There must be a way…
I’m tired. Tired of the vitriol and tired of the outrages. Tired of the hating and tired of the insanity. I’m tired of politics and of all the worry and doom that surrounds us—I know it is there and I know it is real, but I am still tired. Climate change, AI, inflation, the bond market, the dismantling of American democracy… I’m just tired of all of it. I don’t want to see more of it on my social media feeds. I don’t want to write about it anymore. I don’t want to repost the stuff, even though it seems right. I don’t want to read it or engage it.
I’m not running away or being pollyannish. It’s just that the level of poison in my psyche is coming to a critical juncture. As all of this goes on, I still have a life. Real things, you know? Like my wife dying. Like finding my birth mother. Like maturing into a new man after three years of living alone in Wisconsin’s north woods. Like considering a life-altering move to another state.
Don’t these realities of life count?
I try to move into them to find my source, to be with my true heart. I’ve even written a few things about them. Posted them. Published. But then all the crap of this new and awful world come crashing back in. The vitriol, the outrages, the anger and frustration that builds up in the heart. So many of us feel it. And then the ATVs go roaring by with their Trump flags giving a middle finger to everyone who is not them. It think I need to do something. I write angry lines of prose or poetry, then usually think better of it and don’t post.
I understand the forces that got us here, at least partially. Certainly Trump is a big part of it. So is social media and its algorithms that trap us. And so are the actual dangers of the world, most of which seem to be being ignored. How can one not worry? And if we don’t pay attention, how can we act?
Knowledge, however, does not need to mean we are overwhelmed with it. It doesn’t need to mean submersion. We don’t have to drown. Yet it comes back, wave after wave, inevitable it seems. Incessant even.
You see, our human experience is bigger than doom. It surpasses fear. We live within a context of social, political, and economic life to be sure. But our experiences? We love anyway. We smile. We create community because it is our nature to do so.
But, it isn’t only about love and connection. We also imagine. We create. Mysteriously, we generate our own joy. Joy from the robins singing. Joy in music and dancing. We find joy in theater and challenging ourselves athletically, intellectually, spiritually. It’s as if a fountain exists, from which emerges an endless stream of joy, if only we can pay it the attention it deserves.
What’s required? Some quiet. A bit of solitude. Connection. Rich conversation—the kind that goes beyond the back slapping and alcohol-lubricated bullshitting and into the heart, the imagination, and the soul.
Beyond the doom centers—AI, financial security, climate, war, and more—how do we find this experience, this rapture of being alive? It is to find our centers. It is also to look into another’s eyes. It is to open our hearts and pay attention to the ongoing mystery of life experience—without judgment and with acceptance. Let the experience of life come. These are my instructions to myself. I wonder… what are yours?