Straight, no Chaser - Thelonius Monk
Find here a meandering trip through a couple of media Monks: TV Monk and Percival Everett's narrator in his novel Erasure. Both are refreshingly humorous and complex. Everett's Monk is more academic; TV's Monk is more popular. Both great food for thought. The opinions here are my own, though they often respond to the work of others.
It's turning out to be a long one as I work on it over multiple sessions, so I might break it up into separate but linked posts at some point.
If you make it all the way to the end, as it stands today, props!
As an artist and just a human being, I like to watch TV that my mom likes to watch, too, like Monk. Remember that show? I think it has 8 seasons and started in the 2000s?
I'm really getting a kick out of Monk because I can identify so much with the character, not in the exact same ways (I don't have the germ phobia), but the way his mind works, and how both endearing and annoying it is to other people, but these sort of medium people help him connect with the world. I can identify with that, too. And somehow they make it funny and something you can use to solve problems. I love that.
I'm presently on S1: E10 "Mr. Monk Takes a Vacation." I love how Monk and the Hotel security character interact. Neither of them really knows entirely what they're doing, but they do. And it's up to them now, consequences and all. That's the scary part. You're like, no, I don't want to be in charge. It would be better if the chief was there, although sometimes not, too.
I haven't finished it yet. I'm curious to see what the kids can accomplish unsupervised, and what kind of vibe that is.
These are basically midlife-crisis coming-of-age stories: being a no-doubt-about-it adult in middle age, like this is where people go to die, or so you thought. That's the next stop, right? Childhood, adulthood, middle age (which is basically old age to younger people), death. We forget about the in-between parts, just skip right by them in our minds when we're younger. So, you're like winding down, but then you're thrown into a new element, and it's ... well, you're not dead yet, you realize, and it starts to be fun again, like Jazz, perhaps.
The idea that ADHD is Awesome by the Holderness family is also like that, I am going to wager, but I haven't read the book yet. So many books on my list, this one, too.
On the horn currently is Percival Everett's novel Erasure. I could NOT keep up with that description of the experimental novel genre in the narrator's paper presentation, especially because I'm listening to an audiobook production and can't see the more technical aspects he describes. It was close but no cigarette. It sounded like the narrator is explaining how too much innovation in writing leaves no stable ground upon which to construct meaning.
I completely understand what he's saying in general, as would most people who've studied post-modern fiction and criticism or simply tried reading it and failed to understand half of it. When I was in school, we students loved the discovery of the Bad Writing Contest, which had as one of the winners one of the main thinkers we were studying: Judith Butler. Post-modern fiction draws attention to language as a medium, not just its message.
This is relevant to a Marshall McLuhan idea: "the medium is the message," and we should study the language itself more closely than the message, i.e. not assume that the message is a stable, given, objective thing. Meaning in language is slippery because words have complex uses and histories. We can use the same word for different meanings: for example, with homonyms like post, which can mean letters, the action of "posting" letters, the past, a pole used for making fences, and so on. Words act literally, as in the example of a letter or a fence post, or figuratively as with metaphors and similies: "I felt as numb/dumb as a fence post."
Post-modern writing draws attention to language often to destabilize meaning and alienate the reader from their usual interpretations. It often encourages attention to our own interpretations as mere possibilities, not facts. This can and should be productive, but it can also just end up being confusing as hell.
What it does for me is encourage me to use my words with awareness of their complex uses and histories, though a person only has so much energy for self-awareness in speech, so I try to give myself and others grace in how they speak, and I try to be aware of how and when there may be differences between my interpretations and someone else's intentions. While meanings outside of intentions are important, I do also believe intentions matter, which goes against my literary training, but that is my human conclusion from experience both inside and outside of the academy.
I think the narrator may be accusing his peers of laziness in their post-modern writing as well. There's an impression that writers sometimes add or leave destabilizing factors that should be edited out with the larger meaning of the work in mind, but instead, the writer throws their hands up in the air, saying, "Well, meaning is elusive anyway, so I'm going to let it do what it will," and essentially placing too great of the burden of understanding on the reader, rationalizing with something like, "If they don't get it, then that's their problem," or "they're not smart enough or tolerant enough of the wild bucking bronco that is language."
That doesn't seem to be good enough for the narrator, and I can sympathize. It reminds me of a notion I picked up in my undergrad that when our writing isn't clear, neither is our thinking. Everett's narrator's work essentially parodies the work necessary for the reader of the works of his peers, and it displays in painstaking detail how even very intelligent readers can be left simply chasing their own tails through such writing.
My personal complaint about the narrator's commentary about this genre is that I didn't hear (or perhaps simply didn't understand) any strengths or hope noted about the style of writing he criticizes. I personally prefer the Rogerian style of critical writing, which begins by demonstrating what you do authentically understand and appreciate about another person's work before moving away from it with your own ideas or describing useful boundaries of understanding and interpretation.
Either way, I like the main character. He's interesting, sort of wild west in the way he thinks, if not outwardly in the culture. He's onto something, but it just pisses people off. He does it anyway, he claims, because there's nothing at stake, but meanwhile there's people who would devote their lives to the opportunity that he has, but then why are they so hard about it? He has devoted his life to it, too. It's hard for them to watch because they think he's just being a dick, but it's like ... they're still speaking too different of languages. The bridge is missing.
Take it to the bridge (James Brown).
But other people get him, and so he never knows what he's going to get: keys thrown at him or offered a drink at the bar.
A bit of free association, my own, after a couple of chapters:
The dashes are how words get put together. That's what I took from the professor's speech, but there's this argument going on between two sides. One is like, we have enough words. Why can't we use the ones we've got. You young people don't realize how much new shit we've had to absorb. Don't create new words just for the sake of creating new words. Learn the language we already speak, please.
And the other side is like, we've been trying to tell you that we get it. Trust us. We're using your tricks. Watch for them. Enjoy them. We've been listening.
And the other side is like, But have you?
...
Then an elder pops in to clarify the relevance to my own queries, the ones leading me through life:
Dance like no one is watching, hon.
Thank you, D.
After a couple more chapters, it becomes clear that the novel Erasure is more about the odd way that novelty can often reinforce old hateful legacies. I'm only on chapter 5, so don't take my word for it definitively, but the refining understanding as I listen comes to me as the narrator explains his relationship to the people at the conference in terms of a conversation between Hitler and Eckart after the first world war, embittered by rejection.
Rather than trying to understand and be mentored by professors and "translators" discouraging hate, Hitler and Eckart double down. In some ways, they choose their own alienation and use it to connect with others also alienated, by making them elite through scapegoating and white pride. It connects to the problematic polarity addressed in Crucial Conversations of "silence and violence."
Cancel culture is in this territory of slippery slope, unfortunately. The old lady in me wants people to be more thoughtful about this trend.
It can go either way. I've lived this way at times in my life. Both staying with and canceling can and should be treated with care. Healthy boundaries, once we are able to get there, are more nuanced and tolerant, not because we tolerate or encourage hate, but because we all have it and must face it in our lives. It's not just "other people" who have hate. All humans have it. It is unfortunately so close to love that therein lies its danger.
The body has an analogy. It's like, why did Gods put the fun center so close to the sewer line!
It reminds us to use care. That's my simple, knee jerk answer at the moment.
I appreciate the way the narrator, Monk, invites us to consider the danger of the underdog archetype, especially when it continues to claim underdog status when it has become dominant or when it fails to acknowledge its true power, shirking its responsibility as the underdo, i.e. blaming or leaving too much for the master to clean up. The master often scapegoats the underdog, and the underdog can also often scapegoat the master. Both of these reinforce, rather than productively destabilize the disparity in power.
I LOVE the underdog. That's me, 100%. But there's pitfalls. There are many aspects to this. Regarding narrator Monk, with the angry audience of his paper, he highlights how aligning with the underdog can sometimes be a ploy of ... laziness or insecurity rather than true genius. It can be a mark of dangerous intolerance.
I see this as whats-his-name attacks Monk rather than employing curiosity and engaging in an actual conversation, especially after Monk reveals that he doesn't understand what they do, which is a move to de-escalate, step back, and reassess. However, the insulted man doubles down on his artistic purity. He keeps coming at him. The guy has lost his temper and half of his brain. This is what happens. Probably so has Monk. When we are confronted with hostility, fear floods our nervous system, and we lose a bunch of our higher brain function.
The narrator describes "potato eyes so vacant" that apply to not only the angry man at the conference but also, Hitler and Eckart, and the hateful protestors of abortion who attack his sister, a doctor, at her workplace.
He's following an interesting line of recognition of how pain-motivated hate works in insidious ways. Hitler was an underdog. That is a big caution. Extreme reactions to rejection can seem justified, but are they? It's important to ask. Sometimes, yes. Sometimes, no. In the novel, when angry, these characters all believe they're in the right (the narrator included), protecting their culture, or protecting something, but, when we've got the "potato eyes" is it not just rationalizing bullying rather than working out differences with mentors, peers, and critics? Are they not even curious to know why others disagree? Do "potato eyes" even allow curiosity about a bigger picture?
Are the antagonists (villains) in Everett's story interested in a bigger picture than the one in their own minds? No, they're not. They're interested in power, not the truth of the matter, not true connection. They assume they know best. We all face times when we want to give up on trying to connect and be understood, and it can be a tremendously valuable thing to go our own way when we're stifled in our environment, but gone are the days when we can afford to abide by the ethos of the warring tribes that we all come from somewhere down the line. Even people on the other side of the world are our neighbours in some important ways. Now is not the time to give up. We take time out, cool off, heal, let wisdom lead us, and we try again.
What strikes me about this story is that it shows how being too hot is the mark of a leader in trouble. This person may be someone who we can gain insights from, but not when overwhelmed with rage. Why? Again, their brain is not fully functional. But also, they are refusing to accept the larger world they live in. That often comes from fear, a caged imagination.
Great leaders maintain both the boundaries and the capacity to listen to voices they don't want to hear and weigh all of it up, respectfully, and draw their conclusions from a place of calm consideration. They do not ignore important factors, leaving out what is inconvenient or unpopular, or popular for that matter. They take the time.
Let's not forget that the narrator has somewhat done this himself by writing a paper that he admitted included very little understanding of his peers' work, but that was the point. In those circles, dismissing the meaning of someone's work is a form of violence, but the "injured" man, in victim mindset, escalates to an unhelpful throwing of keys and shouting of insults. No curiosity. Some of what he says in his defense is true, but his conclusions are... vague. They resort to petty insult. Moreover, it is not a conversation. Objectively, he is lashing out, calling for everyone's attention, but not offering any useful insight or way forward. He's trying to "cancel" Monk.
The narrator doesn't know how to de-escalate either, besides admitting that there's some significant misunderstanding occurring. The narrator's standpoint seems to be interested in discussing that tension, and I find as a reader that I'm interested in what he's onto, while the other guy is enraged and brow-beating. He's doing what he felt was done to him. A lot more could be accomplished if the man would admit that he only vaguely understood Monk's work, and they sat down to a beer and nachos at the bar to talk, but buddy has a temper tantrum, and it closes off literally all other conversations as well. Everyone is rapt with this conflict, just watching to see what happens.
The woman who wants to sleep with Monk is the only one who bothers to try to talk to him. Everyone else just talks about him.
And on and on it goes. Where is the academic who can understand and mediate? There isn't one. Monk isn't interested in the offer of sex, so, it appears to be up to Monk. He's essentially, effectively isolated from the community, in part by his own doing, in part by the other guy's.
The guy feels threatened, like fight-for-your-life, someone-is-trying-to-kill-my-baby threatened. He needs a time out, maybe to get laid, as Monk suggests. It's probably not as simple as that, but then maybe it is.
This shouting match, to me, marks the line between two choices: 1. letting the fear of loss and an inability to control the world around us go, to accept that the picture of life is bigger than we are, that we don't and should not get to dictate the natural flow of life; and 2. doubling down with violence. The one character (Monk) tries to move like water, still fully aware of his right to participate, following the flow of life that moves him. The other is like exploding volcanoes, colliding continents, "I'll show you whether you like it or not."
My impression is that Monk has, in fact, proved to the man that even smart readers struggle to find meaning in his work. Monk's work takes his confidence out at the knees by exposing the flaw in his assumption that he is able to instill meaning in his work "without even trying." When he says that, he admits that he's been lazy, but his temper tantrum shows that he is not willing to accept the consequences of that: hence the throwing of keys and shouting of insults. I think he calls Monk a "mimetic hack" for his demonstration of the tail chasing that comes when trying to read formulaic post-modern fiction.
Another awesome find in grad school is the post-modern generator. Some people figured out how to get computers to write commentary about culture that sounds like it means something but doesn't. Monk's criticism reminds me of this. There's a new satirical tool like this out now, too. I haven't looked at it yet, but I will.
So this man's work has been camped with such formulaic gibberish. It is understandable that he would feel threatened, for sure, but his reactions simply serve to strengthen this move.
To the "injured" man's utter frustration, there is a complete miss in getting his point across, assuming he as one besides feeling hurt. He makes nothing but a very poor impression on his opponent and offers yet more reason for Monk to ignore what he says. Even so, the narrator continues to think about it and try to understand his repugnance toward the man. It's interesting because Monk is actually the one destabilizing the now not-so-new "new" writing style, but the academy is so busy with the old "new" style that it fails to recognize the value of Monk's work and his criticisms. In some cases, as with displayed with this man, jealousy gets in the way.
This tension between them is interesting. This is true to life when real innovation arises.
The narrator, a natural innovator, continues to think through what bugs him about it, as he admits to his sister that he doesn't know how to talk to people. "I know," she tells him, but there's something special about you, she adds. She's gentle, and this gentleness keeps him following the bigger picture. He listens to his sister.
I am personally grateful that I have siblings who encourage me to gentleness as well, who assure me of how I add to their lives in beautiful ways, not just troublesome ones. These kind of core relationships, when they are reliable like mine have been, also like my mother, aunties, uncles, and cousins, and their families, too, and my pets, are helpful in resolving the tensions we get ourselves into in the great wild world of our lives outside of theirs. They know us. They know we're caring people, if a bit rough around the edges. Family can be a great guide towards gentler ways, though not all of us have this kind of healthy influence in our families.
Some people find new families for this. The Ugly Duckling told and interpreted by Estes in Women Who Run with the Wolves offers some great insights about what to do in such situations. We move through the world until we find others like us. We naturally seek others who understand and appreciate us for who we are. This in turn can teach us how to be inclusive and tolerant of difference but still with healthy boundaries.
In the nowadays great long stretch of adulthood, we learn to be individuals within those communities, too. The community is like a parent we need to separate from to a certain extent to realize our potential. We need both togetherness and difference, not complete merging OR complete separation.
Great leaders don't speak up out of vanity, like jealous folks like to claim, but of following a thread of truth that moves them. They know it doesn't always land well, but they try to de-escalate when it inflames others. They take the time because it's important. Democracy is necessarily slow, not just for show. It's not meant to be a spectacle or a performance but actual research and engagement. Great leaders follow the guidance of love when they know they're lost.
This narrator models that sort of honestly life-affirming movement through confusion. He's onto something, but he doesn't simply dismiss his peer's work and reactions to his own. He continues to take them in and respond to them, though he's a bit aimless and isn't entirely sure of himself. He faces alienation himself. He doesn't want to write just for commercial value but for ... something else. He doesn't follow meaning, per se, or at least he doesn't believe he does. I'm not so sure.
Either way, I suspect we will discover many more interesting insights about life as we follow him through the maze of conversational confusion that is his life.
The tension that strikes me at this point in the novel is that when great injustice occurs (not just a fear of something happening in the future, but actual, factual events), it is hard to know when to put our guns in the ground, to surrender to our powerlessness against the pains of life.
I don't know the answer to this question. I only know that when we really do want the peace of justice, we need to watch that we ourselves are just. I only know that violence is not the way I hope for. And I know that peace in the world begins with peace within. We can't expect peace around us when we ourselves act with violence, when we keep picking fights and refusing to take responsibility for them. In Monk's admission that he doesn't know how to talk to people, I see him taking responsibility for the fight he has picked, at least internally.
We are not responsible for other people's actions, but we must keep in mind, for our own sanity and safety, that people (ourselves included) who are flooded with rage, factually, biologically, are not operating with a fully functional brain. Anger is a strong emotional activation. Rage shuts down massive portions of our brains. It is expedient and necessary in emergencies to act decisively, but rage tells us that every moment calls for such extremes. We must hear it and express it safely. We must moderate its heat, allow the rest of our brains to come online, especially when we interact with others, but also when we are alone in our own minds.
There comes a time when we have a choice between the route of "going postal" (as children, we call it having a temper tantrum) and finding gentler ways for ourselves and others. Getting revenge, proving we are right, even just relentless nagging, can be a straight shot to becoming our own worst enemies, and the enemies of the people we love.
When we want revenge, I believe, what our souls really want is healing, acceptance, understanding. We are in pain. Unfortunately, no matter the cause, it is our responsibility to address our own pain. It is ours. "Making" others feel the pain we feel does not help. It hurts us even more because this causes tremendous guilt, which is tremendously painful on top of the pain we are already feeling. Trust me. As tempting as it may feel sometimes, purposely causing others pain devastates ourselves. Might as well just eat hot coals.
Hitler sought understanding in Eckart, who appealed to the common folks, but did Eckart guide with balance? I don't know. I don't know much about him.
Everett's novel invites us to learn more about Hitler in his middle years, between World War 1 and World War 2. Trump reminds many of us of Hitler, and it scares the shit out of us. I was accused of being like Trump by someone who rose and ruled through hostility, not trying to balance and resolve the tensions among people. He rose by creating fear among people. He accused me of exactly what he was doing himself.
Watch out for this in potential or incumbent leaders, people to admire and follow, or not (with most people, there is a bit of both, no pure one way or the other). I was no saint, like any other human being, and this person I mention above used my imperfections (blown out of proportion) to scapegoat me and justify his fear-mongering gossip about me and the heavy-handed policies and his own propensity to break them, to move the goal posts with prejudice.
This is one of the signs of narcissism. (Remember that I'm not an expert, just experienced and have done lots of research).
Oh, his prejudice always had "reasonable" justifications, except that they weren't reasonable. Watch for rationalizations of double standards and hypocrisy in others and in oneself, though not expecting perfection. Life is full of contradictions. We do our best and hope for no more from others. Watch out for people who expect perfection, watch out for this expectation in oneself. This suggestion can help us move away from narcissistic drama.
Oh, s/he can be reasonable and definitely not evil, but his/her way is the way, or it's the highway. Sadly, the bullying, the polarizing often works within communities, and critical voices are silenced rather than considered when we align too closely with the ones who stimulate our fear, when we don't take actions to broaden our own perspectives beyond fear.
And absolutely, under such regimes, injustices occur as a norm even as official processes are developed to establish "reasonable standard practices." Such absolute leaders keep moving the goal posts.
I am far from perfect, so I try to talk to leaders as I do my job. For me, the sign of a dangerous leader is one who refuses to talk, or who just tells me what I want to hear and works against me behind my back, or outright attacks me for asking questions, accusing me of being a "know-it-all" or challenging their authority. No, I love authority I can trust. Oh, I can definitely talk to much and can be overly intellectual, but I LOVE other people's authority. I need it because I don't know everything, so I try to work with other people's authority, so I have a lot of experience with different types of leaders.
For those who know me well, I hope they understand that when I talk a lot, I'm trying to say, This is how I understand things. How do YOU understand them? Are they the same? Different? What am I getting right, in your perspective? What am I getting wrong? I want to know. I talk, and then I listen intently for ringing and tension. There is almost always both.
Take it from me, a stubborn child who wants to understand why so she can get behind it and do it well, that when this is the reaction you get, you know you're trying to connect with a dominantly authoritarian archetype. Intolerance. Heavy-handed reprisal or malicious subterfuge. Control, as opposed to openness and respect.
We're all capable of being authoritarians. Toddlers are authoritarians. They simply have no power. But think about it for a minute. WHEN do we resort to authoritarianism? When we're frigging spent, when we've got nothing left to give, or when we are threatened and disconnected from others.
Try putting an authoritarian on equal footing with their constituents, like actual equal footing, not just on paper. Watch and see how fast we soften when our survival is bound up together. We learn to cooperate with each other or we don't survive. We come back into mouse and monkey brain. Lizard wizard loosens the reigns at least a bit, and here's the kicker: life gets easier in healthy ways.
But in the real world, without such real-life equalization and connection, narcissistic leaders often successfully train everyone to hang their lives upon the moral center of the narcissist, not on true principles but on the iron will of this one person, as if they have God-like understanding and social efficacy. Whether the leader intends it that way or not doesn't necessarily matter. The effects are important, either way, because their words and actions make it dangerous to even disagree, very dangerous.
But this intolerance of different views is the true danger to humanity, to healthily functioning democratic communities. We NEED people to disagree with each other and HEAR each other, but in polemical, narcissistic politics, fear and chaos rule. The narcissistic leader creates chaos and steps in as the saviour. S/He behaves as if being elected or hired puts them above laws of accountability, as if they are the only ones who can lead the way.
It is how cults are formed. Don't forget that. Don't drink the Koolaid. Take a skeptical distance on issues when the blood starts to boil. The best we can do is watch our own reactions and take responsibility for them.
No one is above human law but nature. Our laws of accountability are, at least in their conceptual intention, reflections of insights about very real natural laws. They are social translations of real, physical boundaries and laws of motion, energy exchange, gravity, and so on. That's my educated guess, anyway.
The problem is that the people who make policies of accountability have the privilege of making them, and they face both internal and external pressures and biases that lean the laws into reinforcing old power structures, or "new" old ones, and when we have an authoritarian influencing laws, we all suffer. Narcissism prevents people from seeing others as "real" people, and the laws don't take human factors into account.
Most of us have diverse personalities that include the odd swings into the narcissistic spectrum and others into the nervous spectrum. This is human. To me, the key is remembering to listen as well as speak, without expecting perfection from self or others while still being honest about our boundaries and asking others about theirs, and sometimes clarifying with true curiosity how well we understand them, making room for theirs as well as our own.
When leaders don't listen, or don't have the capacity to listen to the people subject to the policies they create, they fail. Everybody fails. Who was the greatest detriment to German culture? Hitler. He claimed that he wanted to protect it. He absolutely destroyed it. One man who refused to take feedback and built his platform of success upon stealing the wealth and dignity of one entire race to give it to another. Warring Clan (us/them) politics in a global time. Dangerous.
My insight in working with active micro-democracies is that when we support leaders' capacity to speak and be heard as well as listen and truly hear, problems can and do smooth out.
Germans were not evil people, not inherently evil, but the Nazi system, inherently intolerant, was evil. Some people believe that this was made possible because of our modern economic policies. The severe economic sanctions put on Germany after the First World War made people desperate and ... along comes someone who offers to alleviate that pressure.... We "cancelled" Germany after WWI in a problematic way.
We need to be very careful how much we are influenced by money and how much we use money to influence others in our privileged countries. There are very real dangers to putting people in this kind of desperation. We are lucky there are not more Hitlers in the world because there is a LOT of very unrighteous sanctioning in our world, which in certain contexts is basically a form of exploitation. Devalue the culture, justify all manners of theft.
And I am so proud of activists today who are going a different way. There is a lot of great work going on in the world around this. One leader who I follow is Gabe Torres. She is a shining light in a time when we need change that establishes itself through resisting systems of oppression and investing in systems that support healing, safety, and freedom in community.
So, as far as I understand it, Western economics is one of the culprits of WWII, the Jewish genocide included, and the Western world is also a culprit in most modern world conflicts. Why are we still reinventing the same old hypocritical economic wheel? Why are we still allowing our leaders to use economics to dangerously depress people and their rights to follow the natural flow of their lives? Why are we allowing them to use it to depress us?
They claim, "Oh, we'll wait and see what the economy does." The economy is man-made. Why are the people making the rules pretending that they don't make the rules? Why are they pretending that it is not THEIR tool?
What is left of the middle class is being decimated (this has been happening for a while now) while we all buy this fear-driven narrative about the Economy monster or God, as if it is a natural, high power sort of phenomenon and not a human construction.
People with money to lend are making fortunes while people borrowing are going bankrupt and homeless. Everything is getting more expensive. They say it's because consumers are purchasing too much. EXCUSE ME? We are participating in the system that government tightly linked to powerful economic agents have created.
Most of us are doing the best we can. We follow the policies handed down to us, and when they fail, we are the ones who pay. Our governments, at least in socialist countries like Canada, try to give some of that money back, but what about private businesses that make profits by passing off costs to the consumer that businesses are supposed to assume themselves? There is much room for improvement there.
This is the narcissistic bait and switch. The economic system created by our leaders has been given the status of God: "Oh, we don't know what it's going to do." I'm sorry, but we do know what it's going to do. We know what it's doing. Don't fall for the narcissistic rationalization.
My hypothesis here is that our political economics are narcissistic, and we are getting royally screwed, but we CAN recover from narcissistic abuse and its effects on our own sanity and ability to lead healthy and happy lives.
But, it takes work, and we all need to do it. I think this is where we are.
My hope, a few years ago, was in seeing that there are some economists actually interested in real research, but mostly, it's theory that is tone deaf to results, at least on the public stage.
Now, I can see that things are still getting worse. They are not getting better socio-economically.
Part of what broke my heart in my career is that I thought all of this awareness that I saw in academia would build into change, but then Obama bailed out the banks. That broke my heart. Then Trump came along... and homelessness, addictions, and things like depression and anxiety are at all-time highs.
I'm not blaming these two political leaders for everything. I'm speeding through a whole host of world events, but these two did have big impact at critical points, some of it for good, some of it not. They are just examples that we need to understand for our own sakes, not to blame everything on but to learn how to dance with this confusing modern life, to figure out how to contribute meaningfully, offering healing and love, not only angst. It's up to us.
And on that note, I am not only here to spread doom and gloom. Things are bad, don't get me wrong. They are going very badly, and we are letting them, in some ways that we don't even realize, and in other ways that we do but we can't find a way out of them. In other ways, we are doing exactly what we need to but the people who matter aren't listening.
The question when I come to a place like this is always something like, "Ok, how do I reclaim some of my own power?" And I start taking steps towards that and seeing how it goes. We have to see how it goes. We can't assume that our old ways are going to work when we're in this kind of turmoil.
I wonder if the Societies model should be applied to private business as well, in principle, somehow. I wouldn't begin to know how to do this, but in non-profit societies, the business is supposed to reinvest all profits into the business (including in its human resources - a parallel to investors or shareholders - the people, and stakeholders, who cooperate to produce the service or goods) or into the community. When a non-profit does well, so does its staff and its community. Is this an ethos that can be worked into laws around private business profits?
Even in micro-democracies like non-profit businesses, small towns, families, one of the things I think we CAN do is get better at deciphering the narcissistic bullshit and deal with our own pain.
I am not an expert, but I did read experts who defined Trump as a narcissist. I take that seriously. Love him or hate him, he's ill, and he's done some damage. So did Obama when he bailed out those banks. That was a MASSIVE fail, I'm sorry to say. I LOVE(D) Obama, but that was a massive fail in leadership.
The public is tired of the institutions benefiting while the people pay, disproportionately. Trickle down my ass. That's just another word for communism. It's quasi-aristocratic corporate communism under a different name. Our Western economic political order absolutely centralizes resources, primarily in the hands of economic giants, and then what?
How are the institutions and individuals primarily benefiting from high interest rates redistributing the wealth centralized, garnered, taken from the general population, which struggles to pay mortgages and buy groceries, struggles to maintain the debt? Trickle down my ass.
Our political system has the tendency to punish people indefinitely without regard for the human realities of life under its policies. Take Cuba for example. Let Cuba have its medicine, not because you've forgiven past leader Castro for being a dictator, not unlike some other political leaders we know, who are our main trading partners, but because Cuban people deserve to have fucking medicine. This is an issue of principle to me. What are your principles? Are double-standards principled? No.
How is the western world justified in continuing to prevent basic human rights of an entire country of people while actively trading with others that use the same political ideology? We're not. We have cleaning up to do. I love that people are asking our leaders for this world accountability.
I appreciate being Canadian on this point, though Canada has much room for improvement. At least as a nation, we maintain relations with Cuba. I don't know much about it beyond that, but the principle means something to me.
Principle is not just what people say (i.e. "We support freedom and opportunity and human rights"), but what they do (i.e. "Except if we don't like your political views and are too weak to fight beyond your own borders"). Both. Sometimes it's one or the other. Sometimes it's both. Here, we're looking for our actions to match with our expressed principles.
Do our leaders solve OUR problems, the problems of their own people, or primarily create chaos and profit from it, with, for example, Covid vaccines (that was Trump)? Note that this kind of disaster capitalism has been in the works for many decades now. It has been refined. It is a well-oiled machine. We need to learn its ways and learn to dance with it as global and local citizens.
How the fudge are we going to be able to do that AND keep paying the mortgage and feed the kids and the dog? Exactly.
I don't know. The best I can come up with is family values, diverse ones. Love each other well. Treat people like people. Spend time with others, give your business to people who treat people like people, not coddling them, but properly like human beings, not trying to get more out than they're putting in.
Balance.
The odd thing is that what we're describing here is a phenomenon in which the underdog, the true grass roots can get caught up in the same ethos as the authoritarian top, even coming from below. This is the kind of ocean current we don't want to ride for too long. It's the kind that lands texas-sized islands of unbiodegradable, toxic garbage across the ocean. Is this the legacy we want to ride? No.
No single one of us can save the world, but we can have a tremendous influence on other people's health when we put health (a beautifully multifaceted phenomenon I will write more about) over and above economy, which is a TOOL, not a guiding light.
Don't underestimate the power of being a loving human being in our own communities. On the world stage, it might not feel like much, but this is where it all begins and ends. Take heart. Love.
The economy is just a tool. It is not the goal. It is not a God or even a wild animal. When you write a letter, does the pencil tell you what to write? No. The economy is just a pencil. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think so. We are unnecessarily in awe of it. Yes, it is complex, but we human beings decide things like interest rates, not the pencil.
I have participated in working on legal language, and from this experience, I know how complex the job is of trying to create policy that is morally, ethically, inclusively, balanced and based in reality, policy that supports TRUE democracy and equality. These concepts are more complex than most of us will ever fully understand. I'm among the befuddled bunch, but I've worked inside enough to say, PLEASE don't let anyone tell you that you should simply ignore what is being done because you're not an expert. Educate yourself. Respect your own needs and the needs of us fellow creatures.
We need our democracies to work. It is up to us. Keep going.
I personally don't care whether the moon landing was faked. I'm more interested in Truth and Reconciliation and UNDRIP (The United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples). Why? Because the non-indigenous "majority" purportedly HAS these rights, while Indigenous people don't, hence the law to guide the world towards them. There is wisdom in these movements, notably, the right to self-determination. I feel like we could all get better at that, better at curiosity about each other's rights to self-determination, at the grass-roots level.
Moreover, we were all indigenous somewhere at some point in history. We are all displaced in one way or another. We do not get to escape the harms of the legacy of land theft because we have benefited from it somewhere down the line. Sorry. It doesn't work that way. How do I know? Because the powerful will ALWAYS keep moving the goal posts.
The greedy will take from whomever they can, their own people included, and where resources are pooled, greed WILL arise, which we need to face. It will always be this way. We are only partially protected. Everyone is expendable when such greed is concerned. Rise to the top, someone might just off you. Look at the assassination attempt on Trump recently. The people's favourite.
That's big. I hope he takes this desperate move seriously. I hope the world does. We all have the need and opportunity right now to learn to balance people like Trump by focusing on our own lives and the impacts we can make there, by connecting with people in leadership about what's important to us, asking for guidance as well as expressing what we want from them as they represent us in shaping public policy.
And we can do the same in our own lives. One of the suggestions that I like to remember when taking my power back is following my own suggestions. I test them out in my own life. This helps me to see whether or not my expectations are realistic, where there could be some adjustment.
Ultimately, canceling some in favour of others (i.e. our "in" group), in the big picture, is a game we want to leave, not win. I believe we want to be able to live and let live on the grand stage, and we can practice on the small stage. The challenge of a revolution is in NOT becoming the tyrants we overthrow. My hunch is in a principle that I find to be sound and wise: our leaders are but trusted servants, civil servants. It is up to us to make sure that we choose leaders who understand and honour this, as opposed to beating some or all of us over the head with their authority once they have it.
Displacement and dispossession are not phenomena that can be escaped in our (not-so) post-colonial world. Prove to me that colonialism is over. Nope. Think again about what the U.S. still does to Cuba for thwarting American efforts at colonizing it, going full steam ahead.
I did a painting of an American steam engine in Cuba, in part out of pride that this tiny little country was able to do that. It was HAPPENING. It was the ONLY country in that area that succeeded. Continuing to sanction Cuba for having politics that the west doesn't like, politics that held off today's most powerful colonizers, is more of the same colonial hoohaw.
Why do we put up with it? "Oh, poor Cubans suffering under a communist regime." No, Cubans suffering under American sanctions and a bullshit story that has put Cubans in the same category as "the Vanishing Indian" (read The Inconvenient Indian by Thomas King, for example, or Green Grass, Running Water for a lighter narrative example of some of what he describes in the Inconvenient Indian). "Oh, it's too late. No one can stop this tragedy. There's nothing we can do. They're just poor. Oh, well." No. And don't romantasize their poverty. Starvation is not romantic. Being denied access to world markets is not romantic or just. It is poverty by design. It is political abuse, and the suffering is real. I've seen it.
I believe that Everett's narrator, nicknamed Monk, after his first name Thelonius, is onto something similar in his irritation with the multi-million dollar story about ghetto life being the only "true" black experience in America. It is a defeatist, oppressive rhetoric in a certain context, not serving to celebrate and lift up Black Americans for overcoming adversity but to keep them low. It supports this harshly limiting and stereotyping idea that it is the "only true black experience."
He himself is accused of "not being black enough" as if his very real Black existence, his life, his perspective doesn't count because it doesn't fit into the Black American version of the "Vanishing Indian." I may be barking up the wrong tree here, but at the very least, the conflict demonstrates the resistance within our institutions that CLAIM to work against problems like racism to accept literature that does not conform to the limited/limiting views of certain tenured critics.
He is rubbing up against what an old academic friend talks about in his book Prison Life Writing. In it, he explains how the prison system both prescribes and monitors prison writing. Because this is the case, he cautions, we have to remember that there are silent hands molding those pages, unattributed editors very much interested in maintaining the status quo of a racist, dehumanizing, violent prison system, and our wider prison culture. His point is that assuming prison life writing is always freeing or revolutionary misses this important fact.
The same goes for the academy, for literary and art critics, and for popular culture. It encourages us to read and watch outside of our usual categories. It encourages us to consider the powerful cultural stories the pressure writers to produce more of the same. It is not easy to successfully break problematic traditions. We have to write within them to even be heard. That is not all bad, but it is the reality.
This is not to say that it's impossible for writing within the system to be revolutionary or productively ground breaking, but I haven't gotten to the sections where he explains how writers successfully navigate this problem, so my insights here are limited where his work is concerned, but this is absolutely what Everett's narrator, Monk, is rubbing up against, I believe. He's trying to do something that is linked to legacy in new ways, but no one is interested because it's too different from the stereotypes people know and love.
One of the valuable things that our economy shows us is what people relate to. I love me some pulp fiction, even though I came from the academic study of capital L literature. I subscribe to the same idea that one of my professors advised when I was in my studies: Read everything, pulp and popular writing included. I also love it when I see popular readers treading into the obscure capital L literature sections.
Stories do have value. Studies show that people who read novels (or listen to them, as in my case, mostly) have greater understanding of human relationships. We want leaders who show this, too.
As we come up on important elections, I hope people consider the full gambit of the leaders running, look at their whole resume, look at how they treat others who disagree with them. Also remember that voting isn't the only form of democracy. I love that people are getting more involved, putting boots to the pavement and connecting with others who care about what our leaders are doing with the resources we are, the resources of our lands, our indigenous people's, our neighbours, and our "enemies."
This applies in various domains of our lives, and inside our own minds as well. It matters how we engage in our thoughts with these figures. It's an interesting realization of world religions and modern psychology alike.
This is what I am seeing in the insights not only of my own life but of other writers and thinkers and just people who work at the grocery store: that leaders who seek primarily control and their own security in power rather than understanding, leaders who refuse to accept their true role as one of service, not God status or laziness, are dangerous to defy, so we often don't. And we don't necessarily know how to do any better. Because of this, they become, in some important ways, silent authors of our lives. How do we bust free of this AND remain accountable for our own mistakes?
We can't afford to get all high and mighty. We need humility, which is NOT to be confused with humiliation. A narcissist will try to humiliate you or others, always you eventually, so don't fall for the hook when they offer to make you one of the "in" group. I often deal with this by making a complete fool of myself, saving them the trouble. "If anyone's going to humiliate me, it's going to be me!" my stubborn nature seems to say.
I sometimes parody the ridiculousness of narcissistic peers, for better or worse. Satire is not always the best ploy. For one, people often don't get it, and for another, the responding rage of the narcissist often reinforces the fear that people have to "step out of line."
But here's the thing. Being ousted by a narcissist is sometimes the best thing that can happen to a person. In my case, it put me out of my misery, though it killed any hope I had of maintaining any connection to the valuable legacies I had to leave behind. This is not to say that the community didn't step up in some important regards, but to say that it does hurt to have one's reputation trashed by a jealous narcissist. It has real impacts on a person's life.
I watch carefully for the signs now, and I take my time in responding. The pain does start leaving a mark. Going toe-to-toe with a narcissist is dangerous. I'm not saying don't do it when necessary, but take care. They're perfectionists and wicked masters of twisting facts into stories that move people dangerously. Get a lawyer if you can afford one, and listen to that lawyer. Get a counsellor, too.
It's Still Alright - Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats
The funny thing is that I get along well with most people, but I drive narcissists crazy, and they try and sometimes succeed at doing the same in return. The difference is in the motivation: narcissists want to hurt people who get in their way. I don't. I just want to keep moving through my life, and I don't believe someone who can't take "no" for an answer has the right to stop me, not where my actual rights and boundaries are concerned.
A narcissist will tell you, as if it's a bad thing, that you're "impatient" or "making a big deal" out of something that actually is a big deal. Don't engage. It's like trying to work out a disagreement with a drunk person: a complete waste of time and/or possibly painful and even dangerous.
My own personal insight is that we need to come to terms with our own fears and insecurities as adults, and it is a lifelong process. Because to be truly free is sometimes unfortunately dangerous; it is expensive in a world with systems that privilege bullies.
There are diamonds in the rough, though, and in fact, this is LIFE. Life itself is dangerous. Don't give up if you're being bullied. Stop focusing on "getting them to understand" or "be reasonable." It's not going to happen. Trying to will just drive you crazy. Flip the card table. Remember your own integrity, and find people who treat you with respect. Respect them in return. Own your life and its consequences. You will NEVER get the bully to smarten up and take accountability. Drop the tug-of-war rope, and walk on.
Watch for the diamonds. Follow them.
Watch for and go around the leaders who rule through fear and malicious, ignorant gossip, who gaslight, denying reality, who don't actively appreciate the people who do the work they assign, who advocate for stepping on some to make room for those who already have more than the people being stepped on, who make assumptions rather than ask questions and actually listen to the answers.
When you find yourself in such systems, it is easier said than done to get out. Not all of us have the privilege that Everett's narrator does to stir up shit and not get fired or worse. Be gentle on yourself, unlike the narcissist, but keep moving forward. Rest, and then keep going. Keep finding your own ways and following people who ring the bells of truth inside you.
Stories like these caution us to be careful, especially in a time when we've realized how common narcissism is, how devastating it can be, and the VERY scary fact that it is catching. THAT is the part that scares me the most. That is my own personal line, Gods help me.
I like stories like this because they not only caution but also invite us to master our own fear, in ways that move away from narcissism to reality-based connections with real people, to the center of our very own selves. The disorder narcissism empties people of their center. They lose the ability to connect to people and reality. It leaves a pit of insatiable worthlessness within. It is, I imagine from how close I have come time and again, a living hell.
As beautiful as Narcissus was, he was not able to even hear and appreciate his own voice, his Echo, his love. We don't want to follow people who don't know the way. And here's the thing, no one knows our particular way. We work with those we admire and trust, follow them in important regards, but also importantly, we learn to trust our own judgment again.
When we ourselves become overly self-focused, listening to others helps a lot, especially people who have ways through life that we admire, but also people struggling just like us. We realize we are not as alone as we thought, and that we, too, have something worthwhile to share, AND that we don't ever know everything important there is to know. This is a vital balance. Wise elders learn from those in their care. They learn from us, especially when we truly listen when their hearts speak. We listen, and we learn. We try, and we report back. We thank them for their time and attention, which are limited and precious.
When Narcissus drags us down the hole of self-involvement and forceful or neglectful self-will, and we support it, we make the chaos more powerful, adding our own to it, and it spreads. It traps us in its web, not Charlotte's web, in balance with the natural life-death-life cycles Clarissa Pinkola Estes teaches, but more like a twister, more like the phenomenon that does sometimes happen in the wild as a crazed starving wolf kills beyond reason for a while when food finally becomes available. It kills and kills and kills, not as a normal healthy wolf does, to eat, but relentlessly.
How does the wolf finally stop? I don't remember. Do you? How does the wolf regain its balance?
Our instincts are wise. We do well when we learn from animals and nature, not assuming that it is stupid. It is not. All the processes are there.
So if you care about these issues, but you're not an academic with highfalutin ideas about this and that, I say let nature be your teacher. This is what the elders say, as far across the world board as I've seen. And if you're a highfalutin academic, give the nature lovers a bit more credit, will ya? We have a lot of catching up to do with our essays and charts and graphs, which still have nothing on real life, though they do very important work. I wish non-academics would lose the snobbery, too. There IS important work going on in the universities.
THIS is a bridge I want to see built. It is painful to me to have to be on one side of it or the other.
I know I sometimes look like I can fly, but that's only in my dreams, and I'm not even very good at it there.
Bridges. We all have the opportunity to be bridges sometimes, but there comes a day when our backs break from the work, and we have to let the people on the opposite sides of the same river work things out between themselves. We take a lunch break, eat our sandwich, take a nap, play candy crush, maybe even take a dip in the river, come back to the story later.
Ultimately, after everything I've been through, I hope people realize that it is up to ALL of us, EACH of us, if we've been starved for justice especially, to know when to stop, to change tack, following instincts OTHER than kill, kill, kill. Under the rage is often pain, which, when we attend to it with love, does heal, does release.
We have many instincts. It is important to realize when we've gone too far, or just far enough, when we DO have enough. We CAN stop, and we need to. There come times in life when we need to stop and accept our pain, so we can be free, and so we can stop fighting the flow of our own lives, our own bodies, of larger life. We do this with help. Don't go it alone. Find loving care.
There comes a point when we have to stop pointing fingers and simply pull up our socks and get the work done, and if we don't know how, our first task is learning. That is an instinct. Follow it. Choose teachers who are honest and gentle enough for you, who have boundaries and are clear about them. That's healthy, especially when recovering from the sting, the effects of narcissism.
Human history repeats itself because it is a part of nature. The healthy recoveries also repeat themselves. THOSE are the ones we're looking to follow.
Lots of food for thought on the difficulties of following our own truths through life, inspired by Everett's novel Erasure and my own experience. I hope some of it means something to you as you co-create in modern life.
...
Before we go, let's swing it back around to TV Monk with some Post-watching questions. Let's be real. Most readers will probably opt for the TV Monk because it's easier to consume. Do what you can. It's ok. I want this to be not only thought-provoking but also enjoyable. Its OKAY to enjoy life. Please do! That, too, is a natural instinct we need to reconnect to.
Food for thought on the TV Monk:
Theme 1: There are a couple of things that come up in S1: E10 that strike the race chord. How do we feel the show deals with them? Does it endorse racism? Does it trouble it? If so, how? If not, what could it do better? Was there a resolution to the tension that satisfied you as a viewer?
Personally, I know what it's like to be scapegoated a lot. I appreciate the reminder that the underdog can be wrong, too. I just hope it doesn't (hasn't) supported the stereotype that the butler did it. I think the trust for me is that Adrian is like a tuning fork for the truth, and it is just a story, and the maids were actually the guilty ones in this tale.
Adrian is the kind of investigator I'd like to be caught by if I went too far, I think.
Theme 2: Can this story be read as a Bluebeard tale? Try moving the role of Bluebeard around then back again. How does that go?
Free Write for 5 minutes. There's no wrong answers. Do NOT read mine first. Come back after.
...
Here's mine:
By the time we get caught, finally meet our match, we are aching for recovery, but maybe don't know it yet, and rarely WANT to get caught, but getting caught helps us change direction, and when we have to decide what to focus on, we follow the light, the sparkles.
We say to each other, don't go into the light if you're dying. I say, Do. Follow the sparkles, but watch your step, especially if that sparkle is attached to a person. There's also lots in the vicinity: cats, and seniors, and people worried about us, and things we came to this world to do that they all need us for. They want us to find our way.
The emotional brain wants an explanation sometimes, the mouse and monkey brains, talking to the lizard, coaxing him into companionship. This chameleon, who has eyes on two different sides of his head and is just fascinated by everything going on. How do prey animals integrate a unified image of life?
Now see what kind of trips that takes your mind on as you move through your day. Is it helpful? Is it not? Move with the lines that give you what you need. If you don't know what you need most, ask your body: are you hungry, angry, lonely, or tired (HALT: an Alanon tool). For me, my symptoms say I'm tired. I'm going through a bit of an intense recovery process, and it's going well, but it's a challenge. I have a deadline for it, so that is helping me stay on track, but I'm more tired than I like to be, which tells me that I'm doing a bit too much, so I'm taking a couple days of rest to recover. Then, I need to commit to that and make it a priority to rest.
Having lived through years of literal burnout (CFS/ME), I learned to do this thing called active rest, because believe it or not, having no job becomes a burden on the mind, having the freedom but not the energy or now the means to do what I am trying to stretch into, the mind gets bored. We are, no matter whether we come from a hermit or farmer legacy or a city or office one, intellectually sophisticated creatures. Our minds get bored.
I learned about active rest for the body, which is Yin Yoga. Why am I not doing Yin Yoga? Good question. I do it occassionally. It's like I'm coming out of a long sleep and am still dazed for a while, but I need so much sleep that this is pretty much all the time. Even when I do everything right, I still need more sleep than the average person. I always have: 9 hrs and catch up hours on the weekends.
As you go along through cycles of this, you get better at it because you're facing your fears. Like Adrian and that spider web, you're after something important, and you'll even break into places to find out what's going on, to help.
I love the way Adrian's investigation helps the grounds keeper understand how hard his job is. He's trying to muscle 50 pound bags of lime by himself, and feeling rough about it, but when Adrian reasons with him that it normally takes at least two people to lift as much weight, so the murderer might actually be multiple people, ... it's like half of that weight gets lifted off of the grounds keeper's mind. Adrian affirms for him that his work IS hard, that he is very strong to be able to lift 50 pounds by himself sometimes. He visibly lightens as if he had been disappointed in himself for not yet being able to move a pile of 50 pound bags into lock-up by himself.
It's as if he's ready to be scolded, even blamed, for not being able to do this alone, but that's not what happens. Instead, he's relieved of some painfully unrealistic expectations he has of himself and perhaps from other people. As Adrian remains objective and thankful for the grounds keeper's knowledge and experience, he ends up being happy to have helped.
This, to me, is a great model of investigation. He's thankful to all who help him and has no visible regrets for having previously thanked the maids for helping him sanitize his room in a jiffy, or for treating them with respect and appreciation through the course of his investigation. This gave him important information. He uses this, and he still arrives at the truth and is able to give authorities the confidence they need to make the arrest.
I think if we're going to put more money into policing, which is something that our societies do, while other people understandably call for defunding, extra money could be put more into similarly diplomatic arms of investigation, independent even. Police have a hard job. When arrogance, ignorance, and prejudice get in the way of their carriage of justice, we absolutely need to speak up and hold police accountable for their mistakes. We also need to support their ability to healthily enforce justice.
In Canada, we call police peace officers. I have not only seen them using excessive force. I have also seen them successfully providing presence that ensures justice and peace. We can't cancel them. I don't want to go back to wild west ways, which were often not safe or free for people who weren't bullies. Does the extra money people want for policing belong in support services that do not have the authority to use force? I don't know, but it's a worthwhile question.
Years ago, maybe a decade after a traumatizing incident of harmful prejudice and excessive violence used against me by police that I may reveal another day, I began to work more closely with authority again, in trust. Today, I continue this work of internal resolve, and I hope that it continues to help my outward relations with authority, in turn. I believe there is something to this idea of Internal Family Systems: the ways we relate to others in the world reflect the ways we relate to those internal parts of ourselves, and I like this idea of peace officers and investigators like Adrian on standby, ready to figure out what's really going on de-escalate conflict when it arises.
Theme 3: How does this relate to the crying wolf story? Which story has the more satisfying resolution? Which is more relevant to your true experience of life? Any insights from this?
These stories are literally moving our minds, and then we can choose how to move through them. Come ca (above). We've already done this for decades. But le piece de resistance is talking about it afterwards, if you've got the energy. If not, come back tomorrow. Let it mull in your mind through life.
...
Free-writing for the class:
We have TV and film literally in our minds. It influences us. 100%. So, like surfers on the ocean, we learn to ride its waves and do our own turns and whatnot. Our minds are weird, aren't they???? Look at our media!!!! It's wild. We make that stuff AND watch it. It's in us. What do we do with it? We're back in the ocean, y'all. The information age: webs, nets, surfing, pointing hands. The age of choice.
It's a beautiful thing, but also still full of so much darkness. We don't give up, though, do we? We keep asking questions, following our nose and friendly voices, sometimes loud ones. Those are warnings that we listen to because we trust each other. We watch for our friends' reactions when others try to humiliate us. We look to our friends for the truth. Most of the time in life, we give up to our friends. The police are rarely involved.
Agree or disagree? When does giving up help our cause?
Note that studies have shown our media to unrealistically inflate our ideas about how violent the world is, ... in some ways, ... while it reveals hidden truths, in others. We just have to keep in mind that these stories are remarkable. They are fantasies, even the real ones, so we don't stereotype real people we meet because of them, so we make sure to still listen to what they tell us. I'm hard of hearing and have memory problems, which bugs me because I used to be a good listener. I think I still am in some ways, but not in others. Which is why I'm glad to see others listening to each other. There's nothing better. And speaking with authenticity and trust. When those things happen, my heart sings.
I got to see that happening all the time in the classroom as an instructor, and once in a while I would get in there, and be like, hey, this one has been trying to speak. Give her (or him) a minute. That's the teacher in me. I miss that sometimes, so thanks to my readers (co-creators) for taking this journey through the media ocean with me.
I hope we make it off of trash island, can take a break from the clean-up crew, and slip into the gulf stream, at least for a little bit every day.
Take what you like and leave the rest.
TTFN,
J
