Category: Facing Fears

Enough Silence: 100,000 Preventable Deaths, Incited Violence, and Police Brutality Are Appalling and Shameful

arthurhovinc

I don’t know if you’ve seen the news. You probably won’t like it. Look only if you plan on not be able to function for the rest of the day. I just did, and I am useless.

I wrote an email to my mom and dad a little bit ago on my feelings of “current events”. Summary: the racial disparity that has been present in this country (United States of America, I admit I live there) for 400 years, especially exemplified by the astronomical deaths by COVID-19 and police brutality, is unacceptable. Rage felt by being told to stay indoors and wear masks is impossibly incomparable to the rage Black people have been feeling for literally centuries.

To further my point, here is a list of deaths by COVID-19 and list of deaths of Black people by police brutality. Thank you, New York Times and Chance The Rapper, for these lists. See also detailed pandemic obituaries by the New York Times and https://mappingpoliceviolence.org/.

The email is below. It was written in a fever, so there are probably inaccuracies. It gives Joe Biden a bit too much credit, but I’d take Biden any day over what we currently have here. In any case, I wanted to share these feelings with you, dear readers.

Dear Mom and Dad,

[Name withheld] and I had received our absentee voting applications, and we’ll be sending them in the mail today. Just as for the presidential primary in March, I hope you’ll send applications (if applicable, ha) and vote absentee in the upcoming elections. So much depends on it.

Although it’s no fun to stay indoors and wear masks, it really isn’t that bad, all considered. Privileged white people with automatic weapons decided that being told, “You have to stay indoors and wear masks,” meant that they could openly carry their death machines and storm public buildings. They want to be “LIBERATED!” They have never faced tyranny in their lives.

In Minneapolis, by contrast, another horrible death by police brutality against Black people has caused a far more righteous protest. Although burning a building is extreme, the rage is palpable and understandable. The rage privileged white people feel for being told to stay indoors and not get haircuts is incomparable to the 400 years of being treated either as property or human capital stock that Black people face. Let alone being gratuitously killed by the officers who “swore to protect them”. Compare the Biden response of staying calm to the “Too Hot for Twitter” take of “the shooting starts”, and we see what kind of moral leadership is completely absent at the top.

There will no doubt be backlash for the protests, just as there have been since 2014 when police brutality against Black people became widely publicized via Black Lives Matter. However, there is a call to be on the side of justice. “Law and Order”, the motto of the beloved Richard Nixon, is not what we need. We need justice. Please support the candidates who will align the moral compass of this deeply wounded nation, support the lives and rights of Black people, and get us back to a sense of calm.

You were probably going to vote for the Democrats anyway, but, I just to share how aghast I am at the complete lack of virtue exemplified by the other party.

Love,
[Art]

Please do what you can to support elected officials and potential candidates who stand for real justice for Black people, and who will hold police officers for their atrocious acts. Please do what you can to comfort people you know who have been directly or indirectly damaged by the horrific events of this year and this pandemic and everything leading up to it. Please support food banks and medical resources for especially underprivileged areas.

It’s hard to imagine what the future looks like after this. I’m trying to, even though my default reaction to the events of our present time is horror. I’m trying to read more on “visioning”, also called “positive futuring”. Maybe these resources can help you imagine a better future, too.

Yours,
Art

In Search of OK

arthurhovinc

I haven’t been polictial on this blog, and I don’t think I’m going to use it that way. I could tell you that I was at the airport this Sunday protesting the unjust travel ban created by an administration I don’t support at all and in fact fear quite a lot. That probably wouldn’t surprise you. I could go into more details about my political preferences and current disgust, but I’ll spare you. I’m not interested in assigning labels to myself in any capacity, least not political leanings. My Facebook political views are this: “To live outside the law, you must be honest.” Buy me a beer sometime and we can hash some political debates. Instead, I’d like to focus this post on how I deal with negative feelings like the ones I have now, and maybe you can find something similar in you, dear reader. I think how to deal with it all is the larger theme I’ve been thinking about since November, rather than any particular (if offensive) set of events.

This won’t be a “how to” post. I can’t answer questions of how you’re going to feel OK, because I can’t answer that for myself.

I noticed tonight I was compulsively searching multiple news sources for some hint that things were not as bad as they seemed. Some words I could read between the lines to feel better. They weren’t there. If I had to estimate, reassuring words probably won’t be coming from the news for the next 20 years, if ever. So what mechanism was powering me to graze over cold, upsetting facts even though no good is to come of it?

I think we’re pretty bad as humans of knowing how to just sit and be humans. Negative emotions must be distracted away by something entertaining, or at least that’s the modern way. I admit I’m guilty of it. If not reaching for this very phone screen I’m typing on, I may find fleeting entertainment in alcohol or food that doesn’t nourish. The times I have sat and purposefully avoided leaving negative emotions turned out to be illuminating. One time I noticed how tears are quite hot on your face if you just let them run. Another time I noticed a particular pain in my body I had been ignoring that needed attention. I’m far from being a practicing Buddhist, but I come closer to being a sane animal when I don’t get caught up in words and simply feel. Maybe this applies externally to not getting too caught up in words from news or social media, and focusing more on the present sensations at hand.

I learned from a seminar on hope that “to stand with your face to the cold wind and move forward is the bravest thing you can do as a human” (paraphrased). Incidentally, I was falling asleep to a documentary about Antarctica and carbon dioxide history in ice this weekend. (I watched most of it, and enjoyed what I was conscious for.) I’ve been walking to work almost every day this winter in a cold region, and I don’t feel that brave, just beaten down. Maybe that’s what bravery really feels like. It’s not glorious at all, less a state of feelings than a state of integrity. The Finns have a word that I’m obsessed with that translates poorly to English and means roughly the quote above; that word is sisu. I believe my grandma embodies sisu. I would like to, but I’m afraid of not living up to it. Maybe you grow into it with more scars, windburn, lost loved ones, and time. Many cold winters probably also help.

I don’t consider myself depressed. (Mom, don’t worry too much.) Low energy lately. I think with some practice of quiet moments and breathing, along with long walks in warmer weather, my energy will be higher and better. I haven’t journaled or written essays or blogs in a while, and that likely also contributes. Something in me decides to write as a way of sussing it out when I’m upset. I like this maxim: “When in doubt, sort it out.” I will probably leave this post feeling slightly more OK than before I wrote it, if only for the increased understanding of my feelings.

Realistically, most things are decent or OK. I think we tend to focus more on the extraordinarily pleasurable or disgusting than the unremarkable decent in our lives. Breathing is decent and always there. Carpets are decent. Light bulbs are decent. Most people on public transportation are decent. If you graph out the majority of things along the acceptability axis, it’d look like a bell curve, with the enjoyable and the terrible as several standard deviations away from the norm. In that way, it’s probably not fair to expect pleasure as often as we do, and it’s likely damaging to our sensitivities to indulge in too much pleasure, or, for that matter, pain. Knowledge of this is probably part of sisu, but what do I know? I’m Swedish.

My friend D asked me yesterday if there are any foods that I think taste bad. He is quoted as saying I have a “broken mouth”, i.e. an unrefined palate equal to that of a goat or a garbage disposal. But I threw the question back to him, and he couldn’t come up with anything. He used to hate cilantro, but doesn’t anymore. He doesn’t like some foods for the texture or appearance, but it’s not the flavor that drives him away. Maybe the tongue is a wiser organ than the eyes.

OK,
Art

“It is done.”

arthurhovinc

Author’s note: some readers may find it silly that I use Magic: The Gathering to help me define my own philosophy of life. It’s the most convenient mythos for me to appropriate, having played the game for a number of years, and being a bigger fan of the art and flavor of the game than actually playing it. In this post and future posts I will make reference to Magic characters, stories, colors, and philosophies, introducing them where appropriate, and explaining how they help me understand intangible concepts like “wildness” and “abandon”, today’s subjects.

Art by Jason Chan, ©2014 Wizards of the Coast, used without permission
Art by Jason Chan, ™ & © 2014 Wizards of the Coast, used without permission

Elspeth Tirel, a knight of Bant, chosen by the sun god Heliod of Theros, killed a god. As you can see in the art above, she sliced off the hand of Xenagos, God of Revels, and stabbed him in the heart, bringing him to death.

For Elspeth to kill a god, she had to build the strength to kill something no longer mortal. She faced many challenges and and came near death several times. Elspeth’s story is fascinating, and I won’t do it justice by summary here.

I’m looking to the Elspeth as inspiration for facing some of my monumental fears. Her defeat of Xenagos ties well with my facing a fear of abandon, of losing control and not accounting for consequences. Xenagos can represent my fear of abandon, because his colors represent the concepts of wildness and abandon. He is a god of red and green magic, where red is the color of passion, and green is the color of ferocity. Combine red and green, and the result is wildness in the positive aspect, and abandon in the negative aspect.

After her defeat of Xenagos, Elspeth said, “It is done.” I can say the same thing about completing the 100 Write-Off haiku. I raised the money I needed to fundraiser by writing 49 haiku, and when the fundraiser ended, I didn’t see a reason to keep writing, even though I pledged to write 100 haiku. I made a promise, and I didn’t want to hold to a promise just for the sake of holding a promise. I didn’t hold to my commitment. Instead, I ignored the haiku project, and I pursued whatever I was passionate about at the time. I was full of abandon, the red and green monster, the dark side of wildness. Commitment is a characterstic of white magic in M:TG, and Elspeth specializes in white magic. Her hard work and dedication allowed her to defeat a god. My commitment, my use of “white magic”, allowed me to defeat the red and green beast within me and complete what I said I would do.

I should note that other activities will help me cultivate the good side of red and green, being free and wild and passionate. I will write about those another time. For now, white had to beat out red and green to complete the Write-Off Haiku project.

Below is the Magic card with the art of Elspeth defeating Xenagos, called Deicide. Appropriately, a white Magic card represents white magic.

Deicide_Card

Killing monsters,

Art