On Misery

Everyone is so freaking miserable.

They have plenty of reasons.

The earth’s too warm.

The neighbor’s too different.

The future’s too bleak.

We’re in this collective state of wallowing.

But the funniest part is, it kind of gives us life.?

At least for a little while.

The big story

Digital spaces have unlocked the ability to be relentlessly autobiographical.

Here’s my avocado toast!

Look at the sunset I’m looking at!

Is this infected?

We don’t dialogue.

We catalog.

It’s a one-way mirror.

We tell everything and share nothing.

The big story is that we’re acutely alone.

The least vulnerable solution isn’t too say, with deep conviction and optimism, here is what I like. Here is what I care about. Here is who I am.

No, the safer method of ‘finding your people’ is to say, I HATE this. It makes me IRATE. You too? Let’s stand shoulder to shoulder and FIGHT.

(Shoulder to shoulder. Not face to face.)

The heart you hand over is wrapped in barbed wire.?

Misery loves company

Jeff Goldblum as Oz explained, “The best way to bring folks together, is to give them a really good enemy.”

The “anti” is compellingly magnetic. IOW, bring them together it does.

In a recent podcast episode, Trevor Noah talked to American political scientist Robert (“Bob” to friends, not to me) Putnam.?

Trevor summed up Putnam’s research around why Trump (“Voldemort” to me, not to friends) was so successful.

He said:?

"Trump built a club around the idea that people had been forgotten. There’s a man who grew up in a town where the factory was shut down, and that was a piece of his club. So he’s forgotten. There’s somebody else who grew up in another city, and because that city has lost its population, the church died. And now they don’t have a church, so they’ve been forgotten. Someone’s kids left to go to a big city, so now they don’t have that community. They’ve been forgotten."

And then:

"Think about it. Donald Trump created many clubs where clubs didn't exist. He said, 'I'm coming to your town. I'm going to sell you hats that you can all wear. We're going to sell you little scarves that you can all wear, and you're going to come into a room and then, you know what? We’re all going to hang out and chant this.'"

People who felt alone suddenly had a terrifically safe way to convene. To commune.

Rallied around the idea of a common enemy.

Enemies, all

The problem is anti-establishmentarianism can’t last. Because the human instinct to organize is too great. We assign roles, which creates hierarchy, and suddenly, we need to splinter more.

“I am no longer so visible or important here, so I’m going to dig deeper into what makes me DIFFERENT from you.”

And subgroups.

And subgroups.

And subgroups.

Those splinters work their way out of the healthy whole, as they should, and it’s death by division.

Heart on a platter

The cycle of misery works. But you have to keep going ‘round the mulberry bush. Which is tiresome.

What’s more, it only works at the surface level.

No one truly sees you. Knows you. Cares to ask why this barbed-wire heart beats. Bleeds.?

I say it at least once a week. Most people DRIVE or DRAG themselves through life in desperate pursuit of the answer to this question:

“Am I worthy of love?”?

In a group connected by misery, championed AGAINST an enemy, the answer will be, “Yes, you are accepted and welcomed and even loved here!”?

Until… you don’t agree.

Until… you don’t hate what I hate to the same degree I hate it.

Until… you become work for us.

The conditionality of these ‘communities’ leaves us emptier than before, I think.

Perhaps it’s time to be braver.

To say without flinching, I believe in good things.

I daydream about love.

I wish I had more and I’m disappointed when I don’t get it.

But I still have hope.

Perhaps we could be the ones.

To let a little light back in.