Hello, everyone. To anybody who doesn’t know, my name is James Strocel. I’m speaking to you from the great COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. It’s April 1st. I’m in my basement, and in the madness of isolation, and the desperation of impending doom, I’ve done the most selfish, unforgivable act. I’ve created a podcast. Vlog. Essay type thing. You are hearing my voice right now. And that’s unfair.
I didn’t want to do this while history was raging around me. I wanted it be my own personal midlife crisis thing, where I figure out how to use a microphone, to talk to the camera, and how to do that thing youtubers do when they smash cut where there’s supposed to be a joke. It started off with a new years resolution after I made a blog post that got over 20 likes from my friends and family. Thank you, everyone, for encouraging my most pretentious impulses. It was then and there I decided tha like some people who bring out guitars at parties, I’m the guy who gets a pen and paper. I program websites for my day job, I love writing, people say they like my writing, but writing doesn’t pay enough to cover my mortgage. But I still love doing it, I love creating things. It’s just an impulse i have.
Even, I can’t escape the feeling of how fundamentally unfair it is that I’m doing this. People are dying, people have lost their jobs, and will lose their homes, and here I am in my house, surrounded by my family, with a job that I can do from home. The internet’s working, the utilities are on. My extended older family members are staying put for the most part. I live in a country with a single payer health care system. My car works. I have all the consoles. Because this happened while I was having a staycation, I got to prepare for the coming shelter in place guidelines.
Really, with all the safety and security in my life, right now. What right do I have to take up people’s time like this? There are many marginalized people out there who are being aggressively not listened to. There’s racism, misogyny, homophobia, ableism, and just outright theft of people’s lives going on. You should be listening to Shelley Moore, or Naomi Klein, or Ijeoma Oluo, or Casey Explosion, people who have a direct connection to injustice, and have a platform to do something about it. What is the point of listening to yet another white guy, playing with his electronics, drunk on the fantasy, that anybody, anywhere, cares what he thinks?
Then again, maybe you’re just here to talk to me. Me specifically. You clicked the link, opened the file, or read the transcript because we know each other, maybe we’re acquaintances, maybe you’ve known me all my life. Maybe like me, you’re just kind of in a holding pattern and you want to do something more with your thoughts and feelings than bake sourdough bread. See, I love writing, writing stuff like this video. I am sharing it because I want to know if it’s any good. If it’s not, I learn and get better. I hope I can do one of these videos a week. I’ll talk about books I’ve read, things I see, things I’m doing. I don’t know if this has any value, but the value of everything now is such an open question. This is how I’m going to wrestle with it. With all of you. See you next time.