What You Feel. Let's Cross Out the "Should"s.
I was thinking about something I wrote in this entry, last year, after I'd had a miscarriage. It's a locked post, so don't bother clicking on it if I haven't "Friended" you (as I say in said post: "It has been a long while since I put up a friends'-locked post, primarily because I'm pretty sure my primary audience nowadays are people I haven't actually friended, so it seems like a waste of time to write anything else. Plus, I have my paper journal to go on and on about private stuff, though I certainly go on and on about things I might as well go on and on about here, too. But paper journals don't talk back, and as their audience is pretty much Me, Later, it's really not the same thing. And sometimes you do need to get things off your chest to SOMEONE WHO IS LISTENING"), but I'll pull from it the paragraph in question to repeat here:
"I don't know how I'm supposed to feel. But as I wrote in my paper journal the other week, do I HAVE to know how I'm "supposed" to feel? Can't I be flippantly sorting my celebrity crushes from Least to Most Geeky one minute and then spontaneously crying the next (which is what was happening in that journal entry), and can't I just accept those feelings as they come and let them pass as they go? Does there really need to be a Correct way to Feel?"
I remembered this because of that shooting in Connecticut -- let me rephrase, because of how SOCIAL MEDIA reacted to that shooting in Connecticut. Social Media. I'm addicted to you, Social Media, but today has been a PARTICULARLY bad trip, and I really do see how unhealthy you can be.
It's the guilt-tripping, the accusations, the anger that suddenly comes out when it turns out everyone else doesn't see things, feel things, exactly like you. It shows itself in so many ways. First there's the need to write about it at all, in a token kind of way: "My thoughts and prayers are with the victims of this tragedy"-- identical statements, almost making it seem like if you DON'T say something, you're heartless. Then there's the politicizing-- and I KNOW many people who've been accused of politicizing today immediately protest "NO! NO I'M NOT!" but I'd like to point out that when you bring up a politically polarizing issue in a time of high emotion, you're not starting dialogue, you're just preaching to the choir and offending the people who disagree (And this is all across the political spectrum. The obvious ones today were the anti-gun folks, but I also saw a couple "This is why we need prayer in the schools!" comments on Facebook. Now tell me, how is one NOT politicizing it and the other one is? Or vice-versa?). And then there were tons of comments on Twitter like "PLEASE turn off your automatic posts about your dumb unrelated things! It's so insensitive! We all need to be focusing on TRAGEDY right now!"
I turned off Twitter and Facebook at my desk most of the day today after awhile, and it was immediately liberating, though, addiction being what it is, I did have to check back EVERY so often. But my brain started working better the moment I was off. I started to see things in perspective, how I fit, how everyone else fits, and I think I understand more what goes on, here. So again I make the plea for patience and listening, for understanding that, basically, EVERYONE IS DIFFERENT. And there's never any wrong or right way to FEEL.
I've always been, um, ODD in times of tragedy. I'm liable to cry at the drop of a hat in day to day life, but when real tragedy strikes, I sit bemusedly gaping at all the panicky people around me, thinking, "Um, so I guess this means we're not going out for ice cream today?" In some ways it might be because I don't find tragedy shocking. There are tragedies every day, some big ones all over the world in places people here don't care about so much so you don't hear so much about them, millions of small ones affecting individuals. The world isn't expected to shut down for fear of being insensitive to those millions of victims of individual tragedies, and yet those tragedies are REAL, PERSONAL to those people. What makes the tragedies that get on the news any different? If we WEREN'T connected by this instant media, how many even BIG tragedies would happen in the world that we'd be completely unaware of?
(On the subject of media: if you'd like to know where a certified gun nut places the blame for mass shootings, Jason -- who was also a psychology major-- blames the media coverage. People wouldn't GO on rampage shootings if it didn't get ATTENTION. Sure, they might still murder someone, but it would be an individual, not a bunch of bystanders so as to make a spectacle. No matter where you stand on his opinions on guns, you have to admit he's got a really good point here. I think he's most right. People in other countries are like "Why are these always happening in the US? It's because the US is full of gun nuts!" You know what else the US is full of? Media junkies and attention hogs and people who do dumb stuff to get on reality TV. And pandering, exploitative, shock-effect TV news. It's an American INSTITUTION!)
Back on the subject, why SHOULD people have to shut down if there's a tragedy happening far away to people they don't know? It's not that I'm heartless. It's that I've too much heart. There is so much pain and suffering in the world every day and I'm attuned to it. I am overwhelmed with grief on a daily basis for all the sad, broken people in the world. That's why I don't like to dwell on the pain. That's why I try to be cheerful instead. That's why I try to get on with life. It's not heartless. It's survival.
But I feel weird about it, guilty about it, wondering what must be WRONG with me that I react differently to things than other people do. I always think back to the scene in Meet the Austins where Vicky is fretting to her uncle that she doesn't know the right things to say and do for her parents' friends who have just had a major tragedy, and her uncle said "It's not that you're not sympathetic. It's that you're too EMpathetic. You can't separate yourself objectively." I've always took comfort in this scene, even though it's not quite right-- I'm almost TOO objective. I'm like "Yeah, crap happens, life sucks, I wonder what's for dinner, HEY THE HOBBIT OPENED TODAY, and my college roommate had a baby girl last night*, and I've got work here to do and people to help and kids to raise at home."
When I look back on my life, the things that always disturbed me most in times of tragedy were the reactions of other people to the tragedy, rather than the tragedy itself. When my sister died, when I was six-- I understood death, I could accept it, thanks to Obi Wan Kenobi I had no fear of death. But the breaking DOWN of all the adults around me? That messed me up for life. Honestly, I'm still working through, trying to counteract the now-deeply-ingrained sense that I wasn't good enough because God Needed an Angel and Only the Good Die Young and all my caregivers were so broken and I couldn't make them better. On 9/11 I just wished people would stop panicking-- the thing that worried me most was that all these frightened, panicky people would go on a rampage, persecuting people of Middle Eastern descent-- I kept thinking of a conversation I'd had just a few weeks before with a classmate who's Iraqi-American, and we were talking about stereotypes, and another classmate told her "yeah, everyone knows you're a terrorist" and we all laughed because the thought was so ridiculous, but now suddenly I COULD see people thinking that, possibly hurting her because of her heritage just because THEY were scared and panicky. Actual terrorists? Bah, I wasn't worried about THEM. And today, again-- I kept trying to keep from crying at work, but the thing that had gotten me so upset was the impassioned social-media-ing of OTHERS IN REACTION.
Right, it's a classic Type 9 issue. I'm really good at seeing all sides of a situation, accepting whatever happens, waiting out rather than reacting. But I don't like the peace to be disturbed. Panicky people DISTURB MY PEACE, more than tragedy does that doesn't affect me directly. Sure, it's warped, but everyone else is warped in their own way, too. And that's, ultimately, what I learned today. I learned not to be angry with the people whose reactions were to lecture others, nor frustrated with the people who wanted the world to shut down and not talk about anything else. I learned not to hate myself for being different, for feeling that there MUST BE SOMETHING WRONG WITH ME that all these people I respected were reacting in ways I simply DIDN'T GET. We are all human-- we all have strong emotions-- and we all react DIFFERENTLY to things. If someone is lecturing me, it doesn't necessarily mean that THEY'RE RIGHT AND I'M WRONG, it means that lecturing, blaming, that makes them feel better. That gives them an enemy to conquer, and they need that. Someone needs to wallow in the pain, well, LET THEM. That's how they grieve. Someone grieves by putting on a sad smile and trying not to forget the beauty-- that's valid, too.
So my SUGGESTION-- trying to say this and not sound hypocritical-- is that maybe we lighten up on each other, stop trying to tell each other what to do and how to feel? We all need to BE in our own ways.
And it's okay to turn off the news, to tune OUT the constant barrage of media, both professional and social. You're only hiding from reality if you stop DOING. You have a life to live right in front of you, full of people who, in your life, are genuinely more important than anyone on the news or anyone you look up to in culture. Be the best you can be for the people who need you here and now. This was another thing I thought of today. There are a lot of ways in which my husband drives me NUTS, and his politics are much of them. So many people I really admire are quite, quite different from him in their opinions, and sometimes I feel, "Oh lord Jason shut up, all these awesome people disagree with you, and I'd rather talk to those awesome people because I agree with them," but then suddenly, when people were basically indirectly calling my husband an accessory to murder because of his beliefs? I was like, but he's my husband. I love him. I'm not going to deny him just to win the approval of people on the internet whom I've never actually met. And that's when it all became clear, that everyone was just People, and nobody was more Right than anybody else, and everyone was speaking out of strong emotion, but, like I said the other month, I'm a Grown-Up, Too, and Sometimes I'm Right. To each his own, as long as we treat the people we actually encounter with love.
*By the way, this is true. Go give gloworm59 and/or @GloWorm59 a big hearty congratulations.
"I don't know how I'm supposed to feel. But as I wrote in my paper journal the other week, do I HAVE to know how I'm "supposed" to feel? Can't I be flippantly sorting my celebrity crushes from Least to Most Geeky one minute and then spontaneously crying the next (which is what was happening in that journal entry), and can't I just accept those feelings as they come and let them pass as they go? Does there really need to be a Correct way to Feel?"
I remembered this because of that shooting in Connecticut -- let me rephrase, because of how SOCIAL MEDIA reacted to that shooting in Connecticut. Social Media. I'm addicted to you, Social Media, but today has been a PARTICULARLY bad trip, and I really do see how unhealthy you can be.
It's the guilt-tripping, the accusations, the anger that suddenly comes out when it turns out everyone else doesn't see things, feel things, exactly like you. It shows itself in so many ways. First there's the need to write about it at all, in a token kind of way: "My thoughts and prayers are with the victims of this tragedy"-- identical statements, almost making it seem like if you DON'T say something, you're heartless. Then there's the politicizing-- and I KNOW many people who've been accused of politicizing today immediately protest "NO! NO I'M NOT!" but I'd like to point out that when you bring up a politically polarizing issue in a time of high emotion, you're not starting dialogue, you're just preaching to the choir and offending the people who disagree (And this is all across the political spectrum. The obvious ones today were the anti-gun folks, but I also saw a couple "This is why we need prayer in the schools!" comments on Facebook. Now tell me, how is one NOT politicizing it and the other one is? Or vice-versa?). And then there were tons of comments on Twitter like "PLEASE turn off your automatic posts about your dumb unrelated things! It's so insensitive! We all need to be focusing on TRAGEDY right now!"
I turned off Twitter and Facebook at my desk most of the day today after awhile, and it was immediately liberating, though, addiction being what it is, I did have to check back EVERY so often. But my brain started working better the moment I was off. I started to see things in perspective, how I fit, how everyone else fits, and I think I understand more what goes on, here. So again I make the plea for patience and listening, for understanding that, basically, EVERYONE IS DIFFERENT. And there's never any wrong or right way to FEEL.
I've always been, um, ODD in times of tragedy. I'm liable to cry at the drop of a hat in day to day life, but when real tragedy strikes, I sit bemusedly gaping at all the panicky people around me, thinking, "Um, so I guess this means we're not going out for ice cream today?" In some ways it might be because I don't find tragedy shocking. There are tragedies every day, some big ones all over the world in places people here don't care about so much so you don't hear so much about them, millions of small ones affecting individuals. The world isn't expected to shut down for fear of being insensitive to those millions of victims of individual tragedies, and yet those tragedies are REAL, PERSONAL to those people. What makes the tragedies that get on the news any different? If we WEREN'T connected by this instant media, how many even BIG tragedies would happen in the world that we'd be completely unaware of?
(On the subject of media: if you'd like to know where a certified gun nut places the blame for mass shootings, Jason -- who was also a psychology major-- blames the media coverage. People wouldn't GO on rampage shootings if it didn't get ATTENTION. Sure, they might still murder someone, but it would be an individual, not a bunch of bystanders so as to make a spectacle. No matter where you stand on his opinions on guns, you have to admit he's got a really good point here. I think he's most right. People in other countries are like "Why are these always happening in the US? It's because the US is full of gun nuts!" You know what else the US is full of? Media junkies and attention hogs and people who do dumb stuff to get on reality TV. And pandering, exploitative, shock-effect TV news. It's an American INSTITUTION!)
Back on the subject, why SHOULD people have to shut down if there's a tragedy happening far away to people they don't know? It's not that I'm heartless. It's that I've too much heart. There is so much pain and suffering in the world every day and I'm attuned to it. I am overwhelmed with grief on a daily basis for all the sad, broken people in the world. That's why I don't like to dwell on the pain. That's why I try to be cheerful instead. That's why I try to get on with life. It's not heartless. It's survival.
But I feel weird about it, guilty about it, wondering what must be WRONG with me that I react differently to things than other people do. I always think back to the scene in Meet the Austins where Vicky is fretting to her uncle that she doesn't know the right things to say and do for her parents' friends who have just had a major tragedy, and her uncle said "It's not that you're not sympathetic. It's that you're too EMpathetic. You can't separate yourself objectively." I've always took comfort in this scene, even though it's not quite right-- I'm almost TOO objective. I'm like "Yeah, crap happens, life sucks, I wonder what's for dinner, HEY THE HOBBIT OPENED TODAY, and my college roommate had a baby girl last night*, and I've got work here to do and people to help and kids to raise at home."
When I look back on my life, the things that always disturbed me most in times of tragedy were the reactions of other people to the tragedy, rather than the tragedy itself. When my sister died, when I was six-- I understood death, I could accept it, thanks to Obi Wan Kenobi I had no fear of death. But the breaking DOWN of all the adults around me? That messed me up for life. Honestly, I'm still working through, trying to counteract the now-deeply-ingrained sense that I wasn't good enough because God Needed an Angel and Only the Good Die Young and all my caregivers were so broken and I couldn't make them better. On 9/11 I just wished people would stop panicking-- the thing that worried me most was that all these frightened, panicky people would go on a rampage, persecuting people of Middle Eastern descent-- I kept thinking of a conversation I'd had just a few weeks before with a classmate who's Iraqi-American, and we were talking about stereotypes, and another classmate told her "yeah, everyone knows you're a terrorist" and we all laughed because the thought was so ridiculous, but now suddenly I COULD see people thinking that, possibly hurting her because of her heritage just because THEY were scared and panicky. Actual terrorists? Bah, I wasn't worried about THEM. And today, again-- I kept trying to keep from crying at work, but the thing that had gotten me so upset was the impassioned social-media-ing of OTHERS IN REACTION.
Right, it's a classic Type 9 issue. I'm really good at seeing all sides of a situation, accepting whatever happens, waiting out rather than reacting. But I don't like the peace to be disturbed. Panicky people DISTURB MY PEACE, more than tragedy does that doesn't affect me directly. Sure, it's warped, but everyone else is warped in their own way, too. And that's, ultimately, what I learned today. I learned not to be angry with the people whose reactions were to lecture others, nor frustrated with the people who wanted the world to shut down and not talk about anything else. I learned not to hate myself for being different, for feeling that there MUST BE SOMETHING WRONG WITH ME that all these people I respected were reacting in ways I simply DIDN'T GET. We are all human-- we all have strong emotions-- and we all react DIFFERENTLY to things. If someone is lecturing me, it doesn't necessarily mean that THEY'RE RIGHT AND I'M WRONG, it means that lecturing, blaming, that makes them feel better. That gives them an enemy to conquer, and they need that. Someone needs to wallow in the pain, well, LET THEM. That's how they grieve. Someone grieves by putting on a sad smile and trying not to forget the beauty-- that's valid, too.
So my SUGGESTION-- trying to say this and not sound hypocritical-- is that maybe we lighten up on each other, stop trying to tell each other what to do and how to feel? We all need to BE in our own ways.
And it's okay to turn off the news, to tune OUT the constant barrage of media, both professional and social. You're only hiding from reality if you stop DOING. You have a life to live right in front of you, full of people who, in your life, are genuinely more important than anyone on the news or anyone you look up to in culture. Be the best you can be for the people who need you here and now. This was another thing I thought of today. There are a lot of ways in which my husband drives me NUTS, and his politics are much of them. So many people I really admire are quite, quite different from him in their opinions, and sometimes I feel, "Oh lord Jason shut up, all these awesome people disagree with you, and I'd rather talk to those awesome people because I agree with them," but then suddenly, when people were basically indirectly calling my husband an accessory to murder because of his beliefs? I was like, but he's my husband. I love him. I'm not going to deny him just to win the approval of people on the internet whom I've never actually met. And that's when it all became clear, that everyone was just People, and nobody was more Right than anybody else, and everyone was speaking out of strong emotion, but, like I said the other month, I'm a Grown-Up, Too, and Sometimes I'm Right. To each his own, as long as we treat the people we actually encounter with love.
*By the way, this is true. Go give gloworm59 and/or @GloWorm59 a big hearty congratulations.