Are you sure you weren’t taking a walk in my brain. Thank you for putting into words the journey my mind and heart has experienced over the last couple of weeks.
About an hour ago, I was literally talking with a friend about so much of what you have written here. My friend told me that after the Orange Maggot took over, she banned the words “I can’t believe.” She felt that we have to believe all the things that are happening and being said. “But,” I explained, “the “I can’t believe it” is the only way to express the horror of the what is happening. The out of wackiness of it all. The part where what we are seeing does not compute with who we are. (I experienced something like it when I went skydiving for the first time. There were no words that my brain knew to explain what was happening. No sensible explanation to the what I was witnessing and engaged in, that I was falling from a disturbingly rickety plane that was held together in some spots with duct tape some 13,000 feet above solid ground. “I can’t be live it” is … a pause or temporary release that gives us a chance to remember what is solid and what is a tornado of crazy. That space that reminds us we are not like that. We do not endorse that. We know that what is good requires an insane amount of work, but right now at this moment … we can’t fucking believe the work that is going to be required. But it will get done if we keep telling each other we need to do it and we help each other do it. I talked about trying to wrap my head around all the things happening, the insanity of it, the self-doubt about wondering whether or not I might be insane. “But they have people who shoot puppies.And they accuse people of eating puppies even though they know they are lying”. There is no doubt who is bad here. I mentioned that so much attention is often placed on how evil Hitler was, the implication that no one else made all that misery happen, that he was able to do all of it by himself. He did not. He had throngs, sycophants, cult followers, entire countries, people filled with raging hate and stunning indifference (not the kind where one feels so overwhelmed one feel like they have turned into a useless zombie; the kind that is a choice, a shoulder shrug of “at least it’s not me” …). I told her that I was trying to figure out how that switch into active inhumanity kicks in. That contempt. I need to understand how that happens and how we can switch it back. Curiosity.
And ya, friggin “progressives”. My Leftie ground has been earthquaked (I know, I know …) by the people I have stood with, even though I tried.
Thank you for writing this in a far more coherent way than I have event been able to explain. And with the brutal honesty that I have also experienced. It is an affirmation of the importance of always checking in and never assuming but also remembering that there is an intense difference to be made between what it is right and what is wrong and when to say: I just don’t know, but I know what I cannot uphold. Toda. And please keep writing.
Thank you 🙏🏻 for reading & commenting. I just saw another writer mistake a very famous writer’s piece of satire for literal truth. And it’s a testament to where we’re at, when we can’t sort intended irony from true fascist rhetoric. Long sigh…
I sometimes think that those people might be in particular state of emotional fragility that even dark humour is room much to bear. Me? I got a puppy a couple of weeks ago. It helps. So much. (Prolly why I made puppy references.) He makes laugh in an innocent way and in a crazed desperation at the absurdity of his perpetual deference to joy. These should be life goals. One thing I forgot to mention above (and somewhere in between all my tired-eyed typos, sorry) we, in Canada … we have those keffiyehs campus mobster cosplay terrorist apologists and celebrants, too, along with the newly minted “experts” on the region, history, indigeneity, genocide and how inappropriate it is to reference a fraction of a fraction of a minority of Jews to justify ones antisemitism and ignorance.) So, I’ve been known to nudge a good American writer on this topic to reference the globality of the problem because, we could stand some diasporic unity/inclusion … and it will do us well to call out the hypocrites en masse (the ones in Adam is are especially sinister in smaller regions with little or no Jewish presence). That said, it may be just a matter of time until we are forced to replace Postal Code with Zip Code … Frickin Orange Maggot and his coterie of real life evil mastermind villains.
I mean … “So, what are the issues concerns, problems you think his solutions are gong to fix? Aren’t your eggs three times the price now? Are you good with Elon having your SSN. If Kamala had a worm in her brain would you have thought that to be a good thing, too.?
Dammit. I need to work on my curious with respect voice …
It’s very hard. I feel totally politically homeless given the antisemitism, but I want to peel the orange with my own two hands. Several stories in news today about threats posed to mental healthcare in kids, as well as a story I just saw about allowing Nazi flag in Utah. I don’t know if it’s fake news, satire, or reality yet. Just saw headline.
I’m aware that the antisemitism is horrid up in Canada too. So scary.
With all due respect, the left is not responsible for Trump's reelection. The responsible parties are the ones who ignored his activity in his first term, then listened to everything he has said for the last four years, and voted for him anyway.
I wasn’t making an argument—hoped that would be clear. I was trying to demonstrate how my mind has been breaking. How the emotional rollercoaster has pushed my emotions all over the place. At this point, and as my dear friend has said, a constitutional crisis is not a partisan crisis. It hardly matters whose fault it is now—only that it’s everyone’s responsibility to somehow survive this.
I did understand that:). I'm also suffering a bit of cognition dissonance because I detest everything about Trump and the path he is dragging us down, but I can't deny that his involvement seems to be accelerating the return of the remaining living hostages, and that is everything right now.
I’m glad that it was clear. One of the challenges of writing on Substack is publishing without an editor, so if it wasn’t clear, it’s my bad—not yours.
I hear you on the dissonance. That’s why I wanted to share mine in all of its maddening confusion!
Really good writing, Jen. You took us through it all with you.
Thanks, Kati. ❤️
Are you sure you weren’t taking a walk in my brain. Thank you for putting into words the journey my mind and heart has experienced over the last couple of weeks.
Oh boy! Who knows? Maybe I’m brain hopping now!
Riiiight????!!!
Holy shit, thank you. We need people writing on this topic who don't have it "all figured out."
🙏🏻
Only Conrad's words in _Heart of Darkness_ will suffice: "The horror! The horror!"
About an hour ago, I was literally talking with a friend about so much of what you have written here. My friend told me that after the Orange Maggot took over, she banned the words “I can’t believe.” She felt that we have to believe all the things that are happening and being said. “But,” I explained, “the “I can’t believe it” is the only way to express the horror of the what is happening. The out of wackiness of it all. The part where what we are seeing does not compute with who we are. (I experienced something like it when I went skydiving for the first time. There were no words that my brain knew to explain what was happening. No sensible explanation to the what I was witnessing and engaged in, that I was falling from a disturbingly rickety plane that was held together in some spots with duct tape some 13,000 feet above solid ground. “I can’t be live it” is … a pause or temporary release that gives us a chance to remember what is solid and what is a tornado of crazy. That space that reminds us we are not like that. We do not endorse that. We know that what is good requires an insane amount of work, but right now at this moment … we can’t fucking believe the work that is going to be required. But it will get done if we keep telling each other we need to do it and we help each other do it. I talked about trying to wrap my head around all the things happening, the insanity of it, the self-doubt about wondering whether or not I might be insane. “But they have people who shoot puppies.And they accuse people of eating puppies even though they know they are lying”. There is no doubt who is bad here. I mentioned that so much attention is often placed on how evil Hitler was, the implication that no one else made all that misery happen, that he was able to do all of it by himself. He did not. He had throngs, sycophants, cult followers, entire countries, people filled with raging hate and stunning indifference (not the kind where one feels so overwhelmed one feel like they have turned into a useless zombie; the kind that is a choice, a shoulder shrug of “at least it’s not me” …). I told her that I was trying to figure out how that switch into active inhumanity kicks in. That contempt. I need to understand how that happens and how we can switch it back. Curiosity.
And ya, friggin “progressives”. My Leftie ground has been earthquaked (I know, I know …) by the people I have stood with, even though I tried.
Thank you for writing this in a far more coherent way than I have event been able to explain. And with the brutal honesty that I have also experienced. It is an affirmation of the importance of always checking in and never assuming but also remembering that there is an intense difference to be made between what it is right and what is wrong and when to say: I just don’t know, but I know what I cannot uphold. Toda. And please keep writing.
Thank you 🙏🏻 for reading & commenting. I just saw another writer mistake a very famous writer’s piece of satire for literal truth. And it’s a testament to where we’re at, when we can’t sort intended irony from true fascist rhetoric. Long sigh…
I sometimes think that those people might be in particular state of emotional fragility that even dark humour is room much to bear. Me? I got a puppy a couple of weeks ago. It helps. So much. (Prolly why I made puppy references.) He makes laugh in an innocent way and in a crazed desperation at the absurdity of his perpetual deference to joy. These should be life goals. One thing I forgot to mention above (and somewhere in between all my tired-eyed typos, sorry) we, in Canada … we have those keffiyehs campus mobster cosplay terrorist apologists and celebrants, too, along with the newly minted “experts” on the region, history, indigeneity, genocide and how inappropriate it is to reference a fraction of a fraction of a minority of Jews to justify ones antisemitism and ignorance.) So, I’ve been known to nudge a good American writer on this topic to reference the globality of the problem because, we could stand some diasporic unity/inclusion … and it will do us well to call out the hypocrites en masse (the ones in Adam is are especially sinister in smaller regions with little or no Jewish presence). That said, it may be just a matter of time until we are forced to replace Postal Code with Zip Code … Frickin Orange Maggot and his coterie of real life evil mastermind villains.
I mean … “So, what are the issues concerns, problems you think his solutions are gong to fix? Aren’t your eggs three times the price now? Are you good with Elon having your SSN. If Kamala had a worm in her brain would you have thought that to be a good thing, too.?
Dammit. I need to work on my curious with respect voice …
It’s very hard. I feel totally politically homeless given the antisemitism, but I want to peel the orange with my own two hands. Several stories in news today about threats posed to mental healthcare in kids, as well as a story I just saw about allowing Nazi flag in Utah. I don’t know if it’s fake news, satire, or reality yet. Just saw headline.
I’m aware that the antisemitism is horrid up in Canada too. So scary.
With all due respect, the left is not responsible for Trump's reelection. The responsible parties are the ones who ignored his activity in his first term, then listened to everything he has said for the last four years, and voted for him anyway.
I wasn’t making an argument—hoped that would be clear. I was trying to demonstrate how my mind has been breaking. How the emotional rollercoaster has pushed my emotions all over the place. At this point, and as my dear friend has said, a constitutional crisis is not a partisan crisis. It hardly matters whose fault it is now—only that it’s everyone’s responsibility to somehow survive this.
I did understand that:). I'm also suffering a bit of cognition dissonance because I detest everything about Trump and the path he is dragging us down, but I can't deny that his involvement seems to be accelerating the return of the remaining living hostages, and that is everything right now.
I’m glad that it was clear. One of the challenges of writing on Substack is publishing without an editor, so if it wasn’t clear, it’s my bad—not yours.
I hear you on the dissonance. That’s why I wanted to share mine in all of its maddening confusion!