politics – Shari Shattuck

FullSizeRender — Nuts keep falling on my head.

Stressed? Furious that so many idiots dare to express their absolute stupidity on your Facebook? Shaken to your core by the ignorance and dishonesty of fake news? Rendered hopeless by the gullibility of fools? Lost all faith in (fill in the blank) our country, government, humanity, your family and friends, life itself?

You just got played. And it seems there’s no escaping the debilitating symptoms.

It’s a bit like getting a song stuck in your head that you can’t immediately name, and you keep on repeating a few bars of the melody, but you can’t quite remember the words or song title. That happened to me yesterday, over and over I kept on singing the same seven notes. A catchy bridge from some maybe seventies soul R and B hit. dah dah dah dah dah dah dah. Over and over it circled through my brain, leaking out of my mouth in a few simple notes, dah dah dah dah dah dah dah. Seven notes, again and again, but I could not for the life of me identify it further, or let it go.

Perhaps that’s because I’m distracted. Like most of this country, I find myself getting embroiled in generic arguments, and sucked into the vortex of misinterpretation, redirection, and downright lying that seems to have become ‘normal’ in this world.

And it’s stealing my life, my love and my energy. I have told myself, with the same frequency of the repeating song hook in my brain, that I will not get sucked in, I will rise above this, I will have compassion and patience and tolerance for others, no matter how inane or evil.

And then I see yet another example of veiled, or even outright, racism and hypocrisy and I’m off!! Typing furious accusations, ending friendships, accusing people of judgment without knowledge, (while I’m judging them, yes I see it) and worst of all, letting this shit get to me until I’m eyeing the gin bottle at lunch time.

Another day ruined by idiots.

Oh wait, who let that happen?

So then, of course, I judge myself. Here’s how it goes in the high court of self-incrimination.

My conscious: “You have been accused of letting bullshit distract you from your very joy and energy. How do you plead?”

Me: “Human!”

Conscious: “Your punishment is to accept others as having their own journey that does not concern you.”

At this unlikely moment, I remember one word in that song brain loop. “Everybody.” The phrase keeps flitting closer but I can’t quite grab it yet. I try humming it through again…”Everybody…something, something, something.”

The judge of my conscious let me walk with a sentence of community service and practicing forgiveness. Unfortunately that involves interacting with others. Overhearing two right-wingers at the next table at breakfast, I get sucked right back in, dragged screaming and vibrating with righteous incrimination into the vortex of outrage, and there is no eye in this storm, it just keeps on swirling and tossing up increasingly innocent loose objects, hurling them into the maelstrom.

You are back before this court because you have violated the terms of your release. You engaged again in useless anxiety, bought into others’ disinformation and redirection. How do you plead?

Head hanging, “Guilty as charged.”

I hereby sentence you to another full day of feeling awful.

As I accept my sentence as completely just, the tune in my brain expands to include another phrase or two of melody, I can sing a few more of the notes now, and I think there is a ‘rule’ and a ‘cruel’ in the next couple lines, but I still can’t recall the song as a whole, or even name it.

So I return to belittling and badgering myself for failing to rise above the steaming piles of political ‘discourse’ and be of some use to the world. I hate myself for not having the amazing strength of Ms. Maxine Waters. I want to reclaim my time! I want my sanity back. I want to be glad to be part of the human race instead of ready to get the fuck off this immature planet.

How easily we are all manipulated, how guilty we all are of jumping to conclusions, watching the world with blinders on, taking sides, listening only to ‘yes’ news, (meaning only sources that agree with our pre-decided opinions) ignoring the source. We muster our teams, our allies, to cluster around us and make us feel safe again.

How stupid are we to to buy into being controlled, being unwitting victims of someone else’s narrow political agenda?

How self-flagellating to continue to eat the garbage we are being fed, to eat even as we know we are only being fattened for slaughter.

And while I’m whipping myself for slipping again and again, I remember another word in that nameless tune. “Fool.” I’m sure that’s in there somewhere. Prominently.

And, being the mortal fool that I am, I continue to rage and vent at people who are spewing their brainwashed lies. I try to remember to be compassionate, if only for my own peace of mind. Asking, is it their fault that they were taught to be so ignorant? I should accept their limitations as well as my own, embrace the world as it is, not as I want it to be. Then my fallibility flares again, and I’m out of the gates like a hound on a dog track in Hades. Oh hell no! I will not excuse deliberate ignorance, at this stage of the game when you choose to ignore everything from science to your own eyes and ears, when you opt to accept what some unnamed web site has to say about a topic instead of the actual facts, I have no patience for you.

I may struggle with my own ignorance but denying gravity is not a worthy fight.

Doubt me? Try it. Go ahead and jump.

And…the acid reflux gushes with renewed vigor. I’m all twisted up and on fire inside again.

So why do I keep getting emotionally invested in these non-arguments? I want to care, I want to be informed, but I am the one who is responsible for the churning emotional bile rising in my chest. I, once again, bought into the anger and the dissension.

Say it. Hello, I’m Shari and I’m a Recidivist. Repeat offender.

And then, finally, the words and the melody to that persistent memory worm of a song come gushing back.

“Everybody plays the fool…sometimes.

There’s no exception to the rule.

Listen baby, May be factual, may be cruel.

I ain’t lying, everybody plays the fool.

Sometimes.”

And I realize, at last, that it’s my sometimes. We all get played. We all wish we could reclaim our time and our love and our sanity. And we all fail, we get caught up, we slam out fists into walls, we watch our love, our logic, and our very well-being eek away.

Everybody plays the fool. That doesn’t mean that you can’t fight it.

But stop fighting yourself.

Let go a little.

Forgive.

Because there’s more to the song.

Sing it with me now.

“Love runs deeper than any ocean

You can cloud your mind with emotion.

Everybody plays the fool, sometime.

There’s no exception to the rule.

Listen baby, it may be factual, may be cruel.

I want to tell ya’ that

Everybody plays the fool.”

I’m thinking of getting a funny hat with jingle bells on it, just to remind myself that we are all fools, sometimes.

Even me.

No, wait.

Especially me.

A million thanks to the wisest of fools, J.R. Bailey, Rudy Clark, and Ken Williams for their brilliant lyrics.

Be happy you fools.

Shari, Sept 30^th, 2017

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I don’t think I’m alone. It’s hard to throw myself into a new book while the world is churning with hatred and fear. Hell, with all the selfish ugliness that’s been unmasked in our society right now, it’s hard to keep any faith in humanity as a whole. I find myself stunned and bleeding. I feel emotionally hammered, bruised and disheartened.

So how do we maintain not only our ‘normal’ lives but keep working to stop our country and the world from sliding dangerously backwards.

It’s become so obvious that a large portion of Americans are making what I would call really bad choices. I’m sure some would say the same of me, though the difference is that I don’t want to deprive anyone of anything to satiate my fanaticism, make money, or make myself feel better by making others less.

As people, our choices define us, and those definitions are definitive!

It seems to come to this—Are you willing to be of service to others for the greater good? Do you respect the individual and equal importance of every member of the village? Or are you concerned only about what affects you?

If you are someone who prefers ignorance (choose not to learn anything new) and isolation (America first! Christians first! White males first!) I’d like to share some wisdom with you. It’s not my own wisdom, it’s been going on since man first stood up and walked, even before that when as little more than grunting monkeys we formed groups to hunt and protect our young. Relationships, families, cities, countries, and especially a world of seven billion people do not and will not work if you think only of yourself. If you live alone on an island—Go for it.

I wish there were an island big enough for all of you who think yourselves so much more moral than everyone else so that you could be alone with your specially cherry picked ‘ethics’.

But then how would that work? Everyone on that island would be more important than everyone else. Would you live on a little square and have no contact with others? If one has water and another has a fruit tree, will you not trade or share? Even for your own survival? If one worships the sun and you the moon, do you lay in wait at night to slaughter the day dwellers?

I understand that you are afraid. “Those day people look so scary, they have bronzed skin and sleep in the afternoon, it’s just wrong! They must be wrong because I’ve based the entire justification of my existence on being a moon worshiper, so if they are right, my whole being is invalid.” The fact that it’s okay to worship the moon and the sun cannot be allowed, your brain is too narrow. The idea that nothing needs to be worshiped but instead cared for with love and honesty is unfathomable to such a mentality. It’s hard to be comfortable with what you do not understand. I get it, you are afraid.

Then I am reminded that are so many people, the majority I believe, who are proving that they do care for the greater good. In spite of being mocked, spited, belittled and lied to. We care. We drag our eviscerated hearts out to be stomped again, and we will not stop.

It’s scary for people who know nothing except what they’ve been force fed to listen to other voices. But hear this, not only are the loving strengthened each time we are challenged, you can hear our strong hearts beginning to thrum together. The drumming of stronger wills is growing louder.

And here’s what you should fear. Being left out of the whole, alone and stranded on your island of privilege. Why not be motivated by helping others, by being part of a whole, by asking and searching for answers that work for us all? Why not choose a motion that is fueled by love not fear?

Because now as a society we know too much to cling to the illusions that crimes against humanity are ‘patriotic’ or ‘we’re number one.’ By now, we have seen the abominations that arrogant power mongers and religious fanatics have done to humanity. We have witnessed the suffering and the illusion of ‘us’ and ‘them.’

The number is growing steadily of those who see the insanity of assumed privilege for what it is, a shallow veil for narcissism and evil. More and more are refusing to become that kind of sub-person, to teach that ignorance, to pass on the onus of that fear to the next generation.

Because where will that take us? We already know, we’ve been there. Again and again and again.

To see oppression and elitism as things that are good, or far worse ‘patriotic’ tells me that you listened only to one frightened voice. You have allowed in only the words of the men and women who have justified their bad behavior, who need to control you with fear, who—if they had the courage to admit what they truly value—would stand naked and exposed for their pettiness and their heinous crimes. And all they have to cover themselves is a manmade flag.

A good quick example of that kind of misinformation and justification is an early slave trader. A man who we credit with having ‘discovered’ a country with hundreds of thousands of people living on it already. He enslaved those people, killed them, hunted them with dogs, sold girls as sexual slaves (the nine to eleven year olds were the most popular) and still, to avoid teaching our children our actual history because they might learn the truth from it, (I get it, you are afraid) we have elevated this monster to a national hero. Yes, it’s Christopher Columbus.

You don’t have to believe me. You can read Columbus’s own diary, and his son’s who went on to become governor of the islands after him. Together, they are responsible for the deaths of six million people, an entire race.We don’t teach our children who he really was and what he did because we are ashamed.

Aren’t you proud?

Ask yourself, do you need to see “America” as an unassailable shining ball of light? Or can you acknowledge that it has deep veins of evil, profiteering, power mongering that, far from being wiped out, are alive and festering in today’s Americans. Perhaps because we have not faced the truth about ourselves and our history.

The US is not fucking Tinkerbell. It’s a living, breathing, changing organism of which we are all parts, cells, if you will, of a greater body. When one part gets a cancer, the whole being suffers, shrivels, and wastes away.

So today I will hitch up my sagging heart, try to lift my jaw from the floor where it keeps falling and love again. I will raise my eyes to the horizon and focus on a happier future. I will create, I will help where and when I can with what comes before me. I will fight, broken and bruised, flinching even, but moving forward, embracing the change that is the evolution of our species.

I didn’t start out this way. I was raised white, privileged, Christian, and if I’m honest, afraid of what I didn’t understand. So I set out to meet my ignorance and I changed. I know this fight may leave me with cauliflower ears and permanent brain damage, or I may die trying to pull out a comrade, but I will have learned, listened, traveled and acknowledged the rights of others as equal to my own. I will know what my choices are and why.

I will belong.

Will you?

Come on, if I can do it, you can do it.

Shari, January 30^th, 2017.

Tag: politics

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