I'm trying to be more patient with people these days. I really am. I don't always succeed (yesterday was a prime example), but I am trying to be more mindful of it.
What prompted this? A passage from The Palmer Report:
We, the American people, are in hell. It's been the case to varying degrees since the day Donald Trump was declared the winner of the 2016 presidential election. These past couple weeks it's been even more startlingly the case than ever. Trump falsely exonerated himself, and he's now pushing his ongoing crime spree to entirely new depths. His top lieutenants are drunk with power and acting like cartoon villains. This has been an awful stretch.
This brought into very sharp focus the fact that it's not just me, or Ben, or my friends and family who feel we've slipped into an alternate reality where everything is awful and seemingly getting worse by the day. No, it made me realize that our entire fucking country—or at least the 70% or so who think the Orange Menace needs to be forcibly excised from the White House—is feeling the same frustration that I am that his crime spree and thumbing-his-nose at the Rule of Law is being allowed to continue unabated.
Subpoenas to obtain the entire Mueller Report? His taxes? His financial records? Well and good, but subpoenas aren't magic bullets that will open a trap door and send Trump directly into the not-so-loving arms of Impeachment (something that will never happen with the wholly-owned subsidiary of Russia, Inc.® Republican Senate in any case). It is going to take months or years for the subpoena process to wind its way through courts that are being increasingly stacked in Trump's favor, so forgive me for not feeling overly optimistic at the outcome. (Funny how they can't actually approve any legislation but sure as hell can get all those judicial vacancies filled post haste with right wing nutjobs, isn't it?)
Add to this anger and frustration, everyone you see is suffering through some kind of personal drama. Everyone. It may not be your drama, or even something you would consider drama, but it is real to that particular person just as yours is to you. So it pays to be kind and patient, even if that person is acting like a demon from hell. (They may in fact be demons from hell, or at least skinsuit-wearing Reptilians from Zeta Reticulii, but give them the benefit of the doubt and try to treat them like human beings.)
And we all have our coping mechanisms. I buy vinyl records that I listen to maybe a half dozen times, Instagram, and then file away on the "new arrivals" portion of the shelf to be played maybe once or twice more. Ben immerses himself in all things RuPaul's Drag Race (he's my resident expert) and games on his phone. Some people meditate. Some people get involved in the community. Other people cope in less-healthy ways.
Point is, showing more kindness toward each other and allowing for each other's quirks and coping mechanisms is the only way we're going to make it through this shit show until rational, sane adults who aren't beholden to Vladmir Putin are once again in control of this country.