Whole lotta raging goin' on

Each night since the election, Portland's young (mostly white) people have marched in the streets, stopping traffic, blocking bridges, annoying tourists, and generally wreaking havoc as they bemoan the sad fact that democracy failed to meet their demands. Emotions are high after the unexpected election outcome. Before the election, half the population was bursting with rage. After the election, the other half is now bursting with rage. Some of that rage is being expressed as violence.

Violence is a tragic expression of an unmet need. (Credit Marshall Rosenberg with that pithy observation). Unmet needs create some powerful emotions. It's clear the protesters are scared. Fear makes them angry. I get it. Nobody likes to feel scared. We would much rather feel rage than fear. These negative emotions are visible on the surface, but it helps to remember that negative emotions are always driven by unmet needs.

Last week, geographically speaking, a large swath of the country's voters gave the Democrats the finger. Clearly the voters were expressing anger, hope, maybe some payback? What were their unmet needs? I'm going to guess recognition, respect, and consideration. Safety and security, maybe. Control and autonomy.

In the American heartland, they've seen the "browning" of America. They've seen the loss of their ethnic and cultural supremacy. In their grocery store checkout lines, weird people who don't look like them are buying weird things that don't even resemble food. In their children's schools, their kids are getting into fights with kids who don't speak English. On the streets of their neighborhoods, they see "hordes" of women "hiding" behind robes and headscarves as they "take over" the sidewalks. They see change and understandably get scared. Change is scary. Who can blame them if in the privacy of the voting booth, they voted for the person who looked like them?

Some voters may be uneducated, but they aren't stupid. They know their high-paying manufacturing jobs aren't coming back. They voted for the promise, but more than that, they voted as an expression of their rage at being forgotten. They are angry because their needs for respect, recognition, safety, security, control, and autonomy weren't being met. When we aren't skilled at expressing our rage, we get expressions of violence. Smashing windows or voting Trump into the White House are both tragic expressions of unmet needs.

Some of the "winners" heard the promises and bought the dream. Others just wanted to express their rage and frustration at being ignored. Some probably hope that the "good old days" will return (i.e., when white men were in charge, women knew their place, and minorities could be exploited, disenfranchised, or killed). Time is not on their side. Sadly, time is not on anyone's side, considering the ongoing demise of the planet.

Two steps forward, one step backward. I hope for the best, because I have no idea how to prepare for the worst. I am not strong enough to be a survivor, not mentally, physically, or emotionally. I want to see what happens, but I have to accept that no one knows the future. We can predict, but we've seen how good our predictions are. We do pretty good at weather, not so good at election outcomes. It's funny, though—all these emotions were there to be seen. The Democrats didn't identify and address the unmet needs of the forgotten voters in the Midwest and Rust Belt and paid the price.

Here's to creativity at the end of the world

Almost two years ago I started writing a book about helping dissertators get their dissertations approved. Dissertators face many challenges in the process of earning their doctorates. I ought to know. I have blogged extensively about my own sordid and gruesome doctoral journey—in fact, that is how this blog came to be. If you have read my blog, you know I often have a lot to say, and this new book was no different. Within a few months, the chapter about getting the dissertation proposal approved ballooned into a mushy amorphous monster. To keep from losing my mind, I whittled the project down to focusing just on helping dissertators get their proposals approved. And now, almost two years later, I'm pleased to say, I've published that book.

Sorry, I can't report that it was published by one of those snappy academic publishers like SAGE or Taylor & Francis. No, because I'm a DIY kind of gal (control freak), I decided to self-publish through Amazon's Createspace. Wow. Am I glad I lived to see the day when artists, writers, and musicians can send their work out into the world without the interference of those pesky intermediaries (galleries, publishers, record labels). Anyone can publish, and they do! The Internet is clogged with creativity. It's so exciting.

Because I am a Word expert (more or less), I can format the heck out of a document and make it look like something someone might actually want to buy. I hope. And through the magic of the digital on-demand printing revolution, Amazon can print my book for anyone who might want a copy.

I sent away for a proof copy so I could see how it looked and felt, expecting to be disappointed. I opened the cardboard box, feeling a little sick. Inside was a miracle. It's so thick! (Did I write all that?) I paged through to find the screenshots I had inserted to show dissertators how to use Word. Oh joy, the screenshots (low resolution images, red flag!) were perfectly acceptable. The color cover (low resolution, uh oh, look out) was shiny and bright. The book (500+) pages felt hefty and substantial in my hands, definitely something I would have bought back when I was struggling to get my proposal approved. I can only hope others will feel the same.

So, with one project off my plate, it seems appropriate to tackle another seemingly impossible task: NaNoWriMo. That's where people commit to write a 50,000-word novel in one month. Starting exactly five days ago. I'm a little behind. So far I've got 600 words.

I committed to it to support my good friend Bravadita, who has a lot to write about it, if only she would start. I wasn't sure how far I would get, to tell you the truth. I'm expecting an editing job tomorrow with a short turnaround, not much time to do anything else but eat, sleep, and watch TV.

I told my sister about my writing commitment, and she brilliantly suggested I take portions of this blog and write a book about our mother. Is that not brilliant!? I think it is. Thanks, Sis.

Last night I downloaded all the content I've written for the past two years. In Microsoft Word, I can search on keywords, so I highlighted all the instances of Mom, mother, and maternal. Next, I'll cull through the posts and see if I can make some sense, maybe glean some structure. I'll put on my editing hat and look for the bones. Maybe I'll actually be able to finish a first draft by November 30. Maybe not, but at least I can say I tried.

It feels a little odd to be focusing on my creative endeavors when democracy could be on the verge of falling apart. People are apparently prepping for the end of the world. Whether it's a bizarro nutjob in power or an earthquake on the Cascadia Subduction Zone, I have resigned myself to be one of the casualties. I just don't have the energy or gumption to go out and prep for disaster. Prepping would mean, what, buying a tent, a sleeping bag, a propane stove? A year's supply of ready-to-eat meals that are full of chemicals, sugar, fat, and salt? Is survival really so important that I would eat garbanzo beans straight out of a can?

I suppose I'd eat just about anything if I got hungry enough. That's one of the perks of living white pseudo-middle class in America—At least until my savings run out, I can pretend I have nothing but luxury problems. My fridge is full of fresh food, because I try hard to eat healthy. When all that fresh food is gone, though, my cupboards are bare. If the earthquake (or the coup) happen to occur on the day before I go shopping, well, I guess I'll be eating squirrels. Lucky for me, they are used to eating at my bird feeder so they might be easy to catch. Some of them look very plump and juicy. And there's a big gray rat out back, too, if I get really desperate. But he might be harder to catch ... he's a loner, like me.