A tirade for the end of the world

Like most people around the world, I have a hill of beans in front of me. Individually, each one of our little pinto bean molehills is not all that impressive. It's traumatic to us to see our pile of beans, but in the big scheme of things, our beans don't add up to much. Collectively, however, suddenly there is a mountain range bursting up out of the ground. It wasn't there a few months ago. What the heck? Some people are now saying, well, I warned you. We saw that mountain range coming years ago. Others are saying, what mountain range? Isn't it lucky I hate eggs?

I've grown to hate eggs, too, but that isn't the point of my beanhill tirade. The point is, collectively, humans are really stupid. For example, take Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth. Now we have enough evidence to say, well, duh. However, despite ample evidence that humans have wrecked the planet, some of us will claim hoax right up until the moment the polluted air chokes them into silence. 

I heard this quote today (I know, I'm only a century late to the party): "Democracy is the theory that the people know what they want, and they deserve to get it good and hard" (H.L. Mencken, 1916). This quote made me snicker. "Good and hard" is always a funny phrase. "Deserve to get it" says to me be careful what you wish for and you don't always get what you want but you get what you deserve. As a retired idealist, I align myself with the optimistic view that the earth will be just fine without us. All of us.

My rant was inspired by a realization that for once did not flee my brain after it entered, probably because I've had this realization so many times over the years that it's worn deep trail ruts in my gray matter. You could call it the Oregon Trail of realizations. It started in Oregon, so that metaphor works on two levels. 

I came from Oregon Trail people. Pioneers who put their houses in covered wagons and set off across the country to brave the great unknown, searching for land they could take from whoever was there before them. They left Missouri, crossed the Plains, killing whatever they could along the way, and ended up in the fertile Willamette Valley, where they got busy tearing up trees, building farms, and killing Native Americans. It's a time-tested method that not everyone is on board with, but as long as you are White and male, it's grand.

I did a version of that as I grew up. I set off into the great unknown of young adulthood, mowing down anyone who said no, you will never make a living as an artist, and moved into other people's territories to exploit their natural resources in my quest to prove my parents wrong. In my secret heart chamber, buried deep under layers of arrogance and self-will, I knew that everything I did was going to end in disaster. What did disaster mean to my 21-year-old self? No clue. Don't remember. 

I do remember seeing a commercial on TV showing a happy man riding a bicycle with a little house on the back. The tall wooden box must have been no bigger than an outhouse, and maybe that's what it was, I don't remember. It seems to me he was wearing pinstripe trousers and a cut-away jacket, quite a dapper dude. No idea what the ad was selling. I was enamored with the idea of carrying your house on your back. Self-sufficiency to the max, no need to rely on anyone, as you explore what it means to have total freedom. As if having an outhouse on the back of your bike would lead to freedom. Ha.

You get where I'm going with this. I've always liked the idea of the self-sufficient mobile lifestyle, and I always knew that the settle-down-and-get-married life was not going to be for me. So, in a way, you could say living in my car was always going to be my destiny.

The other half of this prediction, though, stems from my relentless compulsion to fit in, to do it right, to play the game, even if it meant giving up my creativity, identity, and freedom. Hence, turning from painting to commercial art and graphic design. Turning from fashion design to sewing clothes for people. Turning from failing at business to getting a business admin degree (so I could figure out how to do it right). And then falling into teaching, and choosing to pursue a Phd in business admin so I could be more "marketable" to my employer, who laid me off six months before I graduated. I can keep going. Using my Phd to become an academic editor and a dime-a-dozen adjunct faculty at a for-profit higher education institution not unlike the ones I criticized in my dissertation. 

I'm like a moth who keeps returning to the stupid flame of societal approval, seeking warmth and light and repeatedly getting singed. 

I hear you muttering, Wow, that's so bleak, does she hear herself? I hear myself, and I hear you, too, thanks for caring. I invite you to worry about your own little molehill of beans. If you turn your back for too long, it could become a mountain range. A lot harder to make into frijoles.

You could say I've given up and I don't care about anything anymore, but you would be wrong. 

The only thing I've given up is the quest to mold myself into something I am not, never was, never could be. It may have taken becoming homeless to finally be my true self, but here I am, sitting in my car in a patch of desert outside Marana, Arizona, expressing myself to my endless patient therapist, Google Blogger. The sunset was spectacular.  

I think I have one blog reader left. Bless you, Bravadita. I started this blog in 2012 when I was struggling to get my dissertation proposal approved. I was a flaming bag of rage. Then the teaching job ended. Then Mom took over my life. Then Mom ended. Then I ended up in Arizona, which might be the end of me if I stay here one more summer. 

One thing I know about myself now: I am not a quitter. This blog is proof that even when I'm cranky, I can fake it, I have faked it, and I'm still faking it. 

For example, I show up for my mentoring gig, even though the chances that the artists I mentor are going to make a living selling their art are worse than their odds of winning the lottery. I don't tell them to go get a job, and I mean, a real job, one that pays them benefits and a pension so they will have something to live on when they get to be my age and they can't walk anymore because they need two hip replacements. I show up for my faculty job, offering encouragement to business people who don't care about extending theory, about adding to the vast body of human knowledge, about proper citation format, or locating robust sources. They couldn't care less. They just want to get the degree in the shortest amount of time possible as cheaply as possible so they can get that job, that promotion, that accolade, and walk in the procession wearing the stupid beret with the velvet-trimmed robe they won't bother to iron. 

Hey, maybe this is Keppra rage finally kicking in! If it is, I kind of like it. 

The truth is, if you know me, you know I care deeply about people, about life, about justice, equality, and mercy. Despite my desire for peace, love, and understanding, I know it is not possible to stop a runaway train if it is heading for a crash. It's like telling a teenager, don't drink and do drugs. It's like telling an artist, get a job so you'll have something to fall back on. Some trains have to crash. Democracy is a runaway train. The conductors are asleep at the wheel. Half the passengers are in the club car fighting over who gets the last piece of pie. The other half are leaning out the windows screaming with their hair on fire. Nobody is right or wrong on this train. We're all on the train together. We are going to get it good and hard.

Excuse me, my hair is smoking. Catch you later.

My zone is flooded, how's your zone?

Everyone copes with stress in their own way. For example, one of my family members is writing Substack newsletters identifying and excoriating the lunatics, while another has unplugged from all media. One of my friends is sending out mass hair-on-fire emails urging us to rise up and do something. Another friend is choosing one action they can take to "make things better." 

I've subscribed to multiple Substacks and YouTube channels, adding my puny clicks to help balance the media landscape. I doubt if we liberals will ever catch up to the Foxies but we can try, one scream at a time. I originally subscribed because my hair was on fire. After a while, my hair fell out, and now I congratulate myself on helping the brave liberal media pundits grow their subscriber lists. 

I have given up trying to read or watch everything. The clickbait headlines aren't fooling me anymore. I know it's how media gets our attention these days—even NPR is doing it. Sometimes I sigh, roll my eyes, and take the bait. I'm usually disappointed. Mostly, I just ignore it all. I guess that means I've unplugged my eyeballs but not unplugged from the technology. Hm.

Lately, I'm just selecting everything in my inbox and pressing delete. I can't keep up. I'm not going to fret if I miss something. Head-exploding emails are a lot like waves in the ocean. It won't be long before another one detonates in my inbox. I've taken to watching the highlights. Why listen to anything in real time when other people have done all the emotional labor of chewing, swallowing, and upchucking the news of the day? I don't have the energy to paddle through the muck. 

People say it's not good to isolate, especially in times of stress. I'm not so sure, if the people around you are losing their sh*t when some new catastrophe floods their inboxes. I personally think it might be healthy to avoid people whose hair is smoking. You can usually spot them. They are the ones sending you mass emails exhorting you to do something.

I'm taking the Zen approach, striving for unattachment to particular outcomes. I admit, it hasn't been easy. At first, I was running around like Chicken Little proclaiming the sky is falling. Then I found out the sky might really be falling, not tomorrow, but possibly in my lifetime, and then I realized, I can do nothing to deflect an asteroid. Similarly, I can't by myself move the baby planet nucleus that currently occupies the center of reality into a dementia care facility where it belongs. 

Together, we can do a lot, though. Humans are jerks but we are definitely resourceful. If we can nudge an asteroid into a new orbit, we can certainly nudge an assh*le out of the Oval Office. This is not hard to grasp. The part that requires master Zen skills is the realization that there is a raft of crazies floating in the hazmat zone around that termite-ridden desk. These nutjobs cannot easily be nudged off their paths, on account of they are mean haters who are terrified of losing something they think they have or not getting something they are sure they want. 

This means it is critical to vote early and often. Assuming we still live in a democracy. 

I take heart in remembering that conspiracies fall apart eventually, because humans are pathetic self-centered terrified idiots who are genetically programmed to look out only for themselves. Sooner or later, their quest for power (aka safety) will cause them to eat each other the way caged gerbils eat their young. The way ancient civilizations cut and burned the forests that sustained them. The way ice skaters take crowbars to the kneecaps of competitors. The way the citizens of the winning team tear down their city's signal lights and bash in store windows. I could go on.  

I could whine and say, it's not me, it's those guys over there, the haters, the ones who wish I would die, or at least, cease to exist, so they could get on with whatever they plan to do when their world is finally white enough. When all the grass is in a museum, when anything colorful is behind bars in a zoo or other secure facility. When they have all the money. Although, what they think they are going to spend it on when there's no one left to make the crap they want to buy is probably not on their radar. 

No, it's not me, it's not my fault, but I'm part of the human collective, therefore, I am part of the problem. I drive a fossil-fuel burning car, I buy stuff from big box stores, I want the easy path to the cash and prizes the American dream promised me when I was in art school. 

Therefore, it is me. And you. It's all of us. The outcome we get we deserve. 

I reserve the right to blame drug-induced rage

When the world seems to be falling apart, when up is down, and nothing makes sense, I recommend finding something to alter your mood. For some, that might mean filling the cabinets with rum. For others, maybe Rocky Road is the drug of choice. Those are just two ideas. The possibilities are endless. Me, I am trying a new anticonvulsant, because, you know, the end of the world is no time to be convulsing. After six doses, my head is still doing it's spastic freight-train washing-machine antics, but the side effects are helping me cope with reality. So far, I'm too tired to care about anything. Being boneless is the bomb. 

Eventually I have to get my bones back together, what's left of them, anyway, given how arthritis is carving up my hips. That's a story for another day. It's so weird, though, how everyone I know is needing joints replaced. What's up with that? It's almost like we're getting old or something. I know. So weird.

I had a great idea for a blogpost, and once again, I forgot to write it down. Gone, off into the ether, to seek another writer whose brain can hang onto ideas for more than thirty seconds. I'm sure that other writer will do a great job with my great idea, whatever it was.

I'm not mad, although I could be. One of the side effects of my new med is rage. I know you are thinking, Carol . . . wait. What are you thinking? I'm trying to predict what you would say, and I'm coming up empty. Am I normally a rageful person? It's so hard to know from the inside. In fact, the neurologist told me I won't know if I'm acting like a jerk. I have to rely on the people around me to tell me. 

She was serious. "Let them know," she said. "Ask them to tell you if you are unusually angry or mean."

I texted my sister to tell me if I start acting snarky. I asked my Scottsdale friend to let me know if I suddenly start being mean. They both said they would. That covers the people I'm close to. But what about all the innocent folks I run into daily? The kind Walmart associates who check my receipt when I leave the store to make sure I haven't stolen a big-screen TV? The nice guys who changed the oil in my car and told me I'd soon need new brakes and a battery? The dude who hit me up for spare change in the parking lot with a sob story about being homeless and living in his car? (Like, get real, dude, who isn't?) 

Am I being mean to them and they are too polite or too hurt to show it? 

Maybe this is how Dr. Jekyll felt. 

Don't we all have reasons to be pissed off right now? Even in calm happy times, there's never a lack of things to get mad about. This seems to be a special case of world insanity, but I think I'm meeting the moment with equanimity. I haven't felt my blood boiling yet, so maybe I'm dodging the side effect of uncontrollable rage. On the other hand, maybe some righteous anger would be appropriate. I say, bring it on.

Speaking of righteous anger, I filled out contact forms for both my U.S. Senators and for my U.S. Congressperson, who happens to be a Republican. I made sure I wasn't snarky, mean, or angry. I was aiming for polite, somewhere south of flabbergasted. I didn't present a frothy emotional appeal. That never works. Cold, hard facts don't work either, though. So what are we left with? Relentless phone calls, emails, and marches. 

I got new marching shoes. I'm ready. 

There can be no rest. 

The intersection of angry and old

My lovely sojurn in paradise, i.e., Scottsdale, has ended, and I'm back on the road. I've stopped enroute for a couple days to enjoy free camping in the desert near Marana. Tomorrow I'll head into Tucson to check my mailbox, visit my possessions in the storage unit, and prepare for my afternoon neurology appointment. I'm joking on the last one. There's nothing to prepare. I have very low expectations that anything will change. I had my two months of remission. I'm grateful.

Meanwhile, as the world falls apart, I have had the luxury of complaining about the challenges of aging with my friend. Everytime we tell a story, we begin with the words "Have I told you this before? Stop me if I've told you this before." In my case, I don't remember what anyone tells me until halfway through the story when I realize I've heard it before. My diagnosis is I'm halfway to dementia. Wheee, look at me go.

The sun is setting over the mountains. The desert is half in shade, half still golden with the waning sunlight. It's a remarkable landscape. Mostly dry desert dirt, rocks, some scrubby bushes, and quite a few short green trees. In the distance, the mountains are varying shades of gray-orange with purple and blue shadows. If you've ever seen a Maxfield Parrish painting, you know what I'm trying to describe. I have grown to love the winter desert. In the summer, this place is an inferno no one in their right mind would visit, much less choose as their home. I'm lucky to be here at the best time. Along about April or May, I will vacate the desert and head for clouds and rain, i.e., the Pacific Northwest. I don't like gray skies, but I prefer them to baking to a crisp in Southern Arizona.

I thought I had something to write about in my weekly rant. It was going to be some eloquent poignant diatribe about the unfairness of growing old. Now that it's Sunday, I find I don't have the energy to complain. No one cares, and I include myself in that bunch. 

I emailed my U.S. senators. They are both Democrats. Preaching to the choir, I know. Now I'm composing a message for Republicans. I just need to figure out who to send it to. It's not a frothy plea for mercy and empathy. I know better than to go to the hardware store for bread. It won't be a threat, as in, I'm coming for you if you don't do my bidding. I don't believe in retribution. I'm a live and let live kind of person. I hope it will be a reasonable message from a person who cares about democracy and who hopes others do, too. 

I'm not sure what I will say yet, but I'll think of something. 

Meanwhile, we persist and soldier on.

Here's to the Resistance.