as a lot of the stuff I did was—and I suffered a lot for the choices I made—I also really value and am grateful for my current quiet life in a way that I would not have been if I hadn’t had to&nbsp;_earn&nbsp;_it back, and that feels important. While I hope that most people who read it didn’t have the experiences that I had, I would like them to have at least a moment of it while reading. And of course, I want anyone who is doing any of the shit that I was doing to feel seen and less alone. —&nbsp;**[https://observer.com/2023/10/margo-steines-interview-brutalities/](Margo Steines | The Observer)&nbsp;([https://web.archive.org/web/20231129153800/https://observer.com/2023/10/margo-steines-interview-brutalities/](archive))**

Listening to Margo, I couldn’t help but think about the human ability for change and redemption. The fact that she pulled herself back from the abyss and gave herself permission to be happy shows the extraordinary power that we can muster to will ourselves to do anything.

Let me end with this profound quote by Simone Weil on embracing suffering:

The way to make use of physical pain. When suffering no matter what degree of pain, when almost the entire soul is inwardly crying “Make it stop, I can bear no more,” a part of the soul, even though it be an infinitesimally small part, should say: “I consent that this should continue throughout the whole of time, if the divine wisdom so ordains.” The soul is then split in two. For the physically sentient part of the soul is — at least sometimes — unable to consent to pain. This splitting in two of the soul is a second pain, a spiritual one, and even sharper than the physical pain that causes it. — Simone Weil | [https://www.themarginalian.org/2015/05/12/simone-weil-pain/](The Marginalian) (simone-weil-pain)

Caressing death {.wp-block-heading}

If Margo Steines’ story is one of redemption, I want to share another story of disintegration. Latham Turner shared a haunting account (archive) of what it’s like to contemplate death that surfaced a lot of possibly repressed memories. I’ve known a few people who have contemplated, and some who have even attempted, suicide—people I care about deeply. Whenever people I care about or even strangers confided in me about their suicidal thoughts, my mental capacity to think and speak would wither. I would pretend to be normal in the moment, but those moments leave lasting scars. I don’t understand, nor can I even imagine, what it’s like to feel so empty that you can only see one option—one action that promises false bliss and deliverance.

I’ve had two good friends commit suicide with a gun — another mechanical system. I shied away from talking about it. In my imagination, it always led somewhere bad, either a “how could we have known” pity party or a moral judgment of their failures. I’m not interested. But I think about it a lot. A gun, like an airplane, has a breakout force. The breakout force of a Glock 19X is five pounds. When my friends were pulling less than five pounds of pressure, nothing happened. As soon as they hit five pounds, the firing pin sent the bullet exploding through their skulls. Before five pounds, their lives were raging with pain and despair and hurt. Bad enough to make them seek relief with a bullet. After five pounds, they were gone. And the rest of us try to decide if they were good people, if their honor is attached to what they did in life or how they chose to end it.

Some nights, I used to sit in my closet, engulfed in darkness and only feeling the weight of the FN HP9 pistol resting in my hands. The knurled metal against my palm felt good, the cold steel steadied my hand. It was even ennobling. I felt no shame sitting curled up; that came later. At the time, I felt intense curiosity, I felt courageous, free even, I felt alive. Isn’t it ironic that contemplating causing my own death made me feel alive? But I would be in control, or so I told myself. I could take action. I could choose to find out the truth (about who we really are, about eternity, about pain), if only for that singularity of a moment that would expand to all eternity.

For some reason, I remembered this quote from Harry Potter:

“Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.”

―**J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban**

Good reads {.wp-block-heading}

‘My life will be short. So on the days I can, I really live’: 30 dying people explain what really matters

What would you do if you knew you only had a few months or years to live? A moving article about how people who are not long for the world look at life.

Eyes Wide Open (archive)

A lovely article from the ever-amazing Bob Seawright on how luck can change destiny.

The reality is that luck (and, if you have a spiritual bent, grace) plays an enormous role in our lives – both good and bad – just as luck plays an enormous role in many specific endeavors, from baseball to investing to poker to winning a Nobel Prize to producing a chart-topping hit record. If we’re honest, we will recognize that many of the best things in our lives required absolutely nothingFind something you enjoy doing in life, procrastinate, Netflix, and chill! of us and what we count as our greatest achievements usually required great effort, skill, and [https://ofdollarsanddata.com/whats-your-delta/?utm_source=Daily+AR&utm_campaign=673627977e-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c08a59015d-673627977e-144120857](even more luck).

Gratitude (archive)

Clinging to his resentment, the Man became a recluse, nurturing his spite against the world. His prophecies became apocalyptic; doom dripped from his lips. Hearing of his melancholic wisdom, kings from lands near and far sought his counsel, sent him riches, offers of royal title, and even their daughters’ hands in marriage, but he refused, insistent that the debt owed to him must first be repaid. In time, the Man forgot the world, and he was forgotten in turn. After many years, he lay sick and dying, and despaired of life. He cursed God, and the human race, for his wretched lot. He died alone, save one companion who remained dutifully by his side: the demon, cloaked in angel’s garbs, sat by his deathbed and smiled.

I’ve Been Writing This Essay My Whole Life (archive)

A beautiful essay that will resonate with pretty much all middle-class Indians.

Some gifts are shaped like question marks, others shaped like voids. Her love for me could eclipse the sun, and yet she could not say it. So I yelled in the margins and bled on the page and screamed in hastily scrawled caps. I found voice enough for both of us. And I did my best to sing.

Against her own best wishes, my mother made a writer. These words are my inheritance, and I will honor every one.

The Seven Laws of Declinism (archive)

Have we just lived through one of the best years in human history? As we look at 2023 through the rearview mirror, I think that’s a ?ref=quillette.com claim. In fact, the [https://ourworldindata.org/sdgs?ref=quillette.com](same thing) could have been said at the end of pretty much every year since the beginning of the millennium (with the exception of the poverty-back-pre-covid-levels-globally-not-low-income-countries?s=03&ref=quillette.com pandemic years of 2020 and 2021). Never before have so many people lived in affluence, safety, and good health.

I was Hypnotized as a Teen. Was it Dangerous? (archive)

My fingers hesitate and hover over my keyboard. I try to take a stance. Don’t piss off the stage hypnotists, I tell myself, _their hearts are in the right place. _I’m torn. To make a blanket statement that all stage hypnosis is damaging isn’t fair to those hypnotists who make an effort to approach subjects with compassion and sidestep offensive tropes. (And make people laugh!) In front of huge crowds, hypnotists command a room and engage with strangers from all walks of life—who, amazingly, trust them.