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Torturing Myself

While most days I don’t miss physically eating (Progresso makes some great ready-to-eat soups that are blender-friendly), there are other days where I’m like…

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Cautiously Optimistic

Villeneuve lost me at the end of Dune 2 when Alia failed to be born (much less kill the Baron) and Ciani stormed off into the desert. If he had stuck to the original storyline Dune 1 and Dune 2 would’ve been the consummate adaptation of the “unfilmable” novel.

After seeing the trailer for Dune 3—nee Dune Messiah—however, I’m cautiously optimistic that Denis will somehow wrap up the director’s interpretation of the first two books of the series into something closer Herbert’s vision of Paul’s journey..

The scene of Alia especially—or rather St. Alia Of The Knife as she appears here—on the palace balcony gave me chills.

Nailed it, Denis!

As did the nearly unrecognizable Robert Pattinson as Scytale and this…sarcophagus. Who is in there? Is this Scytale presenting Paul with the gift of Hayt, the ghola of Duncan Idaho? Or is it Edric floating in spice gas as he meets with his fellow conspirators?

In any case, these two scenes one give me hope for Villeneuve’s redemption.

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“I feel like I’m losing my mind.”

These words are a continual presence these days.
I hear them a couple of hundred times a day in one form or another.
I read them in desperate social media outbursts.
I overhear them in coffee shop conversations.
I find them in my inbox from friends and from strangers.
I hear them in my own head.

They are the symptoms of a shared sickness we now find ourselves afflicted with: a sprawling homegrown mental health crisis. They are part of a growing national neurosis brought on by a continual assault on decency, sanity, and goodness by those in power.

Mental health is a daily battle, even on our best days.

During any given year in America, one in five adults (nearly 68 million people) experiences mental illness; 10 million of these people finding their lives fundamentally impacted by their internal, invisible maladies.

The personal toll of these diseases is almost incalculable: debilitating mood disorders, propensity toward addiction, susceptibility to physical illness, and regular feelings of isolation and hopelessness.

Nearly 50, 000 people die here by suicide each year, with 25 attempts for each of these deaths. Many of these premature passings have direct or indirect lines to undiagnosed, untreated, or treated but ultimately insurmountable sickness. At any given moment, tens of millions of people are fighting a battle in their own heads, just to stay here.

This is all under normal circumstances, and these are not at all normal circumstances.

These are days that tax people’s already burdened mental defense systems and emotional reserves by relentlessly targeting their places of vulnerability:

the real and manufactured emergencies designed by our leadership.
the daily, incessant legislative attacks on vulnerable people groups,
the normalized acts of violence this president not only tolerates but incites,
the untethered behavior regarding matters of national security, international relations, environmental stewardship, and human rights.

Our leadership is mentally unwell and lots of good, already hurting people see it clearly. They understand the gravity of these moments for our nation and they are rightly terrified by the lack of accountability, the absence of conscience, and the poverty of empathy.

Men and women, already prone to depression and anxiety, those normally driven to despair without any discernible cause or reason, now also have objective data that makes that hopelessness quite sensible.

The MAGA movement is making otherwise mentally healthy people emotionally sick and making already ill people much worse.

And a growing number of otherwise well people are developing a form of PTSD from continual exposure to a group of people in power whose malevolence and contempt for life are beyond comprehension. They, too, are finding the space within their own heads to be a dangerous one as they live within it all and try to make sense of senseless cruelty.

What’s worse, the GOP’s boundless assaults on human rights, their vicious crusades against science, their continual gaslighting of otherwise sensible people, and their reckless fake news conspiracy theories, aren’t just making those who oppose them prone to head sickness; they’re doing the same to their supporters.

Republican leaders are playing on their own rank-and-file’s paranoia, instability, and fear; ratifying their latent or active neuroses, and justifying the ways they now act out in both emotional and physical violence.

We are seeing daily acts of aggression in schools, churches, subways, city streets, and grocery stores by people whose own illnesses and frailties have been triggered by the incendiary language and calculated lies continually perpetuated from the top. If there is such a thing as Trump Derangement Syndrome, these are its symptoms.

America is sickly, and this regime is perfectly fine with that.

It’s no coincidence that the Trump Administration has drastically reduced funding for mental healthcare and removed barriers to ill people accessing firearms. This cocktail of chaos is what it thrives upon, traffics in, and desires.

In an environment populated by emotionally fragile and mentally unhealthy people, it’s much easier to act without accountability and to continue to take away resources, personal liberties, and human rights without recompense.

Mental illness is rarely treated with the same urgency and seriousness as physical illness, and the dismissal is even more profound in days when people feeling deep sadness and great empathy for others are derided as weak, overly emotional, or too sensitive. The callousness of these days makes brain maladies trivial, or worse, worthy of ridicule.

The President and those who support him in Congress are counting on exhausted people growing too weary from pushing back, too overwhelmed fighting their inner demons, and too hopeless to go on.

We can’t allow that.

We need to keep our eyes and ears open to the pain of others right now: to hear the suffering in their words or that is buried in their silence, and to move toward it.
We need to linger long enough to see people who are hurting; to notice their withdrawal and absence, and to make sure they’re OK.
We need to use the resources currently available of therapists, doctors, and counselors who understand these invisible sicknesses and how very real they are.
We need to gather in community to bolster and encourage one another, and to remind people that they aren’t alone in the wars they wage to get better.
We need to reach out to people in our own despair, in our sadness, in our own fight to stay here.
And we all need to carry one another and care for one another, realizing that the GOP has no desire to, and in fact is doing willful damage to the people they have sworn to protect.

We are not well, America.
Many of our leaders are really not well.
The sickest and most damaged among them sits in the Oval Office.
Together, we need to oppose the ugliness that collectively threatens us.
We need to care for our health and the health of those around us.
We need to work and vote to purge our nation of the curators of this chaos, so that we can get well together.

 

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Why Is It…

… that most people don’t realize that the reason I don’t eat grapes is because I am not used to consuming wine in pill form

… that after my doctor told me to watch my drinking, I left his office to find a bar with a mirror

… that you know you’ve finally grown up when you actually pick up the ice ‎cube instead of kicking it under the fridge; of note, I am not that grown up

… that no one told me to enjoy my youth because after fifty my body’s dashboard was going to light up like a Christmas tree

… that the biggest lie I tell myself is that ‘I don’t need to write that down, I’ll remember it.

… that I have finally admitted that my level of weirdness is above the national average and I’m comfortable with that

… that I think some people need to come with a 30-second trailer so I can see what I’m getting into

… that whoever decided that a one-inch candy bar should be called ‘fun-sized’ should really reevaluate their standards for entertainment

… that when you were a child you often made funny faces in the mirror, but after middle age the mirror gets even

… that people need to realize that the reason I don’t iron my clothes is because if I’m not wrinkle-free why should my shirts and pants be wrinkle-free?

[source]

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Quote Of The Day

“This is clearly amateur hour at the Pentagon and in the White House. And again, the price is being paid by all of us. You can also just tell from the administration’s attitude toward this war, the fact that they’re putting out videos treating this like a video game. It’s not a video game for the families of the fallen. And then, just this week, we saw campaign fundraising materials being put out, emails where the president’s committee, the president’s political operation, was raising money off of images of him at a dignified transfer. Any politician who does that has no business leading American troops in the war. If the president is willing to raise campaign funds over the bodies of America’s war dead, he is unfit to be the commander-in-chief.” ~ Pete Buttigieg, former Secretary of Transportation and future President of the United States

[source]

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How can anyone still support him?

Tens of millions of us still find ourselves asking this question, watching a staggering number of Americans somehow remain unflinching in their devotion to this President. Despite high crimes, sexual assaults, cognitive decline, reckless wars, and an authoritarian agenda, they remain seemingly giddy over his existence.

But Trump’s supporters aren’t necessarily pleased with the actual policies, tactics,
or methods, but with the results: pissing off the people they don’t like.

That is all that matters to them.
It’s the reason they vote the way they do.
It’s the reason their support is steadfast through pedophilia accusations and acts of treason and human rights disasters and wanton ignorance.
It’s the reason they remain emotionally infatuated with him despite his breaking every campaign promise.

Trump supporters have always seen his ascendency as a big “F— You” to his predecessor, to the identity politics that they feel has targeted them, and to an ever-diversifying nation that they see as a threat. More than affordable healthcare, unpolluted food, and economic opportunity, they want someone to stick it to the world on their behalf, and in their rage-addled state, they somehow believe he does that.

It’s a nationwide mental health crisis that seems both beyond repair and belief.

It’s terribly sad to admit that a huge portion of this nation is moved not primarily by party over country (which would be bad enough) but by spite: that they care more about flipping Democrats the bird than the sovereignty of our nation. To know that people you respected and loved and work with live with anger as their engine is a reason for mourning.

MAGA voters would rather give a strident middle finger to woke liberals, even at the expense of the air their kids breathe and the schools they attend.

They’d prefer to “own the Libs,” even if their medical bills bankrupt them, and businesses migrate away, and natural disasters go ignored.

Their white fragility is so profound that two years ago, they gave Trump another blank check because he’s reversing any recent advances by marginalized communities whose gains they see as threats to their own.

They still feel victorious, even though gas prices are astronomical, we’re immersed in chaos, nothing is trickling down, and America is not first.

Even professed Christians among them are willing to abandon any semblance of Christlikeness because they get back the nostalgic veneers and ceremonial trappings of God and Country that Obama couldn’t satisfy because of his pigmentation and his embracing of the world and its religions.

And so these people are now subsiding on Liberal tears and complete denial.

That is the only barometer for them in this moment of what is good, wise, or productive. It guides their vote, filters their media, defines their faith, and shapes their hearts. That’s why arguing policies or stating facts or attempting constructive conversation with them right now is almost impossible, because spite is irrational and stubborn and unmovable. It wants emotional food that feels good, even if it is filled with empty calories.

The only course of action right now is for those of us motivated by things otherthan revenge and payback and vitriol to be clear, loud, and unified.

We need to reach across all the divides, and to be about what we’re about, and to declare these things with clarity and without relenting or apology.

Our intent should no longer be understanding these people who are still emotionally bound to him. We do understand them. We’ve listened to them. That’s why we know that they cannot be convinced by any previously used methods to connect with rational people. Their blind hatred of the Left and their complete adoration of this President make them, practically speaking, unreachable currently.

They also remind us who we do not want to be.

Being motivated by spite is a really horrible way to go through this life, which is why the rest of us can’t make our response now be about these people and the angry wars they want to stay immersed in. It cannot be shaped by our grievances and complaints and purity stances either. We need to gaze higher than that.

The human and civil rights of our people, the future of our children, the integrity of our nation, our standing in the world, and the defense of our Constitution are all far too important to squander as a middle finger to people we want to piss off.

We’ve seen what that yields.

We need to live and work and vote for equality, diversity, compassion, love, and justice—not for spite.

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Stepping Away From Social Media

I’ve had it with Meta.

Granted, I haven’t had a Facebook account since…2012? 2013? but I’ve enjoyed Instagram over the years. That is, until I learned that 1400 (or some other, god-awful number) employees were laid off in favor of AI, and Wall Street rewarded the bastards by their stock price going up.

I’m sorry, I can’t be a party to that, and my continued presence (as tiny as it was) on the platform was an implicit approval of this type of behavior. Additionally, I didn’t need hourly reminders of all the horrific bullshit going on in the world—even if it’s reported from left-leaning sources. So I downloaded my photos and closed the account.

I’m still on Reddit (for a really great MiniDisc sub), Tumblr (or the menz, obviously) and YouTube (for a variety of reasons), but the CEOs of these companies don’t seem to be as outwardly evil as Zuckerberg.

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I still remember the precise moment I stopped believing in hell.

Over two decades ago, I was at a Christmas dinner party in the home of a gay couple. From the outside, it looked like any holiday gathering: a warm, beautifully decorated room filled with people laughing and telling stories in the soft glow of the tree, while the silky voice of Johnny Mathis wafted through the air along with the heavenly cocktail of aromas from a well-used kitchen.

Most of the guests that night happened to identify as LGBTQ, which hadn’t really occurred to me until, as I smiled and surveyed the room, a sickening thought rudely interrupted: “Many Christians believe that these beautiful people in this room (other than my wife and me) are all going to hell. For no other reason than their gender identity or sexual orientation, every one of them is doomed to spend eternity beyond this life in perpetual torment at the hands of a God who apparently made them, put them here, and loves them passionately.”

And as a Christian and a pastor, I was supposed to believe and preach this, too. It simply no longer rang true for me. I couldn’t reconcile this with the character of an infinitely loving Creator. I lost hell right then and there.

And after that moment, I began taking note of the vast multitudes I’d also been taught were similarly condemned:

My Jewish friends from the gym.
The Muslim couple down the street from our home.
The gay couple I’d once worked for in college.
My atheist friends from high school.
My non-Born Again classmates from childhood.
Every non-Christian who ever lived.
Thousands of authors, musicians, philosophers, and thinkers have inspired me.
Gandhi, Buddha, and everyone from their faith traditions.
An estimated 69 percent of the people on the planet right now. (around 5.6 billion of them).

Lots of good human beings are in hell, and many more are on their way, at least, according to Evangelicals who seem all too happy about that fact.

Over the course of my life, I’ve met or known of so many brilliant, funny, giving, caring people, who for thousands of different reasons can’t or won’t declare themselves Christians, and the idea that God condemns them simply for that fact feels far more human than divine to me now. It seems more like the mind of people who are determined to exclude, judge, and shame. Hell doesn’t feel like the logical construction of a God who is Love, but of human beings who are hateful.

Few things get Christian leaders as excited as forecasting damnation for other people. It rallies their bases, gives them a common enemy to rail against (gays, Muslims, Atheists, Democrats, drag queens, etc.), and leverages the fear that we all have that God may be out to squash us. It’s also a big religious business, which doesn’t hurt.

And there’s a trickle-down judgmentalism that reaches the pews too, allowing ordinary, incredibly imperfect people to believe themselves safe from divine prosecution because they’ve said the magic words, and to simultaneously feel superior to those they can condemn from a distance based on any number of perceived things that disqualify them from Heaven: their sexual activity, their faith perspective, their political affiliations, their nation of origin.

Not long after this experience, I shared a social media post about being resigned to my own eternal punishment, and I received replies from all over the world; people from every walk of life, every life stage, of every religious tradition and color and orientation, who all expressed a similar sentiment:

I’ll see you there!

And that’s the recurring thought I often have now as I cross paths with people who I once believed were condemned, as well as those who confidently almost joyfully condemn them: If Heaven is supposedly filled with such petty, self-righteous, hypocrites, it doesn’t sound all that much like Heaven to me, and if so many beautiful, life-giving souls are surely bound for Hell, it seems like it’ll be one helluva time.

I received a gift at that Christmas party nearly twenty-five years ago. I found myself freed up to see people as they were: for their inherent worth and equally flawed beauty, none deserving of eternal torment, and each one like me: doing the very best that they could to be decent and loving and kind and to treat people well. I’m pretty sure God will be cool with that.

I’m well aware that many professed Christians believe that my doubts about the existence of hell all but guarantee that I’ll spend eternity there, and I’m sure that with great pride or pity, many will comment as such. But from the looks of it, I’ll be in good company in my hot-and-humid eternity, and I won’t have to look far to find diverse, loving humanity when I get there. I look forward to weeping and gnashing teeth alongside all the compassionate, creative, and open-hearted people who weren’t good enough for Evangelical afterlife, which is just as well.

The clearer the image of these people’s Heaven becomes, the less and less trepidation I have of my soul’s resting place somewhere outside of it.

Receiving their damnation actually begins to feel like dodging a bullet: I’ll be avoiding them.

To quote one of my favorite songwriters, the great Frank Turner:

And we’re definitely going to hell—but we’ll have all the best stories to tell.

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So Much For Nostalgia

So much for nostalgia. Lately I’ve run across a few—admittedly very few—CDs that glitch out when played on my vintage player that I was gushing over a few short weeks ago. (Honestly, with everything going on in the world should I be surprised?)

So I hauled out the Yamaha player I bought new in 2023, and of course it played anything I threw at it. I prefer the looks of the older Yamaha, but what I really prefer is that whatever unit I use works.