Thanks for being here. I appreciate your eyeballs and your brain cells, especially on Mondays because you *just* heard from me on Friday. If you have comments, questions, or suggestions (about anything, but especially content and schedule), LMK!
A few months ago (time flies!) I decided to write here, not because social platforms have largely devolved into cesspools of bigotry and stupidity but more because a) I wanted to write in longer form (because I think in longer form) and b) I wanted to spend less time on these insidious platforms and stop supporting the people making gazillions off of the ugliness.
Even so I have continued to use those platforms (primarily Facebook) to opine in microbursts and in real time, as I did this week as the siege of our democracy was unfolding on full display. What I was watching and hearing and reading was easy to react to yet hard to process…I posted my observation that I didn’t recall anyone storming the Capitol four years ago. The fallout from that post was unexpected, the reactions extreme…I needed time to breathe…to process…to reflect.
And you know something? I’m tired.
Life has become, at a macro level, a zero-sum game, one giant debate. Every day, either reading or being part of some useless, draining exchange: argument-rebuttal. Argument-Rebuttal. ARGUMENT-REBUTTAL. ARGUMENT!!!REBUTTAL!!! In the middle of it all, literal and figurative death around us…loss of life (COVID and plenty of other causes) plus the end of both meaningful interpersonal relationships and online acquaintanceships.
Even tired, I need to reflect on my role in this debate, in my role in this life…and it has been a roller coaster of reflection, summed up thusly:
Opinions, assholes…
At least one for everyone.
Not all get respect.
That old saying, “opinions are like assholes; everyone has one” is true to a point—people aren’t limited to only one opinion. And these days that’s a real goddamn shame. Yes the First Amendment guarantees a right to free speech…but it does not guarantee that everyone has to listen to or like your message, let alone respect it.
My mental journey the last few days has been a real rollercoaster (I imagine many of you can relate), starting on Wednesday and careening through Friday, when this emotion was triggered, to today…
EMOTION 1, Befuddlement. How could this be happening and how could anyone be cheering it on? I was angry as I watched things unfold, but more so I couldn’t believe that it was. In the wake of Wednesday’s events, it was suggested to me that all opinions need to be respected. At first I was sure I misheard (negative), and I remain beyond perplexed by this suggestion. As far as I am concerned, opinions that support violence or racism or bigotry or anything anti-humanity are not actually deserving of respect.
I see it this way, that there are layers of “truth” that we all believe. 1) You have cold hard facts (1+1 = 2), 2) you have your meaningless opinions (bourbon neat or rocks?), and 3) you have your personal universal truths, aka, your non-negotiables…like all people are created equal, racism/homophobia/bigotry = bad.
One of my non-negotiables is not to waste any of my respect on the opinion that any one person is any less of a person due to race, sexuality, gender, etc. etc. etc.
The suggestion that all opinions need to be respected left me absolutely befuddled. And angry. I simply cannot get my head around the fact that anyone thinks that all opinions deserve to be respected; I just can’t even…
The more I think about that it in the background while I go about the business of my life, I felt my response drifting a bit to…
EMOTION 2, Bewilderment. It’s Saturday morning and I am sitting on my couch drinking coffee watching CNN and suddenly in my head I hear David Byrne singing “Once in a Lifetime”…in addition to his questions in the song: “how did I get here?”, “how do I work this?”, “what have I done?”, I wonder: what the actual f-ck have we become? From the President and his cronies seemingly celebrating the attack that he seemingly incited to the insurgents stupid enough to broadcast their antics live with faces fully exposed, wearing ID badges and then being surprised and repentant when they were caught, my mind is like a bowl of spaghetti and I can’t for the life of me figure out how anyone could think what was going on was ok or that they’d get away with it.
But the more fallout from the actual riot, the more people I see getting arrested/facing consequences the more I realize that my bewilderment is giving away to…
EMOTION 3, Consternation. I’m past being confused, and I’m thinking more about my experience and feelings. I can’t believe we’re all in the middle of this…and I’m definitely feeling some anxiety and dismay as things are getting personal. Nothing more destructive than when politics get personal. I’m feeling some consequences for things I’ve said…I second guess, I revisit…but I don’t apologize. When my meaningless opinions don’t jive with someone else’s, I am cool with that—and I’m not particularly sorry, because who cares? Meaningless opinions upon which there is disagreement are perhaps best left in a locked closet. (Although there are rare exceptions to the rule. Like if you want to go home to bed but someone suggests having just one more or having a dessert beer, for example. Those differences are worth hashing out.)
I find myself missing the good old days…you know, the days when you didn’t know what people thought about stuff and you had no idea that you actually loathe the people you love?
I’m trying to keep up with the news and the accompanying social discourse, and I remember that I don’t have to sit back and accept things, so as I think things through, I find that I am feeling…
EMOTION 4, Disbelief. I simply can’t believe what I am seeing and hearing. I can’t believe that not every Trump supporter out there has denounced him. I can’t believe that we’ve spent the last months hearing about “the snowflakes and their damn cancel culture” and now those same people are out of their f-cking minds because Trump’s Twitter account was, er, canceled. Where in the Constitution does it say that private business owners can’t do what they want? If you’re ok with that bakery denying that gay couple their cake, you gotta be ok with his social accounts getting suspended. Full stop.
Beyond this I can’t believe that people are comparing apples and oranges with absolute certainty that they are right…yes, they are both fruits, but substitute oranges for apples in your favorite apple pie recipe and see how it goes…so gross, right?
So anyway thinking about someone comparing apples and oranges and sticking their fingers in their ears and singing “la la la I can’t hear you” when anyone tries to talk to them about the difference between apples and oranges leaves me feeling…
EMOTION 4, Frustration. I’m tired, worn down, disappointed in some of the easily avoidable negative outcomes, and feeling a sense of I-don’t-even-know-what. I’ve had enough with the verbal flim-flam and the vitriol and the hypocrisy, as well as the unwillingness to take the time to take and communicate logical, well thought through positions, or to listen to those of others.
“Did I seriously just read that someone compared the riot at the Capitol to a BLM rally?” Again, apples and oranges. I don’t condone violence. I also happen to think that not everything should get slapped with the same label or poured into the same bucket…there are degrees of violence…deciding to take over the nation’s Capitol because you legitimately lost an election and are sulking about it versus protesting hundreds of years of oppression and discrimination? Apples and oranges. As the graduate of a liberal arts institution (go u Bears!) I’m frustrated by the demise of critical thinking.
I had a couple nice walks over the weekend, giving me time to work the frustration through…giving me time and space to remember and remind myself that nothing is being done to me, that I don’t have to worry about anything if I don’t want to. Yes much of the shit I witnessed this week was ridiculous, and yes in general there are enough people who have their facts wrong and think their meaningless opinions are universal truths—but really who cares? Who. F-cling. Cares? Not I.
Before I knew it there it was a spring in my step and I felt the the undeniable feeling of…
EMOTION 5, Hope. For one because I had mentally bitch slapped myself into focusing my thoughts and my reactions on the things in my sphere of influence and control; when I do that I only can feel good and happy and hopeful. Bigger picture, well, in the end I want to believe that “good” will prevail—that logic and reason and facts will make a comeback; that the events of last week have made at least some of the extremists re-think their points and their positions; and that maybe some people pipe down about what they think. I have hope that that we’re able to find more some balance, that we return to politics as they were meant to be, about policy and not personal ideologies.
I honestly was hopeful when Trump won. I was also all of the emotions above, but even so I didn’t accuse him of stealing the election. And I was legitimately hopeful—optimistic that maybe an outsider would be the ticket to shake up Washington. I was wrong. Live and learn. Let’s hope enough people are willing to go into the new presidency with hope and the realization that further division (regardless of who causes it) will create a gap that we currently are incapable of bridging.
It’s not pure hope. As a realist my hope is always tinged, in this case with all of the emotions described above plus more. But I’m digging in on one of my meaningful opinions, one of my universal truths—the unfailing belief that my life is going to be far more pleasant if I focus on positive contribution to making a difference—whether it be developing the most basic personal habit or making a larger socio-political impact. I am hopeful when I mentally flip through what matters to me and to my own commitments—there is so much to enjoy and so much left to do. I’m going to remain committed to finding facts and drawing my own conclusions, and to trying my damndest to adhere to this rule: don’t say it or do it unless you think it’s going to advance or elevate things. Well, that or give people an innocent laugh—because we all could use a few of those.
Have a great week. I feel like this is the right song to start it off with. And thanks again for being here.