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WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY
Struggling with rage and frustration, and a sense of futility. I honestly don't know what to do?
Me: What's the name of the National Park you applied to, I'd like to donate to it - maybe that will help.
Niece: Whiskeytown National Recreational Center. It's a wildfire recovery program, but donating money won't help. The program has the funding locked in. It's just that DOGE is stalling on the approval of the summer hires and refuses to accept us or budge on the paperwork.
Me: So there's nothing I can do to help. This is so frustrating!
Niece: I know. But thank you so much for trying.
***
Mother: I talked to your brother today and I'm furious, I don't know if you will be or if I should tell you...but..
Me: What happened?
Mother: Your niece applied to two summer jobs, and they both fell through. Not because they didn't accept her, they did. Sequoia said she could take the Emergency Medical Response training there - that's not the reason. It wasn't the National Park that refused her - it was the Government.
Me: Our horrible insane Federal Government?
Mother: Yes. And the other one - they have funding for the wildfire recovery, but DOGE refuses to approve the paperwork.
Me: So DOGE has managed to create more red tape.
Mother: yes. Also in my rosary group (mother is Catholic, I'm Unitarian Universalist, neither of us cares), one of the ladies sons - who has to be in his fifties, is going in for surgery to treat Prostate Cancer, and he just found out his entire department had been fired, with no insurance or severance. He has to get COBRA.
Me: Oh god.
**
I wanted to get another storage basket container like the one I'd gotten about three years ago from Amazon, when...I found out Bestos is best buddies with the Doofus, and afraid of him. I'm not sure it really matters if I buy stuff from Amazon - most of it is from third party sellers, and it's low-priced. He won't notice. Meanwhile the stock is diving, which is a good thing. Dive Amazon Stock, Dive.
***
The rage sometimes threatens to engulf me. It hurts. It is a physical ache in the center of my chest, it's a catch in my throat, it's a throbbing headache, it's an ache in my feet...and I find myself reaching for chocolate or eating things I shouldn't. I meditate daily. Deeps breaths. Letting the thoughts roll aside like angry thunderclouds in the sky before lightening can strike. I look for hope in all the corners, and good news in the oddest of places. Even as my mind occasionally rages in futility.
The worst part? Is this feeling of powerlessness in the face of an encroaching darkness. I want to scream at people, shake them, until they topple - "WHY? WHY? WHY? WHHHYYYYYYYY AREN'T YOU DOING ANYTHING TO STOP THIS? WHY DID YOU VOTE FOR HIM? WHY WON'T YOU IMPEACH???" The Whyyy part reminds me of the song Gethsame from Jesus Christ Superstar. I listened to about five different people singing this song over the Easter Holidays.
Ted Neely and Ian Gillen do it the best. Here's the Ian Gillen version - and his range on WHYYYYY is phenomenal.
This is my favorite song from the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, and my favorite of all of their musicals. (Although the Tango between Che and Evita comes close from the musical EVITA). It's an odd pick, I know. Almost nonsensical. And it may sound strange, but the character that resonated the most with me from that story is Jesus. And that song just fascinates me - and it really expresses the feeling of powerlessness and despair in the face of the inevitable or what you know is coming but can do nothing to stop. It's almost better if you don't know it is coming...knowing and being unable to stop it, makes it a hundred times worse.
What a lot of people don't appear to know or realize about the Jesus story, is Jesus was a radical revolutionary and a socialist. He clearly saw a way that people could live peacefully and happy, but no one would listen to him. Gesthame is Jesus pleading with God about inevitability of things, and why can't it be different. Why does it have to be this way.
I have that primal scream inside me as well - "WHYYYYYYYYYY". I was always most interested in the why of things. Not so much the what where and how.
Why people do the things they do. I remember when I studied WWII in my teens, twenties and thirties, way back in the 20th Century and the early 00s, and I remember thinking at the time - why did this happen? Why would people do this? Now that I'm watching the horror show that is slowly unfolding in my own country, I still don't have the answers. I still don't quite understand.
I saw it coming a mile a way. I pleaded with conservatives throughout my life not to go down this road. I tried to understand their point of view.
I'm still haunted by this conversation with a former boss on a subway train en route to Brooklyn way back in 2004, the year my niece was born, twenty-one years ago or close.
Boss: Say what you will of the Nazis, they had the right idea. They were efficient. They knew how to run things. Personally I think we have too many human rights.
Me (I'd come off an exceedingly long job search, this was my second month on the job and I couldn't afford to lose it): Except that only works if you agree with everything they are doing. If they support what you think and want. And that's unlikely. I mean sure it might be at first? But sooner or later, they will come up with a rule or law that you will hate or can't do, or is against your beliefs. Like say a rule that no one can own dogs or pets.
Boss (thinks for a minute): I never thought of it that way. You have a point.
She still voted for and supported Trump. She was filled with rage and resentment, and had scapegoated liberals and Democrats for all of her ills.
That and foreigners, immigrants, and terrorists. I couldn't dissuade her.
It was like talking to a furnace, with no off switch.
But through her - I saw what anger and resentment can do to a human soul. It can eat you alive. She isn't a bad person - during the pandemic, she drove to various states that had been flooded by Natural Disasters to save cats and dogs. She volunteers daily with area animal shelters. And for the most part, she was kind to me. She was just an angry person who didn't know where to put her hurt and rage post 9/11, and her disappointment at not being able to do the things she wanted to do with her life, while others seemingly were able to.
People, I remind myself every single day, are more than one thing. But watching what is happening at the moment it's hard to remember that. I am lucky. I work for a State Agency, in a liberal progressive state, and for an agency that is necessary and not solely dependent on Federal funds, actually it can to a degree survive without them. And while I live in a heavy immigrant community, all are well documented, and no ICE in sight.
But I am still angry. Still fearful. And I still feel much like Jesus may have felt...raging at a distant, and unknowable and often silent Universe.
Me: What's the name of the National Park you applied to, I'd like to donate to it - maybe that will help.
Niece: Whiskeytown National Recreational Center. It's a wildfire recovery program, but donating money won't help. The program has the funding locked in. It's just that DOGE is stalling on the approval of the summer hires and refuses to accept us or budge on the paperwork.
Me: So there's nothing I can do to help. This is so frustrating!
Niece: I know. But thank you so much for trying.
***
Mother: I talked to your brother today and I'm furious, I don't know if you will be or if I should tell you...but..
Me: What happened?
Mother: Your niece applied to two summer jobs, and they both fell through. Not because they didn't accept her, they did. Sequoia said she could take the Emergency Medical Response training there - that's not the reason. It wasn't the National Park that refused her - it was the Government.
Me: Our horrible insane Federal Government?
Mother: Yes. And the other one - they have funding for the wildfire recovery, but DOGE refuses to approve the paperwork.
Me: So DOGE has managed to create more red tape.
Mother: yes. Also in my rosary group (mother is Catholic, I'm Unitarian Universalist, neither of us cares), one of the ladies sons - who has to be in his fifties, is going in for surgery to treat Prostate Cancer, and he just found out his entire department had been fired, with no insurance or severance. He has to get COBRA.
Me: Oh god.
**
I wanted to get another storage basket container like the one I'd gotten about three years ago from Amazon, when...I found out Bestos is best buddies with the Doofus, and afraid of him. I'm not sure it really matters if I buy stuff from Amazon - most of it is from third party sellers, and it's low-priced. He won't notice. Meanwhile the stock is diving, which is a good thing. Dive Amazon Stock, Dive.
***
The rage sometimes threatens to engulf me. It hurts. It is a physical ache in the center of my chest, it's a catch in my throat, it's a throbbing headache, it's an ache in my feet...and I find myself reaching for chocolate or eating things I shouldn't. I meditate daily. Deeps breaths. Letting the thoughts roll aside like angry thunderclouds in the sky before lightening can strike. I look for hope in all the corners, and good news in the oddest of places. Even as my mind occasionally rages in futility.
The worst part? Is this feeling of powerlessness in the face of an encroaching darkness. I want to scream at people, shake them, until they topple - "WHY? WHY? WHY? WHHHYYYYYYYY AREN'T YOU DOING ANYTHING TO STOP THIS? WHY DID YOU VOTE FOR HIM? WHY WON'T YOU IMPEACH???" The Whyyy part reminds me of the song Gethsame from Jesus Christ Superstar. I listened to about five different people singing this song over the Easter Holidays.
Ted Neely and Ian Gillen do it the best. Here's the Ian Gillen version - and his range on WHYYYYY is phenomenal.
This is my favorite song from the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, and my favorite of all of their musicals. (Although the Tango between Che and Evita comes close from the musical EVITA). It's an odd pick, I know. Almost nonsensical. And it may sound strange, but the character that resonated the most with me from that story is Jesus. And that song just fascinates me - and it really expresses the feeling of powerlessness and despair in the face of the inevitable or what you know is coming but can do nothing to stop. It's almost better if you don't know it is coming...knowing and being unable to stop it, makes it a hundred times worse.
What a lot of people don't appear to know or realize about the Jesus story, is Jesus was a radical revolutionary and a socialist. He clearly saw a way that people could live peacefully and happy, but no one would listen to him. Gesthame is Jesus pleading with God about inevitability of things, and why can't it be different. Why does it have to be this way.
I have that primal scream inside me as well - "WHYYYYYYYYYY". I was always most interested in the why of things. Not so much the what where and how.
Why people do the things they do. I remember when I studied WWII in my teens, twenties and thirties, way back in the 20th Century and the early 00s, and I remember thinking at the time - why did this happen? Why would people do this? Now that I'm watching the horror show that is slowly unfolding in my own country, I still don't have the answers. I still don't quite understand.
I saw it coming a mile a way. I pleaded with conservatives throughout my life not to go down this road. I tried to understand their point of view.
I'm still haunted by this conversation with a former boss on a subway train en route to Brooklyn way back in 2004, the year my niece was born, twenty-one years ago or close.
Boss: Say what you will of the Nazis, they had the right idea. They were efficient. They knew how to run things. Personally I think we have too many human rights.
Me (I'd come off an exceedingly long job search, this was my second month on the job and I couldn't afford to lose it): Except that only works if you agree with everything they are doing. If they support what you think and want. And that's unlikely. I mean sure it might be at first? But sooner or later, they will come up with a rule or law that you will hate or can't do, or is against your beliefs. Like say a rule that no one can own dogs or pets.
Boss (thinks for a minute): I never thought of it that way. You have a point.
She still voted for and supported Trump. She was filled with rage and resentment, and had scapegoated liberals and Democrats for all of her ills.
That and foreigners, immigrants, and terrorists. I couldn't dissuade her.
It was like talking to a furnace, with no off switch.
But through her - I saw what anger and resentment can do to a human soul. It can eat you alive. She isn't a bad person - during the pandemic, she drove to various states that had been flooded by Natural Disasters to save cats and dogs. She volunteers daily with area animal shelters. And for the most part, she was kind to me. She was just an angry person who didn't know where to put her hurt and rage post 9/11, and her disappointment at not being able to do the things she wanted to do with her life, while others seemingly were able to.
People, I remind myself every single day, are more than one thing. But watching what is happening at the moment it's hard to remember that. I am lucky. I work for a State Agency, in a liberal progressive state, and for an agency that is necessary and not solely dependent on Federal funds, actually it can to a degree survive without them. And while I live in a heavy immigrant community, all are well documented, and no ICE in sight.
But I am still angry. Still fearful. And I still feel much like Jesus may have felt...raging at a distant, and unknowable and often silent Universe.