If you’ve read any of my work then you may get the feeling that I don’t much care for my country. It would be a logical assessment of my writing. I do not present the attributes of American life. Rather I tend to focus on the faults and deficiencies, as far as I see them, of my country. That is intentional. I use writing as a tool to further my understanding of concepts and ideas that I don’t fully grasp.
There are many problems with American society and culture. Not until college was I exposed to any criticism of America in my education. Before college I learned about the bravery and enlightened vision of the Founding Fathers, but their faults were kept hidden. We’d learned about Manifest Destiny, but the genocide that went with it was ignored.
There is plenty in American culture that celebrates America. I do believe that we are indeed a great country. I do believe that we have a population of good people. I also believe that we have some major issues, and the reason I choose to write about these issues is because I believe there is a way to work them out. Ignoring problems and pretending that everything is ‘great’ will eventually only result in turmoil and destruction.
The current half decade of populism, civil unrest, rampant wealth inequality, degrading infrastructure, and environmental catastrophe are all symptoms of a system that has been ignoring its issues. It is no different than when a person is in denial of their destructive attitude or behavior. The delusion can only last for so long before the person has a breakdown. The same is true of a society or nation.
I am not a negative person. I’m actually a pretty positive and happy guy. I believe that the future is going to be quite bright. I also believe that it may be a while before we see that bright future. To some this may seem negative. The expectation that everything needs to be ‘great’ is what causes a lot of our collective angst. We struggle to just allow the present moment to be the present moment. We need to accept that some of those moments are going to be unpleasant or painful.
I haven’t always had this outlook of positivity. I used to frequent some dark spaces in my mind. Through a few years and a number techniques I’ve been able to overcome a lot of what caused me trouble. One of the most effective techniques was learning to have acceptance for the shitty moments. When I’d start feeling bad, or negative, I’d get a little angry at myself because I ‘should’ be happy. Then I’d feel guilty for not being happy. I felt as if there was a deficiency in me that wouldn’t allow me to just be happy. After spiraling for a while in that mental tornado I wouldn’t know up from down. I’d be confused and depressed.
When I started to accept a negative emotion or feeling instead of resisting it I was able to move past them relatively quickly. I was actually able to start using those negative emotions as learning opportunities. I allowed pangs of envy to affect my ego, but I’d also use that as an opportunity to evaluate my goals. Why did this event or encounter cause envy? Are my goals aligned with my values? Should I be striving towards something I’m not aware of? Or is this merely a superficial desire that I’ve been conditioned to believe is necessary to make me whole?
My concerns, and ultimately my optimism, about America and its institutions sprang from my own personal struggles with anxiety and depression. I was able to understand and manage these issues not by ignoring them, but by facing them. Once I saw improvement in my life I started thinking on a more macro level. The same core principles that I applied to my own life can be applied to the issues of the country at large.
We all live in a very wild world. The interconnectedness of it all and the constant stream of information we are expected to process is staggering. We aren’t built to handle so much information so we’ve built defenses and cheats to make it easier. The two extremes are: one, we wall ourselves off so we can’t be affected at all, or two, we buy into a story of absolutism that simplifies the complex world into a very narrow set of manageable parameters. Some live on those extremes, but most of us inhabit the space between that involves both of those strategies to some degree.
Believing that America is great and that it has some major problems to figure out are two beliefs that can coexist. Life is just the constant task of solving problems. When you have no more problems to solve it most likely means you are dead. The same seems likely true of nations. We have problems to work through and we will always have problems to work through.
It just seems that most of our current societal strife comes as a result of willfully ignoring our issues. Coming out of that state of denial is difficult. It is going to come with conflict. We are being forced to deal with breaking or broken systems and institutions. They are in this state because we’ve been ignoring the signs of their degradation and kept pretending that everything was fine.
I am not sure of the specifics for fixing any of our major issues, but I’m confident that they will be fixed. In my writing I also seem to have the same solution for every problem that I bring up. That solution is empathy and compassion. Empathy and compassion for each other and ourselves. This is my solution because it is the only real tool that each of us has access to right now.
Empathy and compassion are lacking, but we all have the capacity to exercise and strengthen those virtues. Recognizing and accepting that we have some long-ignored issues is the first step in fixing those issues. Selecting empathy and compassion as our default values is the key to collectively solving those problems.
I appreciate your attention and hope you’ve found value in this.
Thanks for reading and take care of each other.
Billy's Briefs 