Of White Pills and Dancing Unicorns

Get In, Loser, We're Flushing Your Stash of Black Pills

I wasn’t born the type of person who seeks to console others. But the times have changed so much that they are unrecognizable: Every day is a fresh circus—if not a fresh hell—and so GenX nihilism just feels kind of anachronistic these days—if not criminal. It is no longer safe to say that nothing matters and all is lost. It is no longer even cool.

For reasons only marginally-if-at-all connected to the results of yesterday’s midterm elections, I woke up this morning in a depressive fog. The fog had come on mysteriously the previous day, much less the result of political pessimism as a warning that a bout of seasonal depression is lurking around the corner. While probing the limits of the fog, I felt like Atreyu’s horse Artax in The Never Ending Story, sinking into a hopeless bog. I was trying to keep my head above water by listening to upbeat music, all the while preparing myself for the long, bleak haul.

And then. As I do on most mornings because I am a colossal loser, I delved into the supporter comments from one of my favorite online communities. This community is comprised of lovely people from all different political quadrants, vaguely united under the umbrella of Political Homelessness. As you can imagine, given the results of the aforementioned election—a fleshwound for authoritarianism and a whimper for liberty—it was raining black pills in there. My e-friends were disappointed, angry, hurting, verklempt. And I was blindsided by how this discovery affected my mental state.

Backing up for a minute, the black pill is the one Mother gives you that convinces you nothing matters and all is lost. It tells you that we are losing, we have already lost, and nothing will ever be well again.

The antidote to the black pill is the white pill, which does not convince you that all will definitely be well again but, rather, convinces you that you have a fighting chance. Maybe you won’t make it through, yourself, but as long as you keep fighting, someone else down the line might make it through.

The white-pilled perspective is difficult to keep in the front of your mind, as it is subject to assault every clownish minute of every stupid day. In the eye of the white pill, the enemy’s momentary triumphs look like long term mistakes that will come back to bite them, and the failures of your tentative allies look auspicious, because they will embolden the enemy, who is ultimately too retarded to exist. The enemy will destroy itself—but not without a little help from you and your e-friends along the way.

There is no way to be sure whether the white-pilled perspective is delusional or not. Only time will tell. In the meantime, the fact that it might not be delusional is a good reason to get out of bed in the morning and take that first morning piss all over everything the enemy holds dear.

The corollary here is that the black-pilled perspective is worse than self-destructive; it is utterly useless. Useless to you, useless to your friends and family, useless to the cause of liberty, useless to your pet raccoon. Sorry. Them’s the breaks. There is no shame in feeling black-pilled every once in a while. It happens. Anxiety is a bitch, and anything that can act as a release valve will seem mighty tempting. But to cling to the black pill is to wallow in neuroticism. Nothing good has ever come of ardent neuroticism (except perhaps for various works of fine art). I would even go so far as to say that the black pill is a selfish if not altogether childish response to adversity. And I am as guilty of abusing it as anyone.

Be black-pilled for your own future, sure. But for The Future Beyond Your Pitiful Mortal Coil, consider the white pill. It’s the only one that can see us through the Authoritarian Vortex™️.

It is sung in some secret circles that “The unicorns dance while the world burns.” You can imagine the unicorns dancing just to get in one more inch of hedonism before The End. Or you can imagine the unicorns dancing because they know the fire will eventually die out, and they are tickled pink about it.

I was planning to write some bullshit about anarchism with obligatory quotes from Lysander Spooner, but I’ll save that for another time, or just can it. Circling back, when I logged onto the internet this morning in a defeatist and self-loathing funk and I saw the pain of so many others flowing like metastatic outer-space goop, I was zapped. I began to feel happy, and to smile at the clouds, and to wish that I could somehow take that pain away. I can’t. But the fact that I even wanted to at all is a major white pill.

Things are going to get worse before they get better. We knew this, so we shouldn’t act surprised when political theatrics don’t shake out in our (supposed) favor. But take heart, friends. Though it doesn’t feel like it now, we are winning. We will win. All will be well.