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What Are We Going to DO? Post-Election 2024

A thing I don’t recommend saying to yourself or to anyone else is: “HOW ARE WE GOING TO GET THROUGH THIS?”Statements like this are too open-ended and signal to your brain and body that you are in distress. They are non-productive. Be aware of how you talk to yourself and others. What we put out and how we focus our minds will either drain or create energy. At the very least, you want to maintain equilibrium.

Pay attention to how certain phrases and mantras activate anxiety and despair in your body. What is the point of that? Is it motivating? Is it helpful? No? Then compassionately consider other ways to direct your thoughts. Instead of cries of dismay or distress, consider the moment. What are you doing? What are you focusing on? Is there a direct threat coming at you? If not, then you are almost certainly able to adjust your focus from “AUGH” to learning and contributing. Set yourself a task. Research an organization, agency, community or individual that is doing the kind of resistance and support work you know is needed. Make yourself a student of their materials and how to get involved. Don’t expect anyone else to do this for you right now. It is your responsibility. If you want to know how we’re going to get through the next four years, ask yourself how YOU are going to get through the next 24 hours or week.

Adjust your oxygen mask. If you have children, they come first. Elders in your care are also a priority. You have to attend to your own mental and physical health, eat, sleep, earn money, keep your home and car functioning. Start looking at what is coming in small doses. You don’t need to follow the news every day. Think strategically without panic. Stay open, curious, and strong. If you have never considered that ours is an essentially violent, aggressive, brutal, sadistic, destructive species that occasionally manages eras of peace and generosity for small populations of people across the globe while others suffer, reflect on it. Adjust to it. It will help immensely. This is nothing new, and until you are facing the firing squad, you should not fall apart. Even when facing the firing squad, remember Fyodr Dostoevsky.

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Pebbling And En-Ragement

Let’s talk a moment about “pebbling,” which is the sharing of memes and little clippings from wherever you see them with individuals or groups. I do this with my siblings as a way to maintain bonds. There are things that I know will make them laugh and even though I know I might be irritating them in the middle of a work day or busy time, I pop something into our sibling text. I think we all know someone who does this perhaps a wee bit excessively, and sometimes we have to turn off notifications. Sometimes, if the person sends negative, nasty stuff, we may choose to block them.

Then there is a phenomenon of rage-bonding, where friends send an article that bears bad news for them and, they assume, for you. You have every right to ignore, delete, or respond as you see fit, according to your willingness and ability to engage at the moment, or ever! No one is entitled to your rage-engagement, or let’s call it “enragement.” And if you respond in a neutral or cursory way to such sharing, you do not need to accept or tolerate accusations that you are apathetic or colluding with evil or anything of the sort. We all have 24-hour access to a barrage of information. We have to choose how we consume this content, and curate our own information flow. I get a lot of interesting and even urgent missives and articles, and sometimes I simply say “thanks for letting me know.” Sometimes I do not respond at all. I try to have some priorities and areas of focus, which means that not everything makes it to my eyes.

I would not maintain a relationship with anyone who blew up at me and chastised me for failing to “engage meaningfully” with content they sent, because that behavior is disrespectful, controlling and emotionally perilous, ie, I do not consent to having anyone else’s distress transferred into my mind or body. Before we share anything, we might ask ourselves, “what is the purpose of this sharing? Do I want someone to be more informed? Am I asking them to take some kind of action?” Or is it more like, “This distressed me and I need companions in distress?” The first two options are fair and considerate. They still don’t entitle anyone to a response, but they’re legitimate. The second reason is non-productive and bears a closer look, by which I mean, knock it off.