I haven’t said anything on the debacle in America for a little while, in many ways there’s nothing that needs to be said. Irrespective of which particular fiasco of a ‘government’ you currently find yourself living under, I think Ursula Le Guin puts it well:
And in alienating ourselves, we do tend to find things a little tricky. There’s almost nothing that can be said about the ignorance and stupidity that can lead people to put dictators into power, who will so clearly erode their own ability to function … but to a certain extent we all do it. Britain certainly did it with Brexit; an absolute shitshow from the start, literally funded by Russian influence and stoked by the twunts who purchased our media outlets and fooled people into voting for something that was so profoundly self-harming there still isn’t a single benefit that has surfaced, even 7 years later.
Oh we really did get blue passports? Wow, that was worth 7% of our entire GDP every year, then! Oh hold on, we could’ve had blue passports under the EU anyway? Hmm … maaaybe Brexit wasn’t such a great idea? Hmmmmm …
In a way it’s just sad; sad that people can still bang those gongs of division and hatred. Of power and diminishing of the ‘other’. It leads me to feel very sad for anyone still trapped in the blinded mindset of the MAGA. Or the ethically redundant ‘politics’ of Reform. It must be a full time job, generating all the Copium required to fuel those delicate egos. What a sadness. What a tragic way to live.
True story:
A few weeks back, I walked past an old man sitting beside the glass door of the building we were in – he caught my attention on the way out and asked me to pass him his Daily Mail (don’t get me started … this is too perfect an analogy as it is), which he’d left on a bench just outside the building.
I opened the door and fetched his newspaper for him before the door closed. He did not say thank you. Whatever.
Two minutes later, when I returned from the carpark to the door and tapped the glass for his attention, asking him to open it for me (it was an automatic door, but would open from the inside), he purposefully ignored me, not even willing to press the button to open the door. So I had to phone reception for access.
While I waited for reception, I stood outside and smiled the pained smile of someone witnessing nothing but the gradual decay of the miserable.
I
do find it quite hard, witnessing people who live like this. Who ask for little favours but who cannot conceive of returning them, no matter how simple it would be to do so. People locked in their glass houses, seeing everything and nothing. Angry at the ‘other’, at the immigrants, the Muslims, the thiefs and rapists they read so much about, unable to look into the statistics or seek the truth; that they are an integral part of this reality. Living well is a bit of a dance, and one we are constantly invited to join. The price of admission tends to be humility.
Far easier to ignore it, to build our walls and fire the daggers of judgement from our eyes at anyone who might come near.
“Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster… for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you.” ~ Nietzsche
But then I suppose this is all a bit high-brow, and as Hitler’s propagandist said; you can ignore the intelligentsia and just pander to the fears of the masses, who will overcome the historians and those who actually know what they’re talking about, destroying any opponents you have through sheer mass of ignorance. Golf claps, everybody.
Who needs free healthcare and decent education, when we can have … toxic groundwater and a completely pointless war that supports genocide? Is it? Is this what we voted for? Hmm.
It’s all too sad. When will this nightmare end? Life will go on at any rate but who will remember what was lost?
Two weeks ago, we swept away the 16 yo authoritarian regime in my country (with election, not by force).
“…listen I love you joy is coming.”
Not making excuses for your “old man” but depending on how old he was, he may not have had all his faculties in play to begin with — left his paper outside, perhaps didn’t recognize someone with whom he just had a recent interaction, Daily Mail…. Of course, on the other hand, he may have just been a jackass, and has always been so.
Regardless, kindness is its own reward. We just have to keep at it, expecting nothing in return.
Had to let this comment sit for a bit. Then I discarded it and started over.
I had become numb, often resigned to the thought, “This, too, shall pass.” Not exactly the “Carpe Diem” I’d prefer to b living. Fortunately, something came along recently that woke me the fuck up.
I have a side-gig working at the San Diego cruise ship terminal helping passengers through the processes of boarding and leaving their cruises. There is nothing quite like helping people at both ends of their vacations! Yet life outside is certainly present in the terminal.
A few weeks ago, as I was working in Passport Control ensuring folks had all the right papers in all the right places, across the way I noticed a woman wearing a fiercely red T-shirt with three rows of white capital block letters on the back that said, “EMOTIONAL SUPPORT CANADIAN”.
In that moment, I felt so hugged. Seen. Loved. Befriended by a neighbor. When I finished checking-in my current passenger, I dashed over and told her, “You’re better than any teddy bear. Thanks!”
I’ve been repeating that story ever since, as often as possible. Nobody is ever in anything totally alone. Even folks you don’t know are pulling for you. It’s important to see and hear those sharing that message, then pass it on.
Since then, I’ve felt a bit more free to live, to breathe, to engage with the local light rather than the demoralizing doom.
I was at an annual tech trade show last week that hosts a social hour after the first day, where they always host a Mexican buffet with a free beer and a live cover band. I was sitting there, alone, minding my own business, eating my plate of taquitos and chips, nursing my beer, bouncing a bit to the cover band, when this woman came out of nowhere and told me to put my food down and get up and dance!
My social anxiety instantly kicked in, and I started to refuse. I hadn’t danced since COVID, and I used to dance fairly often (rock, swing, Zydeco, whatever). Then I thought of my Emotional Support Canadian, and I realized I was being offered something else I needed. So I got up and danced! We were the only ones dancing, so of course the hundreds of folks present noticed, but we were just having fun in the moment.
The next day at the trade show, we bumped into each other again, and shared a hug and thanks. Then everyone around us started talking all at once about our dancing, and how they wished they had also danced. After leaving that group, it kept happening as I visited other vendor booths. Got into some rather existential and philosophical conversations.
Nobody talked about politics, or world events, or the economy, or human rights. Those things are important, but they are a relatively small part of the daily lives we lead.
Let’s connect more, and isolate less. Let’s energize each other. Break the gloom, and see what’s unleashed.
Personally, I’m exhausted, my social battery wrung completely dry. It’s capacity, never much to begin with, had been atrophying for years behind my anxiety. It’s charging back up, and I’m gonna get out there and run it dry again!
I don’t care about your political persuasion: I’ll dance with you!