As an citizen of the US of A, this week has been pretty eventful. I am an adorer of people from all walks of life, but as I have military service aged children, am an enthusiastic early adopter of crypto, and am in possession of a healthy disdain for divisionist authoritarians, well, there was a direction that I hoped things would go.
But here's the thing, I work very hard and have trained very hard to not let my internal state be dictated by external events. The only thing within the locus of my control is what I think about what is occurring. Sometimes I think I may be a little chemically imbalanced due to my propensity for optimism, and more than a few people have expressed disbelief at my ability to see the good in others, but I do indeed believe that all have the capacity to behave with virtue, courage, gratitude, wisdom, and justice.
However, this week I saw something that made me ache a bit for a good chunk of my fellow country people, they ceded the only authority one has, the control over one's viewpoint, to an extrinsic event.
And holy meltdown the fit throwing was epic.
Honestly, all the Tik Toks of wailing, hair shaving, teeth gnashing, and expressions of desire and will for oppositional suicide made me truly wonder about a lot of things. In fact, when I was messaging back and forth with a good friend about the situation, I mused this:
They are dealing with the dissonance that results when you craft your own reality, prop it up with authoritarian power structures, and foment a mindset with an echo chamber media and tribal isolationism.
Can you imagine how gutted you would feel if you had been told something was true, it was reaffirmed by everyone around you because every effort made by someone to question anything that didn't reaffirm reality according to the mob was labeled as dangerous and shouted down? It would be pretty gut-wrenching.
And it's not just one group that does this, although the current faction is much more expressive with their fit-throwing. I remember about four years ago I went to a county political party caucus meeting with a friend to learn about how the whole process works. What I found disturbed me, people were so whipped into a torrent by what the other side was doing that they too behaved viscously towards anyone who questioned the majority party line, even if those queries were genuine, of sound logic, and rationally presented.
People have always and will continue to be divided over politics, I don't expect that to change. What concerns me and is an issue I am going to focus on as I work to become a mental health clinician, is the level of functional stability decline and overall lack of resiliency exhibited by a massive amount of the public in the face of perceived loss, setbacks, or in not getting one's way.
Watching teachers scream, cry, and scare children because of an election result, watching young and old people in states of absolute devastation and terror, watching people move over things that may or may not come to pass, watching people wish hate and death upon each other, these states of extreme display remind me a lot of the behavior I witnessed in the young developing children I have tended to who lacked healthy behavioral expectations and boundaries, the end result of too much acclaim and status and not enough reality and resiliency.
There's truly a massive amount of work to do, and I'm there for it. Because at the end of the day, I truly do care about all people, and I wholeheartedly believe in the dignity and self-worth of all, even the fit throwers, because we've all been there.
So long as no cats were thrown 😁
Oh, I would have to go to war over that, so I hope not....
Hi Nik😊
!PIZZA
You've hit the nail on the head. We have adults acting like petulant children, showing no self-control, embracing emotion and abandoning reason. I heard talk of the meltdowns but didn't watch any of them. It'd only confirm my suspicion that everyone is crazy except me...and you of course!:)
We're not crazy! Or are we the crazy ones because we aren't fit throwers? I am not sure if I know what's up or down anymore lol!
Seriously though, the fit throwing has just increased as the week rolled on, I'm awed daily over the state of the state of people!
Hope you had a lovely weekend!!
!PIZZA
I agree, it is disturbing to see so many adults behaving like toddlers. And even though I, too, am largely an optimist, I don't share your belief that " all have the capacity to behave with virtue, courage, gratitude, wisdom, and justice." Some people just don't.
P.S. Like @goldenoakfarm, I don't have any extra energy to waste on the politics uproar. I haven't actually seen any of the videos showing the leftists' anguish.
Oh, I totally agree that some people don't have the capacity, but I also believe that every human can develop the capacity, history is full of unlikely examples of that sort of manifestation.
I truly feel for the anguished even if I mourn for them ceding their well-being to events outside their control. I also don’t stray too far into the fit throwing viewing pool, ain’t got no time for that kind of negativity 😉
!PIZZA
You are right: every human could develop the capacity to behave with virtue, courage, gratitude, wisdom, and justice. But some choose not to.
Politics causes a lot of division but I don’t just see politics as something that we the masses should fight over
We’ve got our choices and so be it!
I wish we could disagree without devolving into fighting too. Hope you had a lovely weekend @abojode
!PIZZA
Thank you @ewkaw!!
I can make the case for Trump being likely the lesser of two evils, but the celebrations I see from Trump supporters are as if he's the second coming of Christ, and the Democrats are acting like he's the antichrist.
I think we aren't shown the massive amount of people who just want to be left alone to live, work, enjoy life, and die in peace....
!PIZZA
The Mind-Your-Own-Business people by definition don't get deeply involved in partisan politics and denouncing people for wrongthink on social media.
Indeed. Nuf said.
Hmmm, interesting.... I wasn't aware of all this but it doesn't surprise me. I mostly avoid things I can't do much about, just not enough energy to go around. So I've not fed into the whole election thing.
I think you are awesome for protecting that finite energy of yours by not letting the stream distress into your bubble! I like to be aware of the state of the zeitgeist and people's overall states as a whole, but I think that's just the writer in me who loves a good character study.
Hope your energy level is through the roof this week😊
!PIZZA
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