From rage and rancour to resolve

The other day I heard a young man’s agitated, aggressive but entirely sound rage about the conditions in the world…the hopelessness of the planet…his feelings of powerlessness and dread.

He was outnumbered and outflanked by a round table of old people…really old people.

We ambushed him with sensible retaliation…yes, the world sucks but things have also never been so good…you have freedoms humans have never experienced…you have never known the diseases of our ancestors…you have all your teeth. We jumped on his helpless notion that the world is being controlled by a small group of self-interested devious men and that we are being forced into following…with no choice. You have choice we said. More choices than humans have ever had.

People are unsatisfied. There isn’t enough. Things are tough, us old wise ones said, because humans want too much. There can never be enough when we are so needy. Things can never be just right when people demand such rightness that no one can live up to the expectations.

Perhaps some of us were uncomfortable with his rage. Perhaps some of us disagreed with the premise of his anger. Perhaps some of us were just tired of it. Perhaps we all shared some of the sentiments of the oldest in the circle that went something like “I’m a teacher. But I can’t teach anymore because I just want to tell the students to stop. Stop being so triggered. Stop demanding so much. Stop making it all about you. There is so much to learn.”

Yet we need to listen to the young man. His rage is real. Even if we think his perspective is skewed. There is truth in everything he said. But there is more than that. Things are more complicated. The fix is not just to overthrow the whole damn thing and start again. The complexities of our world makes such an easy plan ridiculous even though I empathise with the fantasy.

Yet here we are. Young people, in particular, are spiralling. With the help of “influencers” who delight in stirring up fear, dread, panic, suspicion and promise the fix of a strong man, a weirdly gross, comic book worthy, surreal strong man, the spiral is out of control.

I have a fix. It’s not a global fix for sure it’s just a story that I think fits. Every woman who has delivered a baby, especially the first baby, vaginally knows what I’m talking about. When you are in labour your body works you up to a frenzy. You reach the pinnacle of your ability to cope. You are overwhelmed. The pain, the anxiety, the fear. You truly have no choice. You cannot change your mind. You cannot stop what is happening and walk it back. And instinctively, even if you haven’t attended prenatal classes or been taught the fine points of breathing, you know that you cannot let go, let loose and rage. As much as you are screaming perhaps the worst things you have ever said you know that you have to ignore the peripheral noise, bear down, stay focused and go deep deep down into your body. And you do. Because that’s the only thing to do.

I know all the side stories…drugs, anesthetic…but lots of us were purists…we didn’t go there. And my metaphors are always only half applicable.

My thoughts are that the world is what it is and it sucks. Not just for young people but for us all. There are manipulating rich people, dominating corporations and incompetent governments. There is a lot of pain and suffering and we are not able to acquire and consume as much as we want or we think we deserve. We feel aggrieved. We have, as a human society, reached the end of something. Something new is happening and we don’t know what that will mean for us and our future.

This is uncertainty and chaos at an intensity we have never experienced. And we can’t. Even the smartest and most powerful of us…can’t fix it.

But there is something we can do. While we can’t walk back the frenzy of the world we can walk back our personal frenzy. We can bear down, get focused, go deep into our own bodies and our communities. We can ignore the peripheral noise at least some of the time. We can focus on what is at hand for our self, our family and the people close by. We can enjoy beauty, art, music, dancing…these are things that are all still there for us. Flowers, children, humour…fill in the blank with whatever you have to offer and whatever brings you joy. We must do this because we can and because sometimes it’s the only thing to do.