I've told this to multiple people but still can't work out an emotionally tolerable handle on the situation. I am only alive because the very rare and life saving open heart procedure I had as an 11 year old was paid for by a program called Children's Special Healthcare of Michigan. As child/ adolescent would be star of the GOP, I argued against socialized medicine on the basis of 'cost' while my own family would have been at best, bankrupted and homeless trying to pay for my procedure, or I would have died in an emergency room of a preventable infarction. For the entirety of my life, when this program has come up for reconsideration for funding in the Michigan legislature, Michigan Republicans have voted to try to defund it. They don't campaign on it because it would sound ugly, but candidates my parents voted for, supported removing the program that saved my life. They still do. I have wept salt tears several times since the election because this program and others like it are not likely to survive the coming purges. The number of preventable deaths among a community I am deeply connected to is going to rise and I feel helpless to do anything about it. Particularly because among the parents of sick children, there are still republicans arguing that they SHOULD be bankrupted by their children's medical expenses. That their child SHOULD die if they can't afford to pay for a life saving surgery or medication. I don't know how to deal with this. I've deeply offended several people I've known almost the entirety of my life for being rude to people who say their own child's healthcare should be paid for but not those people's kids because they are brown. For being rude to antivaxxers who are trying to spread their misinformation in a community that is protected from dangerous infections BY vaccines and masking precautions. I'm heartsick, and grieving already. My new therapist who I had only seen a handful of times was recently put on life support and is expected to pass away soon if she hasn't already, I haven't heard an update in a over a week. My disability got renewed again without fuss, which is good. Been fighting with the spouse which is bad. Going to couples therapy which is good. I fucking hate this time of year. If I could just be put into a chemically induced coma until December 26th I'd go full jordan peterson russian detox in a heartbeat.
My uncle committed suicide his first holiday back from Harvard. He did it on Christmas day, decades before I was born, launching an already-cursed family into a holiday tradition of drunken recriminations. Things started to suck around my house a couple weeks before Halloween and were pretty well fukt through President's Day. But my third year in college I ended up alone at my uncle's house with a girlfriend and two mutual friends. I whipped out a chicken at the last minute and attempted to build a Thanksgiving from leftovers, basically. It was a smashing success and it was fun. It allowed me to reclaim the holiday for myself; I had the added advantage of a Thanksgiving with Chicken Pox where I was abandoned alone all day at the age of twelve which, to my surprise, was my best Thanksgiving up to that point. Being able to disconnect "me" from "my history" allowed me to build Thanksgiving around myself. New Year's followed a few years later. Christmas took the longest and there are still ghosts? But the more "me time" you can lean into, the easier it will be to assemble an environment that nurtures rather than drains. I have nothing but perspective. But then, "an emotionally tolerable handle" is basically perspective. The future is more important than the past. Where you were, where they were, what they did, what went wrong, it's all important? but it's beyond your abilities to change. If you were to Dave into your own life what would change? How would a stranger regard your situation if he didn't have all the backstory? You can't change what you can't touch. These aren't people you hate, these aren't people you're abandoning or else you'd have moved on by now. They're people who matter to you and if you want a bridge, you have to build it. You feel differently than they do. The goal should be to get them open to your perspective, not strike a blow for your imaginary friends. They're not bad people, they just don't share your priorities. Conservatives care a lot more about their tribe than they do about their country. Same as it ever was. "Country" is a liberal abstraction perpetuated by globalism; "tribe" is anyone who prays to the same god as you. It's not that they lack compassion, it's that they want it delivered on their lines, not yours. The hard work has always been and shall always be expanding the tribe. This has been harder among the conservatives lately because the liberals aren't even willing to agree on fundamentals like boys and girls. And trust me, they wanna vent. You might discover that by doing a lot of listening and a little talking? You'll get to watch someone dismantle the litter box hoax for themselves through a gentle application of common sense. This too shall pass. Liberal policies are preferred by Americans across the political spectrum but Americans vote tribal nonetheless. Ultimately? everyone has to chase votes. A plurality of Americans gave a shit about the border, for better or worse, so every Democrat went hard right on immigration. A plurality of Americans give a shit about abortion, so every Republican in a competitive district had to pretend they had nothing to do with its overturning. Not gonna lie - it's gonna be ugly. We're going to lose a lot. But in general, "americans who lose a lot" tend to vote socialist. This is the ebb and flow of history and while I think the ebb is going to be unlike anything we've seen since Reconstruction, a flow will inevitably follow. Take care of you. And let others take care of you. They wouldn't engage you in spiteful shouting matches if they didn't care.
I didn't know that about your childhood. Thanks for sharing. > I've deeply offended several people I've known almost the entirety of my life for being rude to people who say their own child's healthcare should be paid for but not those people's kids because they are brown. For being rude to antivaxxers who are trying to spread their misinformation in a community that is protected from dangerous infections BY vaccines and masking precautions. Have you had any success in changing anyone's mind? I could use some pointers for climate skeptics down here.
Those are excellent thoughts. So excellent I'm surprised I'd forgotten them. Thanks for the reminder.
There isn't some 'one size fits all' fix. People, regardless of their science literacy, like easy answers and explaining climate change is all but that. You can (and should) still find reasons why people doubt, and even though you'll often find shit that boils down to "teachers spent years calling me an idiot for expressing individual thought, but had nothing but praise for those regurgitators (who are now those so-called 'experts')" it's still worthwhile to recognize their reasons first and not expect change overnight. Some will ponder an argument like "if you're so opposed to citing sources, why are you regurgitating this podcast? can't you explain it in your words?" others will think you've been indoctrinated beyond hope. You could very well be the first person who listens to them, and some people are so accustomed to being dismissed they won't even accept you could be genuine. So, yeah, pick your battles and treat them as people rather than stereotypes. That's so pointlessly general I'm gonna high-five my maths degree. Me? I thought the above about humanities verbatim, because here I was, a 14-year-old with buncha stories published in a national magazine and some old bag kept telling me I must not have a soul for not liking a book where literal trees had more character development than all the *gonists combined. I didn't need to be traumatized to change opinion, just experience positive feedback and interact with, you know, people who don't immediately equate "I didn't think of this" or "I didn't think of it that way" with "it must be wrong. "
You're absolutely right. On reflection, I think part of the problem is that the kind of disagreements I'm referring lately to have been in passing, and so there hasn't been as much of an opportunity for proper engagement and discussion of the kind you're referring to.
Yeah. I find it's also a significant amount of emotional energy needed to try.
Good to hear from you, thanks for checking in, OB. I hope reality astonishes and gets much better for you between now and the new year. from stage left: and so it shall be! from stage right: and so it shall be! edit: dang I was tired when I posted, i had initially put "right stage" and "left stage". i am a little upset that no one called me out, surely there are some (one..?) ex-theater kids on here to call out my ex-drumline ignorance. Yeah we prolly all gotta take care of ourselves a little better if we're going to pull this off (I do, at least). "This" being anything clearly good or right, at a large scale or... nah I guess it'll be more like every scale. Any collective action. Anything at all worth doing. Do one's own oxygen mask first etc., yes yes. I have been trying to find out if they will allow like small lutes or whatnot in The Camps for over two years now. Really shit customer service so far, not sure what to do, but some a capella work is a safe bet, either way. Be well, OB, we'll see ya around :)