Emotional Rescue

An acceptance.

What do you do with the rage?

Combined with the sense of my own powerlessness, the anger — the rage — at the manifold injustices being done is almost debilitating.

One thing I try to think about: The greatest injustices aren’t being done to me; they’re being done to others. And I believe that life’s basic purpose is to relieve the suffering of others.

Another thing: There are so many good — great — people! We see them at protests. We see them on the news: an impossibly brave woman standing up to masked, unbadged would-be abductors; certain politicians; some wonderful journalists.

I like to think of myself as fundamentally a loving person. So when my heart is filled with hatred, in some way I feel alien to myself. How can I believe, more than anything else, in the power of love when I wish for — at minimum — the imprisonment of the fascists and their quislings?

That’s justice, I guess. But damn it, there’s no Hell (apparently). So when will justice be meted out?

The midterms? I’m hopeful of certain improvements, but not a resolution to the crisis.

The next presidential election? If there is one? (I think there will be.)

Linocut fabric patches by Sara.

I am depressed. I mean, we all are, nowadays. I’m also, like, clinically depressed. Feelings are tamped down: depression keeps trying to lay a somnolescent blanket over them.

But they’re still in there. Love. Hate. Fear. And — remarkably — hope.

Somehow — I sense this; I’ve experienced this, over and over — trying to tamp down the negative feelings just doesn’t work.

It seems like — and I’m just spitballing here — I need to keep feeling. Everything.

Is there a coalescing that will allow those feelings to coexist semi-bearably? A crockpotting effect? Is it soup yet?

Keep adding love. Or let love keep being added — as it will, whenever it can. And love, too (not just hate), is mighty. Even joy. We take joy in one another, we who protest. We who also grieve.

Fascism and depression — both say that joy is impossible. And/or unnatural. We see our oppressors experience what they seem to think is joy and we sense that it is actually hatred, including (perhaps; okay, I’m pretty sure) self-hatred. If we eat ourselves up, hollow ourselves out, we’ve allowed them to infect us with what they have — with their moral emptiness.

So: feel!

I’m horrible at this. Feeling, I mean. Not just when I’m depressed. When I habitually distrust/repress my own joy, I weaken myself. And the bad guys have won.

Because we all have to believe in the power of love, and also in the love of a certain kind of power. A power that is shared. People power. Democracy.

I haven’t done the reading yet, but I’ve been listening to some cool podcasts, and it seems that Freud believed the human psyche was innately more comfortable under authoritarianism than under an egalitarian system. It’s easier to give up your power and authority to a big boss. Supposedly. Doesn’t work for me. I love the sharing. But that leaves me with the understanding that my power is minuscule. Which can be hard on the ego.

If God — as my father told me once, as we waited for the subway train — is all people, if only we worked together, then we are all parts of that god. And each of us somehow has — fractally — infinite power. Because, if I remember my calculus, a bit of infinity is still infinite.

What am I trying to say? That I keep trying not to feel. That trying not to feel keeps trying to happen to me. And part of me is desperate to collapse into a seductive, totally passive nihilism. But I can’t. Because love sprouts in the cracks, unstoppably. Well, it’s unstoppable if we don’t stop it.

At a time when it can seem too painful to feel, I pledge to try to feel more. Because the infiniteness within me is dependent on our collective infiniteness.

When I go to protests with Sara, and we give out her political patches, I look in other protestors’ eyes and see: love; hope; joy.

It makes you want to sing. It makes you want to march. It makes you believe that we — the lovers of shared power among equals — will win. It makes you feel strong.

We are strong. We do love. We feel when we fight for justice. To fight for justice, we need to feel.

I need to feel. Fuck fascism. Fuck depression. I may have to live with you for a time, but I won’t live under you. Because the collective love that we call democracy is something I treasure deep in my heart. The asymptotic striving for equality gives my life meaning and purpose.

Oh god! What a terrible time we are in! What beauty is still within us! If that’s not a miracle, what is? If we are not miraculous, who is?

What will I do with the rage? Mix it with joy. In community. In solidarity.

See you in the streets.