Constant, Endless Rage

I wish more than anything I weren’t so angry. I can feel myself radicalizing, thinking, “I don’t think I should have a gun, but I also don’t think lots of people should have guns and they have many. Maybe I really do need to arm myself for protection.” I hate this. I wish I didn’t have these thoughts. I don’t want to have to rely upon weapons to feel safe. This used to be a place of relative peace. But of course, it was only peaceful for the few, my privileged self amongst that number. It was always oppressive for people of color, immigrants, people with disabilities, members of the LGBTQIA community, any and all marginalized populations. We have picked up full-speed on this colonialist, capitalist track and it’s hastening us swiftly toward hell, toward a boiling hot planet incompatible with life as it exists today. We are reaping what’s been sewn for centuries, accelerating for the last few decades.

I want to be compassionate. “I see why you feel that way, but I hope we can find solutions that take your considerations, my considerations, everyone else and their grandmother’s considerations, and the objective facts with equal weight.” There’s got to be a middle ground somewhere, right? I should state clearly that the Hulk is a good analogy for me: I am constantly enraged, triggered even more so these past days with the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the hobbling of the EPA and its ability to regulate GHGs, the overreach of states into tribal sovereignty. You know, the judicial coup going on right this very moment. I want to be compassionate, but I am so livid, so infuriated, so full of hot lightning formerly without malice but with a newfound sense of paranoia, like my only option soon will be to acquire my own firearms. I don’t want to live in an armed country. I don’t want to live in an armed house. Maybe it’s the incessant heat roasting my brain, sharpening my uncivil tongue. What are we coming to? How far will the right take the culture wars and when will we be far enough over the cliff?

In the world at large there are brief and faint glimmers of hope, but never a sustained upward trajectory of improvement. My life personally remains as good as it can get all things considered, clear evidence from my point of view that the universe is conspiring to keep me here fighting in whatever way I can as long as I’m destined to be here. I wish it didn’t feel like I’m just endlessly beating my head against a wall. What will it take for the elders I’m supposed to honor and respect to see how far we’ve slipped away from safety and freedom, and are now entering a period of violence and destruction? I guess chaos is what we were meant to descend into all along. The religious texts predicting our collective downfall in hellfire were spot on. The Mayans were pretty close with a 2012 doomsday. Each day is a fresh nightmare, a new Pandora’s box of terrors, and yet we all survive to the next day, if we can.

Fundamentalist Constitutionalists, the most curmudgeonly kind of judge. Their viewpoints and legal opinions are akin to having a failing operating system you can never upgrade, a system of infrastructure you can never repair and improve. None of our governing documents were perfect the first time they were drafted and they desperately need amendments and relevant, time-sensitive adaptations.

Why can’t words be enough? Why can’t well-supported arguments win? What evidence would be convincing? Which emotional plea?

When I was 14, I remember learning the definition of misogyny in my freshman year English class, and I thought, “I’ve never experienced hatred toward women. This must be a philosophical concept.” Then when I was 16, I read the Handmaid’s Tale and thought, “What a provocative piece of literature! Surely we’ll never live in such a bleak dystopia, never let it get that bad.” Then I was 17 and Citizens v. United was decided and as I argued with my AP government debate team in Montpelier I thought, “I don’t fully understand the ramifications of how bad things will get, but it can’t be good or helpful to have corporations making endless campaign contributions and building Super PACs. Buying politicians is blatant corruption.” Then I was raped at 19 and saw how little is done in response, how many excuses and counter accusations get made, had my experience validated when I read “Missoula” by Jon Krakauer and realized this was the rule, not the exception. When I was 24 and the results of the 2016 election came out, I wept for two days straight, imagining all the horrors the Supreme Court, packed with Trump’s nominees, would unleash upon us for decades to come. And here we are. I’m 30 and terrified to become pregnant, not because I’m not longing for motherhood, but simply because I may not be able to access basic, life-saving reproductive healthcare. And I want to feel something resembling peace, but all I feel is pure, unadulterated rage. I fear who I’m becoming, the person I’m transitioning into as things grow darker and more desperate around all of us.

If anyone can let me in on the secret to inner calm in a sea of blood and despair, the nightmarish combination of gun violence and withholding of vital, life-saving healthcare, let me know. I don’t think therapy is the answer for individuals grappling with the larger picture of systemic injustice, just like I don’t think voting will ultimately be the tool that breaks the wheel and builds a better, more adaptive, streamlined, solution-oriented system of government.

The Grief is Powerful and Exhausting

Back again, back again, another month past. I live another ~4 weeks. I often reminisce on the happiest, most gorgeous day (and most fun weekend) of my life and smile, blessed and grateful to have experienced it with my loved ones, but my anxiety and dread inevitably got the better of me, as they always do.

I am exhausted. I know many people are completely burned out, unable to acquire resources, and out of options, and I think it’s a clear indication that our society is sick, rather than individuals being sick. Nothing about how we live our lives in this country is sustainable. We sacrifice our health and leisure for work, we sacrifice our environment for material goods. We cannot carry on like this indefinitely. We are being crushed and flattened by the grind, and when we don’t have enough water to drink, wash, and grow food with, the wars will start. There’s nothing I fear more in the immediate moment than armed Americans. Domestic terrorists slaughter innocents by the dozen every day and we do nothing to prevent mass shootings. Multiple mass extinctions are unfolding and we do nothing to reverse the damage. And by “nothing” I mean “nothing significant”. The Republican party is the party of obstruction, not solutions. They stand in the way of passing legislation that would help Americans every opportunity they get. They exacerbate problems like gun violence, teen pregnancy, and hate crimes. And yet my elders, the people I’m supposed to look to for wisdom and guidance, keep voting for them. It’s soul-crushing. It makes me question the utility of my very existence, the extent to which I can reasonably expect to make any kind of positive impact as the world burns down around us.

I’ve written iterations of this general message many times. I have plenty to live for, but the overwhelming uncertainty of what life will look like in another 10, 20, 40 years saps my emotional strength and intellectual energy. Mark Twain wrote that, “Worrying is like paying a debt you don’t owe.” But at the same time, ignoring the very grim, bleak, deathly trajectory we are on, hurtling toward our doom as a planet, is irresponsible. I can’t feign ignorance. Anyone who is even slightly aware of how deeply fucked we are can’t just unlearn that information. And sticking our heads in the sand will only make it worse, not better. So I write and write and write, other people much smarter than me write and advocate and speak and organize, people much bolder than me engage in civil disobedience and lay their bodies and reputation on the line . . . and nothing happens. The machine is too big to be swayed by scientists, and yet whenever we don’t listen to the scientists we end up maimed or dead. So, with this suffocating grief sitting on my chest, I get up, wash my face, style my hair, and walk myself to work, praying that the tiny stones tumbling trigger an avalanche of technological revolution and sweeping energy reformation.

I, like many others, am literally taking things one day at a time. Sometimes I make plans a few months in advance, but mostly I just struggle and scrabble from one instance to the next, glad to have emerged unscathed for another precious moment. Like-minded people have been protesting, signing, donating, and voting, and yet the game is rigged so that the fewest people who represent the viewpoints of less than half the nation maintain their vice grip on power. Fuck the GOP. I will never grow into a selfish, short-sighted, narrow-minded, anti-intellectual conservative as long as I live. More likely, I’ll grow more radically progressive with my advancing age. The abortion bans have me livid, and I’ve never once been pregnant nor needed to acquire an abortion. But I love many people who have needed or wanted an abortion and it infuriates me that women will have their lives threatened, even ended, for not being able to access safe abortions in instances of medical emergencies, rape, and incest. And abortion should remain legal for any and all reasons because it’s no one’s business what one birth-giver does with their body. Bodily autonomy is the sacred gift, the embodiment of sentience, the God-given right that all other rights and freedoms stem from. If one does not have ownership over oneself, one has ownership of nothing. Women will die from pregnancy complications. Men will murder their pregnant partners, it’s the leading cause of death for pregnant people. It’s happening now and will get worse.

The GOP is particularly sick. They voted against an emergency bill that would increase the infant formula supply, so now we can tack on “Starves Babies” to their list of crimes against humanity, which already includes “Forces Pregnancies” and “Enslaves Female Bodies.” Every argument they have about minimizing government influence is horseshit, as demonstrated by their forced state violence in the private affairs of people with uteri. The GOP is the pro-mass murder party, the bully, lie, steal, and cheat party. They do it openly, without fear of repercussions. Every physical, mental, and emotional abuser I personally know is a Trump supporter, and it’s because they like that he, having raped a child, having raped multiple women, having abused his wives and neglected his children, can still be granted the most power in the country, the highest office in the land. They worship and idolize him because if scum like that can live in the White House, then any dirtbag abuser can also reasonably expect to go on hurting other people without retribution. It’s sickening. Maddening. My rage is the flame that cuts through my exhaustion and depression. It’s not a good way to live. And yet things don’t get better, they get worse, and my rage grows.

I suppose I’ll end things here, since I’ve said it all before. I cling to every instance of beauty, every kind gesture, every small joy and delight that can be found, and there are many. But always there is fear and hurt simmering in my mind, and always there are aggressors who use their ideologies to oppress, enslave, mutilate, maim, and kill. I hope the tides of change are coming. We won’t survive if our predecessors keep voting to kill their own offspring.