afterwords: self-care and furious mourning over the crisis in masculinity/the news media/the Silicon Valley oligarchy

12 Nov 2024

      Writer Anne Lamott wrote:
I have some concerns.A few of you may, too, like possibly 69 million of you. Sigh. If you are anything like me, you can barely remember having ever felt so stunned, and doomed, except when someone very close to you died, or divorced you, or the godawful biopsy results came back.It’s a little as if the godawful biopsy results came back, and 73 million people cheered and gloated. So, yes, definitely, this is not ideal. We are in for a dark and scary ride. My response to crisis and the end of the world has always been to figure out whom to blame, how to numb the pain, and how to fix miserable realities. I have not been having much luck with any of these. Reality seems nauseatingly real. We got skunked, but good.We can’t even blame it on the electoral college this time. I hate that.I don’t know. God, do I not know. I majorly megatron do not know. So at first that might seem like the end of the discussion, but if you listen to my personal husband, Neal, that’s actually the beginning.“I don’t know,” he suggests, is the portal to freedom. I was raised by atheist intellectuals, and my parents’ solution to everything was to know. To figure it out. But when Neal’s clients are being badgered by themselves or family to answer a difficult question or challenge, he teaches them to say, “I don’t know.” It opens up possibilities. This gives us a shot at being curious, rather than certain, which is a dead end. Paul Tillich wrote that the opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. I am a jello mold of uncertainty right now, with horrible shredded carrots in it. I don’t know how things are going to shake down, except that #47 will almost certainly destroy the economy with his tariffs and tax cuts for the very rich and corporations, and then the plates of the earth will shift again. I don’t know what we do next, although I am going to take a walk and a nap at some point today, take care of people who are really suffering, and get everyone a glass of water. Why aren’t I freaking out more? I don’t know. I just believe in goodness, radical self care, and that grace bats last. So sue me.Also that more will be revealed. We’ve only been in this new reality for a few days. When Chou En Lai, the first premier of China, was asked his thoughts on the French Revolution, he took drag on his Gauloise (bleu) and answered, “Too soon to tell.”Wednesday, a pundit whom I respect tweeted that the resistance seemed muted. I loved this: It had been ten hours since we lost.But when? I don’t know. Beginning with what? I don’t know. How do we keep the faith in goodness? I don’t know. We just do.What happened Tuesday had been in the works for years but we weren’t paying attention or couldn’t quite believe it. Jung said, “What we don’t bring to consciousness, comes to us as fate. And we need—eventually—to take a look at that. Not today.Today? We take care of ourselves and those we love. We always, always take care of the poor, with donations, or bags of groceries to local food pantries. We get outside: Wednesday morning, at 7:00, Neal suggested we take a walk. This was the last thing I wanted to do, but I headed out beside him and our spiritual service dog. After ten minutes or so, I said grimly, “This was not a good idea.” Everything was too intense and real. I felt like a burn victim. Then ten minutes later, I began to see beauty all around me, in nature and neighbors, and our good dog. When I noticed how droplets sparkled amid grass stems, it helped me begin to breathe again. Left foot, right foot, left foot, breeeeeathe: this, and kindness, are all we need to know right now; today. I send you my best love and a big hug. You are all so amazing to me.
Rebecca Solnit wrote on x.com:
They want you to feel powerless and to surrender and to let them trample everything and you are not going to let them. You are not giving up, and neither am I. The fact that we cannot save everything does not mean we cannot save anything and everything we can save is worth saving. You may need to grieve or scream or take time off, but you have a role no matter what, and right now good friends and good principles are worth gathering in. Remember what you love. Remember what loves you. Remember in this tide of hate what love is. The pain you feel is because of what you love. The Wobblies used to say don't mourn, organize, but you can do both at once and you don't have to organize right away in this moment of furious mourning. You can be heartbroken or furious or both at once; you can scream in your car or on a cliff; you can also get up tomorrow and water the flowerpots and call someone who's upset and check your equipment for going onward. A lot of us are going to come under direct attack, and a lot of us are going to resist by building solidarity and sanctuary. Gather up your resources, the metaphysical ones that are heart and soul and care, as well as the practical ones. People kept the faith in the dictatorships of South America in the 1970s and 1980s, in the East Bloc countries and the USSR, women are protesting right now in Iran and people there are writing poetry. There is no alternative to persevering, and that does not require you to feel good. You can keep walking whether it's sunny or raining. Take care of yourself and remember that taking care of something else is an important part of taking care of yourself, because you are interwoven with the ten trillion things in this single garment of destiny that has been stained and torn, but is still being woven and mended and washed.
And from Our mistake was to think we lived in a better country than we do | Rebecca Solnit:
Our mistake was to think we lived in a better country than we do. Our mistake was to see the joy, the extraordinary balance between idealism and pragmatism, the energy, the generosity, the coalition-building of the Kamala Harris campaign and think that it must triumph over the politics of lies and resentment. Our mistake was to think that racism and misogyny were not as bad as they are, whether it applied to who was willing to vote for a supremely qualified Black woman or who was willing to vote for an adjudicated rapist and convicted criminal who admires Hitler. Our mistake was to think we could row this boat across the acid lake before the acid dissolved it.We knew what the problems were, and we wanted to fix them. The principal problems that got us to this bleakest moment in American history are intertwined. They are the crisis of masculinity, the failure of the mainstream news media and the rise of Silicon Valley, and in a way they are all the same problem.
(read the whole article below!)
Finally, a word lifted from Corita Kent:

...damn everything that is grim, dull, motionless, unrisking, inward turning, damn everything that won't get into the circle, that won't enjoy. That won't throw its heart into the tension, 

surprise, fear and delight 

of the circus, 

the round world, 

the full existence... -- S. Helen Kelly

Damn everything but the circus! -- e. e. cummings

        * * *At the very thought of "circus"a swarm of long-imprisoned desires breaks jail.Armed with beauty and demanding justiceand everywhere threatening us with curiosityand spring and childhood,this mob of forgotten wishesbegins to storm the supposedly impregnable fortificationsof our present. -- e. e. cummings 

Damn everything but the circus! Demand justice!And take very special care of yourselves.
Marshall

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Kamala Harris | The Guardian

<p>News about Kamala Harris, 49th US vice-president under Joe Biden, including comment and features from the Gua...
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