Why Am I Doing This to Myself?

I’m having luck letting go of my anger and ego, somewhat.

But what I’m finding is that under it all is a sea of depression and hopelessness.

Hopelessness has always been a main character of my story. But what I didn’t realize was that it was getting consoled by my rage and a story I told myself about a hero’s journey.

I’ve probably slept the last 30 of 36 hours. It’s the kind of sleep where you wonder if you can find the will power to get out of bed to go pee.

There’s nothing physically wrong with me, that I can tell. And I think I feel better this morning.

But that is a new feeling for me. I think that’s what they call depression. I don’t think I’ve ever truly felt it at that level before.

I still haven’t showered. But I did manage to brush my teeth.

I was not found guilty of plagiarism at law school. But in proving that I had written my essay 10 days before it was due, I took a screenshot of sharing my essay with my assigned study group, which I was required to share my research with. I saw nothing but my own paper because no one in my group had written anything by the time I was done. So, in defending myself, they determined that I overshared, and now I have to take the class again.

If you ever feel like you just can’t win – MAN… I feel you. That’s a recurring theme in my life.

I don’t get a grade for the original class and I get to take it again free of charge. So, it’s like getting a free class. I also have to write a 1-page paper that will be shared with future first-year law students about the dangers of oversharing.

And being found “guilty” of oversharing is about the most Sage Lewis thing I could ever be found guilty of. The irony is, I had no intention of oversharing. I wasn’t trying to be kind or helpful. I truly thought I was doing what I was told to do. It’s pretty funny when you get past the deeply frustrating fact that I have to do it all over again.

“You will learn the sin of oversharing [said in my best German Nazi accent].” While I will probably not share much of anything going forward in Law School (who wants my mediocre law ideas anyway), I am too stubbornly stupid to ultimately learn the lesson of oversharing. I’m like that dog that refuses to let go of the moving bus. I just can’t let go, no matter how much it hurts.

I’m deeply honored to get to write that paper to futre 1L’s. I’m hoping I can share something that will help them navigate through this strange gauntlet called Law School. But having to take that class again hit me in a way I just didn’t anticipate.

I just kept saying to myself: “Why am I doing this to myself?”

After Indiana graduates from college next year I will be able to live off of real estate proceeds (because rents are so absurdly high) and a couple clients. I literally could move to Mexico, Southeast Asia or some other expat destination and call it quits.

That ‘just quit’ voice has been sitting under my anger and ego this entire time. It appears that anger and self-righteousness were the drivers of my quest to help homeless people. They kept me going when I felt like I couldn’t go any further.

What is left when your motivation is gone?

I don’t believe systems can be changed. Humanity has been cruel since the beginning. It appears that we may not actually be able to function unless we have someone to torture, abuse and take advantage of. People much greater than I have tried and had no success. Maybe it’s a spell that must be cast. Maybe we must always have a sacrificial lamb. Maybe the gods still demand it.

Trying to help suffering people is like standing in the middle of a hurricane with a bucket, hoping to stop the floods. Hope for change is a childish, naive belief.

Now, in law school, I have to repeat a class that is filled with landmines of ways to fail. “Did you use AI?” “Did you overshare with your research group?”

Legal writing is in the midst of a massive change. What is the point of a legal writing class when we now have a digital alien that can write far more balanced sentences with perfect grammar? As a student, you have to avoid things like em dashes and other phrases you read all the time now, because everything is being written by AI. Otherwise, you will be accused of using AI to write your papers and will fail the class. What a mess.

Why am I putting myself through this?

We live in a country where you go to a protest and stand a legitimate chance of being pepper-sprayed, thrown to the ground, disappeared, and shot in the face, all for literally doing nothing.

Sure. Ice will calm down. But Democrats will keep up the same mass deportations when they are in charge (their morality is directly tied to poll numbers). Don’t think you are making a difference. We will still cruelly murder children in poor countries all over the world and we will continue to ignore poor people in our own country. You would be a fool to bet money on the opposite of happening. Hitler was a big fan of America for a reason.

The best I can do is be this girl hiding food for Jews in a concentration camp in Nazi Germany in the movie, Zone of Interest.

Of course, they end up fighting over the food and get killed.

We are inclined to blame the prisoners for acting selfishly. But they were just hungry. Of course, they were going to fight over the food.

I have lost everything along the way in my fight to help homeless people because a homeless person acted “selfishly” and the system came in and said, “See, Sage. You can’t help these people. They are beyond help. They don’t deserve help. They act like animals.”

They act like animals because they live in a concentration camp called the United States of America. It’s just one giant slave plantation. It always has been. But now that we can’t afford healthcare, day care, food or rent, the varnish is starting to wear off. More people are seeing what it really is. And so more people will start acting like “animals” to survive, and the system will justify more cruelty, more surveillance drones, more prisons, more authoritarianism.

The Supreme Court has been giving more and more power to corporations and the executive branch since 9/11 because that’s how they plan to maintain the American way of life… where landowners live tax-free off the backs of slaves. (You realize you’ll only get your universal basic income when the robots and AI take all the jobs if you prove you have “volunteered” X amount of hours a week for a “charity” or an approved corporation, right?” That’s how food stamps work today. Slavery is right around the corner. But don’t worry. You’ll see the bright side of it all as long as your approved politician makes it happen. They just bounce between 2 slave masters that together appeal to the majority of Americans. You’ve been played this entire time.)

When you lose your ego and your “righteous” rage, all you have left is to tell a satirical story of trying to make things better in a world where nothing can possibly be better. In fact, making things better will do little more than make your life more miserable and put a target on the backs of the people you are helping.

There is, however, one positive part of this mess.

People are thankful for your help. The people who get the help and the people who value helping others. It’s like giving a little gift. It doesn’t really mean anything. It doesn’t really help lift anyone up to a “higher” form of existence. It certainly will never give them a home or a legitimate place in their own society. But it makes them feel better in the moment. Maybe there is some sort of cosmic meaning in that trivial act. It feels pointless. But maybe that is just my ego still trying to determine meaning. Who am I to decide what has a point and what doesn’t? What kind of god do I think I am that I can pretend to understand any of this?

This human existence didn’t come with a rule book. Anyone who thinks they have the rule book and others don’t is further away from God than the agnostic who just shrugs their shoulders in confusion and goes back to watching Netflix. It feels like the point of all this is that there is no rulebook. Like a rat in a maze trying to find the cheese. But in the human maze, we don’t even know what cheese is and what is poison. That feels more accurate than being handed a book that was assembled over centuries and then one day called “The Word of God.”

I feel better today. Thank God. I have never really experienced that feeling of truly not thinking I had the energy to got off the couch to go to the bathroom.

But like all of these feelings and experiences, I’m grateful for each one. These are feelings that are lived by millions, if not billions, of people every day, in all the days. By suffering a little, I feel closer to humanity. That is a great gift. Our connection is our greatest strength, not our minds.

I will go to law school until the day they officially throw me out of law school. I will keep helping until the day they lock me up or kill me for helping (which seems closer now than ever before). I will stand with the people who have no one to stand with.

I do it because I can. I do it because I feel like that is the maze I’m supposed to run. It feels like my calling. It feels pointless. But show me a point to any of this. I’ll just keep doing it until they won’t let me do it anymore.