I’m in an odd emotional space. I’ve been angry at much of what I’m hearing from people. I’m not talking about the news; I’m talking social media. It’s not all political. As I’ve said I don’t like being angry. I try to calm myself. I remind myself that it’s not my job to correct everyone that’s wrong. It’s not even my job to correct all those with faulty logic. There are non-confrontational ways of teaching and those are more effective if less emotionally satisfying. One of my current mantras is reminding myself that it doesn’t hurt me if the other person thinks they won the argument. It’s not about winning and losing. The irony is that so much of what upsets me is people fighting to get everyone to acknowledge that they are right and other people not simply wrong, but bad. On a bridge group someone said he abhors people that would make a certain bid. The fact that it’s the right bid and the standard bid is not what’s important. It’s that declares his hate for those that think differently. It’s not one of those situations where it might be hyperbole. The heterodox are all too often the least intolerant.
I’m not going to write about what made me think of this, but I want to leave the quote. I’m reminded of James Branch Cabell’s response to moral criticisms of Jurgen. “You are offensive […] because his page has a sword which I choose to say is not a sword. You are lewd because that page has a lance which I prefer to think is not a lance.” I guarantee you can think of current situations where that’s appropriate. Cabell being the king of self-reference inserted the chapter that included that in later editions of Jurgen.
I wrote that two days ago. That is not where my head is now. I am sated socially. Yesterday morning I had therapy. I spoke to Katherine for hours right before I went to sleep and to Katrina, for hours as soon as I woke up. As I’ve often pointed out either I have a thing for people whose names begin Kat, or they have a thing for me. I’m Katnip. As I have gone months without seeing a friend in person that’s phone time is extra important. There have been times in my life I’ve gone months without a social phone call. There are others where I talked several times every day. I’m happier when I talk to people.
I harvested the fruit of my previous therapy session on Thursday night. For the first time in ages I recorded a new edition of Gord’s Gold of Folk Music Notebook. I’m going back to doing at least one a week and preferably more. The miracle is that even though I was out of practice for the first time I ever I recorded it in one take with no need for editing. There were no stumbles, umms, or poor enunciation. I am not going to pretend I could figure out why. A single incident is not enough evidence to make a reasonable theory. I lambast others for evidence free hypothesizing, so I better be extra careful to avoid it.
I enjoy Facebook and the reason is that it’s the best form of people watching as you aren’t observing their bodies but their minds. When you do that it’s easy to conclude that people are terrible and God made a mistake saving Noah and his family as humanity is irredeemable. It’s also easy to conclude that it’s not all of humanity but just the ones you deal with the most. So, I see Americans saying how terrible Americans are. Can you believe that COVID-19 could lead to a city with millions of people in it had to put a limit on how much toilet paper people could buy because they started hoarding? Only in America. Nope, I’m talking about Melbourne, Victoria, in Australia. Right now, the US has a terrible president who caters to the worst in people so it’s not surprising that we are doing worse than most countries. Authoritarian populist leaders in Russian and Brazil are having a similar effect. New Yorkers are also Americans, and the path of the pandemic has been on a similar path as most of the developed world. It’s the quality of the leadership, not the led.
When I’m not dismayed by how stupid, self-righteous, hateful, and selfish people can be, I’m delighted by how smart, caring, funny, knowledgeable, and all-around wonderful they can be. That’s humanity, we can be put in small boxes. Even individuals can’t be put in small boxes. There’s good and bad in all of us. Smart people can do the stupidest things. Look how many times I call myself an idiot. I mean each and every one of those and I also mean it when I say that I’m intelligent. I don’t think others are less complex just because I’m not privy to all their thoughts. Frodo got it right.
“I should like to save the Shire, if I could – though there have been times when I thought the inhabitants too stupid and dull for words, and have felt that an earthquake or an invasion of dragons might be good for them. But I don’t feel like that now. I feel that as long as the Shire lies behind, safe and comfortable, I shall find wandering more bearable: I shall know that somewhere there is a firm foothold, even if my feet cannot stand there again.”
We are now living in an invasion of dragons, COVID-19, the COVID-19 recession, and civil unrest. Perhaps these will prove good for us. I’m encouraged about how whites have responded to the murder of George Floyd, and the resulting protests. For the first time the majority of whites are seeing that there is a problem with racism in American. It’s not universal, plenty of whites feel otherwise, but it’s still a majority. Black Lives Matter has gone from being disparaged to embraced. The stupid and dull inhabitants of my Shire are proving not as stupid or dull as we thought.
I’m back to my usual optimism. The waves go in and out, but the tide is inexorable. “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” Just checked, we know that quote from Martin Luther King, but he was quoting the 19th century abolitionist Unitarian pastor, Theodore Parker. Writing about being optimism is making me feel more optimistic. I don’t believe that there’s any magic force guiding us towards just, it’s that people learn. We might learn slowly but history has shown that we learn.
My therapy homework for the week is to not get upset at people misusing language. I pride myself on getting upset at people misusing language. So, what can I do? I can pass the buck. Go read, George Orwell’s Politics and the English Language. I read it in college and not since but it’s always stayed with me. There are parts I disagree with. I’m not going to strip my language of Yiddishisms. But I am all in on his importance of precision in language. Sloppy speaking and writing leads to sloppy thinking. Sloppy thinking leads to invasions of dragons.
Wise Madness 