Hell of a Book

by Jason Mott

They hold up poster board photographs of Emmett Till and Tamir Rice, Michael Brown, Philando Castile, George Floyd, and all the other names that will be added to America’s list between the time I write this and the time you read this.

A person had to take news like this slow. They had to measure it out, moment by moment, and not let it get the better of them. That was the only way to survive the tide in the long run. You couldn’t just drink in all of this and let it take control of the way you were thinking. That was how you lost your optimism. That was how you lost your hope.

Science has proven that there’s a limited number of people that we can ever actually care about. It’s just a limitation of our brain and our emotions.

“Everything you’re saying is true and real, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s impossible to care about everyone. So you pick your battles. You limit how much you invest into the world and into people. It’s a type of emotional triage.”

We’re all afraid of being at the bottom of life’s shit stack. We’re all afraid of being poor, being injured, helpless, handicapped, all of the things that make us look at other people and say, ‘How bad. Somebody should do something to help them.’ The thing we’re most afraid of is being the ‘them’ in that equation.”

“It’s okay. I decide if I really believe what you’re saying or not. My mama taught me that. She said I can always pick what is true about the world. I can’t pick the facts, but I can pick what’s true.

He wears work clothes every day of his life. Day in and day out, the same uniform of scraping by: dark blue button-down Dickies

Like my Uncle Eddie <3

“I live three thousand miles away,” I say. “The sun is 93 million miles away,” she replies. “But you can still feel it on your face, can’t you?”