To Each Their Own

One definition of my name is "One Who Thinks and Reasons For Herself". Oh, you have no idea. When my parents chose my name they were I think, hoping for a girl that would be smart and independent. But some combination of genetics and world events instead produced a rather defiant, rebellious, loudly opinionated and radical woman that eventually ended up leaving it all, including them, behind. This woman, the one I am today, still wrestles though with expectations and assumptions about who I am supposed to be and how I am supposed to participate in this life.

One thing that I am proud of, even when the guilt creeps around my edges, is that I have remained flexible. That may be an adaptive maneuver born from trauma but regardless, I'm grateful for it. It's allowed me the freedom to place less weight on cultural norms and have more access to my own internal compass. Another gift that has likely helped with this is my own neurodivergence. It's not so easy to pretend all the time that what you believe and what others seem to always lines up. At some point I stopped trying because the chronic dissonance I lived with wasn't sustainable. That was the point in which I started to trust myself more.

I try not to judge people their choices, I really do. But at the end of the day, I do. I might as well just admit it. I'm judgy. It exists more in the theoretical realm, that is in my own mind, than the real one in which I really do make an effort to understand. Having nearly 20 years of deep and personal conversations with people about their choices, motivations, feelings, needs, desires and beliefs has certainly helped me soften my experience of why people do what they do. And I have a ton of patience, compassion and empathy around that. But if you are not my client, chances are high I'm forming some opinions. Maybe even some strong ones.

Like a lot of people, I think I share my own perspectives in some part because I want to be seen, known but also because I want my life and my choices validated. I want to know that I am not wrong for being who I am or doing what I do. I publish it, publicize it because I hope it connects with someone. That someone is at least thinking "that's a good point!" Or "I feel that way too!". Like many writers, I also write to sort out my own ideas and feelings and to maybe in the process help someone do the same with theirs. I don't write (or post) to be admired or desired. I write to make sense of things and I write to try to change them.

The concept of changing people and through that, changing the world is a messy one for me. I spend a lot of time after all trying to simultaneously get people to mind their own business. To let people live and be who they are. To stop controlling what rights people have and what they are allowed to do, say and be in the world. But "they", i.e. the powers that be, would lose power if that were to happen. So what I am looking for really is systemic change via the individual change pathway. If more republican senators for example, were to choose to be a little less cowardly and a little less greedy, things would change in our government and things would then change for our people. So I guess what I am saying is that I want to change the people that want to change other people but isn't that then me too? You see the problem.

Lets go back then to systemic change. First off, systems hate change. Family systems, business systems, political systems. Systems are constructed to create someone's idea of order and are inherently resistant to incorporating new information and ideas. But we simultaneously love the idea of progress, at least in the realm of technology and... once upon a time... medicine. We love progress most of all when it results in financial capital, that being our version of success and happiness. More so, we need it. We need it to stay "on top". We need it to keep advancing. We need it on a personal level because at some point someone told us that we all need goals. And that the actualization of these goals was achievement and that achievement made you worth something. It made you someone.

For a while I did those things. I went to college then graduate school. I got married, had babies, bought houses. And low and behold, how did I feel? I did not feel like someone. I felt like no one. I did not feel the satisfaction of success. I felt lost and unfulfilled. I wouldn't go so far as to say I felt depressed but I definitely did not feel happy and I felt a lot of stress around maintaining those achievements and creating more goals, new goals, to work towards.

With Trump's first presidency the descent began. Then the pandemic and now his second Presidency has accelerated not just economic collapse but the collapsing of virtually every system most of us have lived our entire lives depending on without ever really seeing them or understanding how they were propping us up. I will forever mourn this time. Not because it's horrible, which it is, but because it is the biggest loss of opportunity by human complacency that the vast majority of us has even seen.

With Trump's first presidency we all chose to wait it out. Maybe we protested. Maybe we resisted in small ways, ways that weren't too disruptive to our lives. But mostly we collectively decided, "this is crazy. We just need to get through it. And then life will go back to normal and he will be gone." And then, we waited it out. With Covid we got scared. We locked down. We did things a little differently because we had to and for that reason only. And then, we waited it out. And now, (he's back!) with Trump and his lackeys back at the helm, what are we doing? Waiting it out. Waiting it out as people are being targeted and killed. As we lose our medical care, our retirement, our jobs. We are waiting it out as our friends and coworkers and neighbors are being detained or deported. We are waiting it out as our forests are being destroyed, our land is being ravaged. We are waiting it out as our rights are being stripped, as the guilty are being pardoned. We are waiting it out as our kids are being shot.

And yet! We want our old systems back! The very ones that got us exactly where we are! We want life to just go back to "normal". It doesn't matter that that normal sucked. That that normal was still someone else's version of how a well functioning society with productive and contributing citizens should look. That normal was a failure for most yet will still idealize it and want nothing more than for it to embrace us in its warm blindfold again. Sure we can accept poverty and hunger, just not this much! We can understand that a certain amount of injustice and its counterpart privilege are inherent in any society but this much is a little out of control! Come now. We can accept that it's impossible to protect ALL the people, animals, resources but at least before there was more of it, right?

Sure. It was certainly better before this shit show. But was it good? No, not for most. If you are reading this you are probably a personal friend which means you are probably comparatively educated and resourced so maybe it actually was good for you. And maybe going back 10 years and picking up where you left off really would be ideal. I miss it. Of course I do. At least then the world made a little more sense and it felt a little more within reach to work within the systems in order to create a life that could still be meaningful and beautiful. But the reality is that these years have shown us how fragile and insufficient those systems were and that we cannot go back to them even if we want to. They are not there for us. We need to build something new. And I'm sorry because I know a lot of you have held dearly to the practice of focusing on what you can control so know this may upset you but it's not enough. If it gets you through the day, great. Keep it. But don't let it end there or at least extend it beyond yourself. Because a lot of people don't have the ability to do that. A lot of people can't control losing their housing or food stamps. They can't control living in fear of deportation or being exposed and hunted because they are transgender. I don't want you to fall apart. And I get that the reality of all of this may threaten that every day. So do what you need to do to take care of yourself. And then share the rest. Please. Share your ideas, your love, your art. Share your information and your skills and your opportunities and your land and your food when you can. Because we can build something new. And different. I've seen it. It works. But only when a lot of people do it together.

Which brings me back to my grief at our shortcomings as humans. Are we really that lacking in courage and creativity that we can't find our way out of this mess? Or are we just so exhausted by the grind we were funneled into, so disempowered by where it has lead us, that we still just need someone else to tell us what to do. Someone else to draw us a map that's mostly the same, maybe with just a few tweaks, so we know where to go and when. Are we really so complacent that we will gladly just accept returning to normal as the best possible outcome of all of this? Will we all collectively decide after we have waited it out and it the landscape looks a little more familiar again that we want to go back to the cycle of consuming and thus creating demand which leads to the need to keep producing which means we need to keep making and building and working and working and sending our kids to schools so we can keep working then they can work and keep working.

This is the part that no matter how hard I try, I just cannot understand. There are so many of us. So so many wildly brilliant, inspired, outside the box thinkers. So many brave and passionate people. And there is literally an infinite number of ways to create a world and a culture and a life that is so much more than this model has offered us. What are we so afraid of? Why won't we even consider trying something else?

I guess that's why I am here. Across the world from the country I grew up in and everyone I knew. I guess that's why I admit, I gave up. I gave up trying to try to change people and systems that didn't want to change and I came to a place that I thought I might find a different way to be. And the crazy thing is, it worked. It is different here. And I am different here. I know the saying that you take your problems with you wherever you go. But what if that's not always true? What if things can get infinitely better when you leave a lot of those problems behind? What if in doing so you realize that the problems were in fact outside of you and nothing you could do internally was going to change that. What if there are places and people out there that live the way you want to live? I fully believe that leaving the US was like leaving an abusive relationship and I still bear the bruises and scars from staying in it for too long. But I'm healing now. And the paths before me hold endless possibilities. In some ways I guess I realized that I was the one that didn't fit in. That all my rantings were falling on deaf or overwhelmed ears and rather than beating my head against the wall trying to convince people to do what I thought they should, I removed myself and instead found something that works for me.

For now I'm going to stay true to my name. I value critical thinking and contemplative reasoning and I can't seem to stop speaking out. Someday maybe I'll shut up about it all. That seems like resignation but maybe it's just acceptance. I can't save a world that doesn't want to be saved just like I can't force a friend to leave an abusive relationship even though I understand all the manipulation that goes into convincing people that what's on the other side after the break up will be worse, not better. The US GOP is trying to convince you you will fail if you don't comply. That you need them in order to be safe. That the way they tell you to live is right and good and best and the only way. That they will take care of you despite every evidence to the contrary.

I made it to the other side, you guys. I promise you, it's better over here. And it could be there too.