Leading a good life in bad times
Let's face it, the past 6 years have not been the shiny happy years that we all (well some of us) hoped the new millennium would bring. Before it even started we had the first stolen election (ok, that sounded naive, I know there were stolen elections before, but this was the first stolen Presidential election in the US that I was forced to witness). Then came the seemingly endless stream of horrible things. There are too many to list. so I'm not even going to mention the obvious ones here.
Suffice it to say that these are the times that make you think back on the "good old" Nixon years and realize the guy wasn't *all* bad. These are the times when you look at the crazy conspiracy guys on the street with the big signs filled with tiny writing and think to yourself, "actually a lot of that makes sense." These are the times when it takes a certain amount of courage to read or watch the news. I mean even the weather is scary, and sadly the weather report is now often one of the most reliable parts in the news offered by the corporate run media.
So what do you do when everything seems so seriously and deeply messed up and wrong and scary and it seems impossible to get things back on track?
How does one lead a good and happy life during times that seem neither?
I'm still figuring it out, but I think I'm getting closer to the answer as I go along.
At first I tried denial (oh, shit....I just realized this might wind up following that "stages of grief" thing- which has been done to death....I'm not doing it on purpose, I promise). I couldn't stand thinking about the fact that the election was stolen and that Bush was President, so I didn't. I joked that Martin Sheen was my president. I stopped watching or reading any news if I could avoid it at all. Of course I heard things, so I had some vague idea of what was going on....but mostly I stuck my fingers in my ears and went "la, la, la, la, la" I'm not proud of this, but it's how I coped. I excused this behavior with the fact that I taught young children and I couldn't be there for them If I was paralyzed with fear and depression, so really I was choosing to be ignorant "for the sake of the children".
I didn't realize how deep my denial went until 9/11. When I heard about it one of my first thought after "Holy Fucking Shit!" and "What the hell do I say to the kids in my class?" was that I should listen to some news to get my facts as straight as possible. Here is where I scared myself: in my mind, the person who would tell me what happened was CJ from the West Wing. Yes, for a split second I was actually thinking that Jeb Bartlett was going to be dealing with this. Then reality hit me like a ton of bricks. George Bush is in charge of dealing with this. Which brought me back to "Holy Fucking Shit!" I wasn't Clinton's biggest fan, didn't even vote for him the second time, but at that moment I wanted him to be President again, just like I want my mommy when I'm really sick. Realizing that none of this was going to help me take care of the children that day I pushed all thoughts of who was or wasn't President out of my head and focussed on getting enough info to be able to answer questions that came up and figuring out how to reassure them with out lying.
So now there was a big old crack in my wall of denial. I tried even harder to avoid TV news and carefully picked out what I read to avoid becoming scared and angry. But the fact is I was scared and angry. Of course there was no way to avoid what was going on. Everyone, even the kids in my class, were talking about it. Listening to one of the 2nd grade girls rage against the impending war, I saw how helpless she felt. I realized that while she actually was helpless, I wasn't, at least not entirely, and I should probably do something. I had been using the excuse of being a teacher to make myself feel like I was doing my share. Now I realized that teaching these children, wasn't enough if I was sending them out into a world where this kind of stuff was happening. A few days later I turned on the TV to put in a DVD. Bush was giving a speech. I have no idea what he was saying, because I turned the TV off and pretty much curled into fetal position.
Then it hit me. I was being a coward. I'm smarter than Bush, I'm a better person than he is, and I used to be much less of a coward. I'd never been one to stand by and watch when someone was being a bully. I'd stand up, say something, and if necessary I'd throw down. That's part of who I am. But I had to face that wasn't who I had been for quite some time. Suddenly, the real me was back. I was ready to throw down. I was going to do something to help get Bush out of office.
I'll write more about what I've done since that day in other entries, but suffice it to say I've been pretty involved in politics since then. This has not only made me feel better but I've actually seen things change because of the work I've been a part of. Yes Bush is still President and most of the Democrats in Washington are still clinging to status quo when the status quo obviously is broken, but things are changing and I've been a part of that. So now when I see Bush on TV or read about one of the thousands of horrible things happening in our world, I no longer have to turn off the TV and curl into a ball. I stand up. I say something. I throw down. And I know I'm not the only one. So I have hope. Things are messed up right now. Things have been messed up before. Things will be messed up again. But people are working to change things for the better and things will change for the better. This also has happened before and will happen again.
One of the things I want this blog to do is to help others find their own way to throw down. I'm not here to scold anyone for what they haven't been doing. I did so little for so long that I would be a huge hypocrite if I did so. I just know that a lot of people wish they could do something, but feel like they can't. I'll also be sharing my struggles with finding a way to keep on working for change without short changing the rest of my life. If you've been working on that too, please let me know, because I can use some help as well.
posted by Laura D @ 11:44 AM
7 Comments:
I occasionally depress myself and others by commenting how much more hopeful things seemed in the '70s. Usually I pick the innocuous presidency of Gerald Ford, rather than Nixon, as my "better", however. And I'm always careful to point out that the clothes were awful, but that's no comfort, since many of them have now made a comeback.
Thanks for the inspiration!
"One of the things I want this blog to do is to help others find their own way to throw down.... I just know that a lot of people wish they could do something, but feel like they can't. I'll also be sharing my struggles with finding a way to keep on working for change without short changing the rest of my life. If you've been working on that too, please let me know, because I can use some help as well."
Yes. Please. Do.
This is a huge issue for me as well. There's so much that's wrong, where do you start without burning yourself out?
Couple with that the question of wanting to help by doing things I'm good at. I feel like so much of what has to be done is in the form of mass action -- but I suck in group situations, and I feel like the things I have that are uniquely mine to contribute disappear when completely I'm in a group of more than ten people.
I keep trying to tell myself that I work for a progressive book distributor and as a radical sex writer and that's enough, but when the Arctic circle is disappearing, it feels like I'm rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. What does one do?
I'm going to go into this at length (when do I *not* go into things at length, one might ask) in another entry, but there are a few things that allow a person to work for change without laying waste to their life. First you need to prioritize what you want to work on. For me it's becoming populism- lessening corporate control over the government and making government more responsive to and responsible for the people. Then you need to figure out what you enjoy and are effective at. Some of this is trial and error- I knew I would love tabling and I do, but I thought I would hate fundraising, phone banking and precinct walking. It turns out I'm rather good at all of them and even phone banking can be fun at times. I didn't know how much I would grow to dislike meetings. I enjoy sitting and talking to people but after a while I just can't sit and talk to the same people about the same things anymore, no matter how much I like those people. I would just rather be out there doing the stuff that's being planned than planning it. I'm so grateful for the people that plan things because I know how important it is (and how time consuming), but an hour and a half meeting will drain a lot more of my energy than an entire day doing precinct work.
I also discovered that I'm much more effective when working for a candidate I truly believe in than when working for a cause or concept. It's not that I think the cause or concept isn't as important, it's just that I somehow can relate more to an actual person and that comes across when I talk to voters. The bonus side of this is that there is slightly more down time in campaigns for candidates. And I'm someone who needs down time.
All useful tips -- especially "prioritize what you want to work on" and "figure out what you enjoy and are effective at."
BTW, I didn't mean to make my last comment anonymous -- I just forgot to sign it.
Well, I just got back from church a little while ago, where I participated in a dialog sermon on Global Warming. I gave some explanation of why it's happening and a few concrete actions people can take (signing up for renewable electricity from the local utilities, both of which offer various plans; switching to compact fluorescents; offsetting carbon emissions via TerraPass). I've been putting 1 page notes on environmental issues in the church newsletter.
Since we have a small congregation, this isn't reaching a wide audience, but it's something I can do, fairly easily, and we're hoping to spread our action to other churches in the area and learn from one another.
There need to be legal and political changes, but we can also make individual choices that make a difference NOW.
And Laura introduced me to Buy Blue, which doesn't make it possible for me to do WHOLLY progressive consumerism, but is, at least, a step in the right direction.
I think sharing info with your social circles is one of the best ways to work for change. It's called the "trusted source" model of grassroots politics and while it doesn't reach large numbers of people right away, it is one of the most effective ways to change people's minds and habits.
The thing is even if you only talk to a small number of people, some of them will probably talk to a small number of people and eventually because of what you did a large number of people will be better informed and more likely to take positive action.
Wow, I hear you on the President Bartlett thing when 9/11 struck. I was incredulous for the days and weeks since it happened, noticing that our "leader" was nowhere to be found, and yet for some reason his popularity went up! And way back then, I questioned everything that the bu$h administration was saying about 9/11, and lately, in light of seeing how every other f*cking thing they have said is a lie, I've been starting to question the whole official story about 9/11 again. It's both depressing and liberating at the same time to discover so many more holes in their stories about 9/11 and Afganistan and Iraq and Sadaam Hussein and Bin Laden. This truly is the administration of the oil industry, they are not doing anything to protect us, and will resort to anything, even the unspeakable, to line their pockets. And after seeing An Inconvenient Truth, I really wish Gore had become president way back then. Or, Bartlett!
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