Mon. June 8, 2020: Ride The Dragon

image courtesy of momo_sc via pixabay.co

 

We’re going through a lot of emotions right now. Every day is a roller coaster. Feeling more than one thing isn’t wrong. You feel what you feel. You’re better of acknowledging it than repressing it.

I’ve read a couple of hundred articles at this point about the psychological strains – for myself and hoping to find something great to share. Bits and pieces of many of them give a second or two of relief. Nothing gives me the sense of safety I need or want right now.

In fact, most of them leave me feeling worse, because so many phrases became overused so quickly that when I see one, I instantly turn off.

“Unprecedented times”

“We are in this together”

Neither of the above are true. Diseases have wiped out large percentages of the population throughout history. The difference here is that there was advance warning. Which was ignored. There was advance planning. Which was dismantled. There is a lack of leadership.

We are NOT in this together. If we were, there would be leadership. People would not refuse to wear masks or stay home; they wouldn’t demand re-opening to put everyone at risk so they can get their nails done. If we were in this together, we’d have UBI until it is actually safe to re-open, not as we are doing now, because the top executives don’t like making single digit millions instead of double digit millions and would rather people die.

We are NOT in this together or black people wouldn’t be murdered for simply existing. And those murders would not go unpunished.

Of course we’re angry. The people who are supposed to handle this, who are put in place to keep us safe and free and healthy so we can go about all the different daily details of our lives – they are the ones actively trying to kill us.

So what do we do? How do we juggle a government with absolutely no care or respect for our lives with the pressures we already have of keeping a roof over our heads and food on the table?

I think of it as riding the dragon.

I think of my anger personified as a dragon, and learning how to ride it. Learn how to aim and focus the anger and find constructive ways to help create positive change. I want a better world for most people. I won’t say “everybody” – that term is bandied about too much.

It’s a great utopian concept that we should have a better world for “everybody.”

My amendment to that is that I want a better world for those who do not actively try to destroy the just, peaceful, better world we are working towards.

Those who are trying to kill us, those who don’t want social, racial, and economic justice – there need to be consequences for their crimes.

I’m trying to learn to ride the dragon, to use my anger constructively. For me, destructive anger means I let it eat me up while paralyzed and overwhelmed. Constructive means I find ways to work for positive change. It may not be the same way others do, but it’s a piece of the larger puzzle. Constructive doesn’t mean I go along with the route of conformation. But it does mean I’m taking action instead of letting the anger fester and destroy me.

The anger, the exhaustion, the fear: they’re all debilitating. But if I learn to ride the dragon effectively, and I join others working in the same direction (masked and properly distanced), I do believe we can rebuild something better and more equal. We cut out the rot, we have consequences for the crimes. We don’t pretend they didn’t happen. We make the changes so it will be a long, long time before the cycle begins again.

I can’t predict what will happen by the end of the day, much less in a few weeks or months.  But I also can’t be a voyeur instead of a participant.