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.

New Year, Same Crippling Anxieties!

Happy 2022! Or is it 2020, too? The years really do zip by faster the more years lived, a smaller percentage of the whole. I can barely keep up with it all.

As this beautiful blue marble orbits the sun once more, I’m more aware of the immoveable burden resting on my heart than ever before. It has been sitting on my chest for quite some time, and I am making peace with the fact that it will most likely stay with me for all of my years, however many they may be. As long as I am conscious, I will be pondering the ethical questions surrounding motherhood and childbirth in a time when we are working too far slowly to change our disastrous planetary trajectory.

The fact remains that I am selfish. I have to repeat that fact to myself every time I feel the baby fever rise and imagine Jack and I welcoming a new soul into our lives, a tiny baby bundle of joy, the living embodiment of a love and a soul-bond that I know will never die. “I want to be a mother.” What a weak, selfish justification. Frankly, I don’t know that my child would want to live on this dying planet. And even if there were more reasons to be optimistic about the future, like the advent of safe nuclear fusion (check out MIT’s most recent work using super magnets to contain a nuclear fusion reaction), or the widespread rebuilding of our electrical grid so that it is thoroughly decarbonized, the fact remains that no one is born with consent. The fact remains that, even though I fruitlessly engage with climate deniers and try to get my message of action and collaboration out to as many people as possible, I am not making any headway and I probably never will. And even if I were successful, that doesn’t mean I’m at all worthy of propagating my genes to the next generation. There is nothing particularly special about me. I would simply be contributing to overpopulation.

I sit in an interesting position where most of my female friends and acquaintances either do not want to procreate, or are undecided. Of my six bridesmaids, four definitively do NOT want children (not even to adopt), one is on the fence, and one definitely does want to give birth. If I take a more expansive look at my friend circle, this ratio evens out a bit, but more people still skew toward the childless lifestyle. There are plenty more years ahead for the future to be remade, but looking at this current assemblage of people closest to me, it seems we’ll be aging out quietly, with no noise or chaos of small humans growing to adulthood and fulfilling the important roles we will grow too old to continue carrying out. It makes me sad to think about it, but it makes me guilty for wanting to bring in children of my own just to assuage my generational loneliness. I am selfish, I am selfish, I am selfish.

What can I possibly do to make the world more livable, more cooperative, and more sustainable? I write, I volunteer, I work a position that actively tries to safeguard the environment and the natural resources we need most: water, clean air, biomass in all its many forms. My professional life is dedicated to the cause as is my spare time, my personal choices, and my private internal struggles. And it really doesn’t matter how much effort I put into serving other people today and serving future generations tomorrow. I am selfish at the root of it all. I want to carry Jack’s children in my womb, birth them and meet them Earth-side, watch them grow, give them guidance, love, and affection. But there will be no guarantee of safety, or even a guarantee of access to drinkable water come 2050, especially if we’re still living in the arid west. I can willingly give my life over to my offspring, but I cannot give them an entirely new planet, one undamaged by extractive capitalism and overconsumption. Biosphere 2 demonstrated that the extent of human ingenuity is limited, and that we are too unsophisticated to reproduce something as complex as Earth. We are killing our only home, spreading and consuming like locusts. It’s hypocritical for me to want to continue populating a system that cannot provide for all of us, especially since I very well know better.

I recently re-watched Titanic. Wow, what a film. I personally love it and think it held up quite impressively in the 25 years since its release in 1997. It hit especially hard this time, comparing the disaster to climate change. Our Earth ship is sinking and there are still so many loud, violent, obnoxious (in my personal experience) MEN who are clinging to the railing as the icy water washes over the deck screaming that it’s a pleasant voyage and that everyone trying to avoid a watery grave is a brainwashed idiot. There is no convincing them to be a part of the solution. There is no releasing them of their own fear and emotional immaturity. They staunchly insist they are correct in the face of the very real, overwhelming evidence unfolding before our eyes that no, Earth is not okay. Species are dying orders of magnitude faster than the normal background extinction rate documented in the geologic record. But sure, go off on how I’m a demonic liberal (haha) for daring to use the phrase “climate change denier”. I think “ecocidal future-child murderer” is more accurate. It is significantly more harsh, sure, but drives the point home that their factual incorrectness is costing the lives of all humans who will inherit an overheated, utterly cooked planet. Their decision to repeatedly, shamelessly lie is morally reprehensible. Lying is a choice, not a personality trait, and certainly not a birth defect. I have zero qualms about verbally lambasting these liars. If they don’t want to help bail water, fine. But the least they can do is stand off to the side out of everyone’s way.

These posts really are just an opportunity for me to shout into the void and to vocalize my existential dread. I cry at the drop of a hat. These first three weeks of 2022 have been especially rough for my mental health and even though I show up to work every day, even though I teach my dance classes at night, and volunteer at the fire department, and most recently appeared as a guest speaker on The Everything Else Show with Martin Willis to discuss my message of climate action (while we still have time to act), I feel like none of it matters. None of it amounts to the changes we so desperately need to make as a species. I believe in ripple effects, absolutely, but I am a weak, limited, emotionally fragile woman who will likely worry herself to an early grave. Perhaps I will survive longer than I give myself credit for. It is, after all, written into our very DNA as living creatures that we strive to survive for as long as possible. The ship is sinking, but we’re still trying to avoid the water at all costs, to avoid slipping into the freezing North Atlantic. Refusing to live in the face of certain devastation is not the answer. The answer is to alter the way in which we produce energy. And even though it’s a simple answer, there is no political will or emotional fortitude to accomplish such a change. Any attempt made to alter viewpoints is met with hostility and vitriol, even as the threat looms right in our faces. We cannot work together even to defeat a common enemy. It breaks my heart. It breaks my brain. It saps my energy. I give and give and somehow my cup refills enough for me to make it through the day over and over, but it accomplishes nothing. I accomplish next to nothing.

I suppose it’s unfair to title this post “New Year, Same Crippling Anxieties!” I am not crippled. I still function. I have a support network where many people have no one and nothing to lean on. It is, once again, my privilege that allows me to take time out of my schedule to write these pointless posts. My words convince no one and largely go unread, but here I am, back on my bullshit, talking about my feelings to no one but a glowing computer screen. And even that’s not true. Jack listens to my dread and my anger, holds me when I cry, kisses away the rage and despair. I often pick up my phone and am able to call any number of my closest friends, and always they open their heart to me and lend their undistracted ears. Even though my very worth as a human feels tenuous at best, I have so many people that I love who love me right back. I live for them, I live for my two dogs, I live for the hope of a brighter day when we take longer, stronger strides toward solutions that benefit the greatest number of people in a time when severe weather events become more frequent and destructive. If everyone took it upon themselves to relentlessly speak up about the greatest threat to our existence, perhaps we might have a shot at reversing our actions and stabilizing the atmosphere. We each hold the agency needed to choose a decarbonized lifestyle and work toward passing down this beautiful home to our children and grandchildren. Every voice matters, no matter how small or timid, no matter how broken and raw. I am largely useless in the face of it all, but I will roar (or perhaps I’m just screaming) until I draw my last breath.